TY - JOUR
T1 - Public Opinions on Criminal Trials in China
T2 - A Comparative Study of Chinese College Students in the PRC and Hong Kong
AU - Zhong, Hua
AU - Hu, Ming
AU - Liang, Bin
PY - 2011/12
Y1 - 2011/12
N2 - The 1996 Criminal Procedure Law aimed to bring major changes to China's criminal trial procedure by adding more adversarial components into trials and providing more protection to criminal defendants. Nevertheless, its effectiveness has been questioned continuously by scholars. Based on students' evaluations of online criminal trials, this study was designed to explore public opinions on China's criminal trial procedure. In addition, comparisons between mainland students and Hong Kong students, and between law students and non-law students were explored to examine potential differences between two legal systems and between students with different educational background and training. Data showed that the majority of students were satisfied with the three-phase trial procedure and the performance of major players in court. Nevertheless, they also identified a number of problems, all dovetailed with previous scholarly studies. Despite some nuanced differences, cross-group comparisons between the mainland sample and the Hong Kong sample and between law students and non-law students produced largely similar results.
AB - The 1996 Criminal Procedure Law aimed to bring major changes to China's criminal trial procedure by adding more adversarial components into trials and providing more protection to criminal defendants. Nevertheless, its effectiveness has been questioned continuously by scholars. Based on students' evaluations of online criminal trials, this study was designed to explore public opinions on China's criminal trial procedure. In addition, comparisons between mainland students and Hong Kong students, and between law students and non-law students were explored to examine potential differences between two legal systems and between students with different educational background and training. Data showed that the majority of students were satisfied with the three-phase trial procedure and the performance of major players in court. Nevertheless, they also identified a number of problems, all dovetailed with previous scholarly studies. Despite some nuanced differences, cross-group comparisons between the mainland sample and the Hong Kong sample and between law students and non-law students produced largely similar results.
KW - China
KW - Comparative analysis
KW - Criminal trial procedure
KW - Hong Kong
KW - Public opinion
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80053984511&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11417-011-9118-7
DO - 10.1007/s11417-011-9118-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80053984511
SN - 1871-0131
VL - 6
SP - 191
EP - 205
JO - Asian Journal of Criminology
JF - Asian Journal of Criminology
IS - 2
ER -
