Law

The last thing Shanghai man Tony Qian expected while walking with his wife on grassland below the 28-floor residential buildings of their community was to be hit by a falling piece of dog excrement. And yet, as he looked up to see where the foul missile had come from, he saw a tissue fluttering to the ground which, on closer inspection, was stained with the same muck which had struck him on the shoulder. Qian was lucky. There have been numerous reports in recent years of critical injuries and deaths caused by people flinging dangerous items – including a bicycle, stroller and even a kitchen knife – from their high-rise windows. But his efforts to bring the poo perpetrator to justice went now

China’s extrajudicial detention of sex workers or their customers, known as “custody and education (C&E),” is set to be abolished in what experts called a long-overdue move. The detention system has been used to crack down on prostitution, which is illegal on the mainland, since the 1980s. Sex workers and their clients could be detained for up to two years without trial in centers overseen by the police. More than 300,000 people were detained using C&E between 1987 and 2000, according to a report by Asia Catalyst, an advocacy group focused on health issues. Although the government does not publish regular numbers of detainees, mainland Chinese media have reported a steady decrease in detenti

In examining the ills of the American prison system, few things are as sobering as the sheer number of people incarcerated. The United States, a country with less than one-fourth China’s population, has more people locked up than China does. That’s the observation made last week in a tweet by Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticizing the US’ “for-profit industry” of detention. This is progress, and there is still work to do. There should not be a for-profit industry behind the detention and incarceration of human beings. The US locks up more people than anywhere else in the world, incl China. For-profit caging shouldn’t be legal in the first place. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cor