Crime and Survival: Juvenile Offenders in the PRC

Abstract

Lin Jieru, Bao Haoming, and Zhang Yulan were young people with complicated household circumstances who were censured by the state for using illegal means of survival in the late 1950s. By comparing these case studies, we can see that class, location, and especially gender, far more than age, shaped the survival tactics available to young people and the responses by different levels and apparatuses of the state. Furthermore, by looking at carceral institutions for juvenile offenders, it is clear that state authorities in the Northern Chinese city of Tianjin did not have a clear idea about the degree of responsibility and culpability of young people for behaviors deemed criminal. This article also explores the possibilities and limits of using archival sources to understand the choices and experiences of criminalized children in the Mao-era People's Republic of China, along with the possibility for historical agency.