Economic Reform, the Floating Population, and Crime

Abstract

Since the 1950s, China has structured social relationships by limiting the population's mobility and separating the urban and rural populations. In the 1980s and 1990s, changes in China's economic strategy and its system of household registration contributed to the growth of a large transient “floating” population. This article argues that rising crime is linked to the floating population and that the traditional system of social control cannot resolve this problem. Although legislative measures have been enacted to address the resultant problems, the basic contradiction remains: The plan that has improved the nation's economy has also created the floating population that threatens progress. Highly publicized campaigns and the extensive use of administrative detention and capital punishment call attention to the government's efforts to curtail crime and, thus, legitimate the state, but they do not resolve the basic contradiction that China's new economy cannot provide employment for the people.