Punitive and Rehabilitative Orientations Toward Offenders Among Community Correctional Officers in China

Abstract

This study focuses on two primary control orientations in corrections—punishment and rehabilitation. Based on data collected from 225 community correctional officers in Hubei, China, in 2013, officers’ control orientations toward offenders and the effects of job characteristics, agency characteristics, and sociodemographics on these orientations were investigated. The research found that Chinese community correctional officers integrated punishment and rehabilitation orientations. Agency characteristics and rehabilitation views affected the officers’ views, while only one (age) of the job characteristics and demographic variables was significant.

Keywords

community corrections China community correctional officers control orientation offenders

Introduction

In the West, there is a significant body of research examining correctional officers’ control orientations of punishment and rehabilitation toward offenders and their impact on correctional supervision (e.g., DeMichele & Payne, 2012; Klockars, 1972; Miller, 2014; Paparozzi & DeMichele, 2008; Paparozzi & Gendreau, 2005; Steiner, Travis, Makarios, & Brickley, 2011).

However, there is no similar research in China in either English or Chinese journals. Consequently, little information is known about the control orientations among Chinese community correctional officers and the reasons behind their orientations, both of which were the main focus of this research. Using data collected from May to November, 2013, in Hubei Province, China, this article examines Chinese community correctional officers’ attitudes toward two primary control orientations in China—punishment and rehabilitation.

Results from this study are important to scholars and correctional professionals. For scholars, the findings illustrate Chinese community correctional officer’s control views as well as the relationship with the predictors of these views. Similarly, for professionals or community correctional leaders/managers, more information is offered related to Chinese community correctional development, characteristics of community correctional agencies, work and sociodemographic characteristics of community correctional officers, and correlations among these factors. In total, this forms a comprehensive organizational information base for comparison and utilization in evaluating, changing, or improving these organizations, and assisting offenders in reentry. From a comparative perspective, international studies “help to reveal not only intriguing differences between countries and cultures, but also aspects of one’s own country and culture that would be difficult or impossible to detect from domestic data alone” (Jowell, 1998, p. 168).

Community Corrections in the People’s Republic of China: A Brief History

Although China¹ officially adopted a community corrections strategy in 2003, its community correctional practice existed for a long time (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Huang, et al., 2014). Before 2003, the police were in charge of various sanctions such as public surveillance (guanzhi), probation, parole, the temporary execution of a sentence outside of a confinement facility, and the deprivation of political rights within the community. As the police had a variety of other responsibilities, community-based corrections largely depended on local community groups such as rural village and urban residents’ committees to assist with this practice. As there were no clear and detailed rules for community-based corrections, community-based correctional staff did not have professional training and, often, many offenders were not supervised (Guo & Zheng, 2004).

As its economic reform developed from 1978, China’s crime rate increased significantly. Consequently, more people were sentenced to prison. In the early 2000s, the number of prisoners reached more than 1.5 million (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Huang, et al., 2014), leading to overcrowded prisons and costly prison operations (Li, 2014; Liu, 2013). This also increased the number of prisoners completing their sentences and needing to reenter free society. For example, in 2003, 342,401 prisoners reentered Chinese communities (Guo & Zheng, 2004). These ex-prisoners faced greater obstacles than regular citizens in finding employment upon their return to their communities. Thus, offenders were likely to move to a remote place for employment, especially those economically advanced areas where there were more job opportunities. Research has suggested that these offenders disproportionately contributed to crime in China (Ma, 2001; Tian, Xu, & Tong, 2011). Together, a high crime rate, an increase in offenders, overcrowded prisons, high prison expenditures, and an increase in recidivism rates led Chinese criminal justice authorities to pay more attention to those offenders who served their sentences at the local community level (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Huang, et al., 2014; Li, 2014; Liu, 2013).

On July 10, 2003, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued the Notice on Experimental Programs of Community Corrections in Beijing, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Zhejiang. The Notice marked China’s move toward the formalization and professionalism of community-based corrections. In 2005, community corrections was extended to 12 additional provinces (or equivalents): Hebei, Neimenggu, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Heinongjiang, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Chongqing. In 2009, community corrections was further extended to the entire country of China.

Since 2003, Chinese community corrections agencies and correctional officers have become more professionalized (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Huang, et al., 2014). For example, before 2003, the local justice office, which is the current major community correctional agency, was primarily responsible for the promotion of law and legal aid. Some offices had one full-time officer, whereas others had only one part-time officer. However, since 2003, China has made efforts to have at least one full-time officer with some educational training in law in every local justice office—an indication of the growth in Chinese community corrections professionalism. Another indicator is the hiring of certified social workers as probation and parole officers. In addition to their educational background in law, social work, or other related areas, Chinese community correctional officers are required to attend a variety of workshops in law and psychology. In comparison with pre-2003 community-based correctional practice when officers relied on work experience and offender surveillance was their primary responsibility, today’s community correctional officers and staff are required to follow the law and governmental policies. As professionals, they are expected to keep offenders under close surveillance as well as to engage them in education and treatment.

Predictors of Control Orientations

There is little documented theory from which to derive hypotheses on control orientations. However, based on previous studies and observations in the West and China, some speculations or expectations are possible. For example, in recent U.S. research on probation supervision and the control of crime opportunities, Miller (2014) used three types of predictors: work characteristics, local agency characteristics, and probation officers’ sociodemographic characteristics. Following Miller’s (2014) approach, this study also utilizes these three types of predictors to examine Chinese community correctional officers’ control orientations. Variables in this study were also selected based on Chinese background, a broad range of previous survey-based research of attitudes in the criminal justice systems of China and the United States.

Work Characteristics

Miller (2014) used caseload to predict probation supervision practice and found that opportunity-focused supervision practices were more likely among probation officers who had lower caseloads. However, as the variable was not related to punishment and rehabilitation practice, and as no relevant information could be used to predict the caseload control orientations, this study did not make an assumption about them. Thus, it is exploratory in nature.

Training in social work may be another predictor of control orientation among Chinese community correctional officers. In China, the training in social work emphasizes how to treat and help offenders, which is consistent with the ideology of rehabilitation. Thus, Chinese community correctional officers who had training in social work were expected to have higher levels of rehabilitation orientation than those who did not.

Human beings are malleable in Confucius culture (Cao & Cullen, 2001; Jiang, Lambert, & Wang, 2007). Thus, the Chinese have a strong rehabilitation orientation in crime control and punishment (Cao & Cullen, 2001; Lambert & Jiang, 2006). Because community corrections in both China and the United States is seen as an instrument of rehabilitation (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Huang, et al., 2014; Wodahl & Garland, 2009), it was expected that community correctional experience increased the use of the rehabilitation orientation among Chinese community correctional officers.

Generally speaking, correctional officers are expected to treat and reeducate offenders, whereas police officers, judges, and procurators are expected to carry out the law rigidly and ensure that offenders are adequately punished. This may be true in China. Consequently, the current research assumed that working experience in policing, courts, and procuratorates led to a stronger punishment orientation among Chinese community correctional officers.

Finally, different positions within community corrections may have different control orientations. For example, in the West, administrators may spend more time making and carrying out rules whereas correctional officers may spend more time with offenders and focus on their return to free society. However, as China’s community corrections is in its infancy stage, job descriptions are vague. For example, administrators in community corrections at the local agencies also work directly with offenders. This is especially true for those local justice offices that have one or two people, including the office leader, working in community corrections. Nonetheless, administrators and correctional officers in China may still have similarities to those in the West. Thus, it was expected in this study that Chinese community correctional officers who had an administrator role were more likely to be punitive than those who did not have that role.

Agency Characteristics

Community corrections is carried out under a certain context. Community corrections in rural and urban areas have different cultural backgrounds. For example, compared with urban residents, rural residents in China are more likely to know each other. Accordingly, rural local justice offices are more likely to use informal control and personal relations to reform and reeducate offenders. However, relative to urban areas, rural areas have lower levels of education and are more likely to be authoritarian as well as use punitive mechanisms to control people. Thus, it is hard to predict how the location of local justice offices affects a respondent’s control orientation. Based on their survey of college students in China, Jiang et al. (2007) did not find a relationship between location and death penalty views. In the United States, Miller (2014) did not find a relationship between location and rehabilitation practice or between location and punishment practice. Thus, this analysis did not assume the location–control orientation relationship.

Formalization refers to the degree that written rules are available for jobs and roles in an organization. It is positively related to formal and legal control. As punishment orientation features law enforcement, this research expected that formalization led to higher levels of punishment orientation.

Sociodemographics

Sociodemographics (e.g., gender, age, marital status, education, economic status) are commonly used to predict control orientations in the West. It is often found that gender is not related to punishment and rehabilitation views (Lambert, Hogan, Barton, Jiang, & Baker, 2008), but this is not always so. For example, Cullen, Clark, Cullen, and Mathers (1985) reported that males were less likely to support rehabilitation but more likely to be supportive of capital punishment. With regard to age, older people were found to be more punitive than younger people (Cullen et al., 1985; Stack, Cao, & Adamzyck, 2007). For example, Cullen et al. (1985) reported that younger people were less punitive but more in favor of treatment. Marriage is also found to be positively related to punishment orientation. For example, Stack et al. (2007) reported that married people were more likely to support the death penalty. The relationship between education and control views is less clear. Some studies found that they are related (King & Maruna, 2009; Robinson, Porporino, & Simourd, 1993), whereas others found they were not (Lambert et al., 2008; Tyler & Weber, 1982; Unnever & Cullen, 2005). Economic status is also often found to be related to attitudes toward criminal justice issues. For example, lower economic status citizens are more likely than higher economic status citizens to have negative attitudes toward police (Cao, Frank, & Cullen, 1996; Sampson & Jeglum-Bartusch, 1998; Wu, Sun, & Triplett, 2009).

However, scholars of China revealed that demographics are often not related to criminal justice views² (e.g., Cao & Hou, 2001; Jiang, Lambert, & Nathan, 2009; Jiang, Sun, & Wang, 2012; Jiang & Wang, 2008; Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Goodlin-Fahncke, et al., 2015; Lambert, Jiang, Wang, & Tucker, 2007). As these studies are not from community correctional officers in China, the current analysis included them in the regression model to examine whether they are related to control orientations in this group of people. Based on findings from the majority of Chinese scholars, it was assumed that gender, age, marital status, and education were not predictors of either punishment or rehabilitation orientations. Unlike the above demographical variables, there are mixed findings on the relationship between economic status and control views. For example, some (Cao & Hou, 2001; Wu & Sun, 2009) have found that income was not predictive of Chinese attitudes toward police. However, economic status did matter in one of the four models in Wu’s (2010) comparative analysis of Chinese and American college students’ evaluations of police, indicating that a higher economic status led to higher global satisfaction with police. As a result, this research expected that Chinese community correctional officers with a higher economic status were more likely to be punitive.

Data

Sample

Data were collected from 225 community correctional officers (who are public employees in China) from 15 counties (or equivalents) in Hubei, China, in 2013. Under the current situation in China, to survey correctional officers, one is required to receive permission from different levels of governmental agencies. Thus, the research team first contacted the county level or higher levels of authorities to get permission to enter the field, and then the county-level authorities introduced them to local justice offices. From the local justice offices, all correctional officers except those who were ill or out of town were interviewed face-to-face by trained interviewers.

Data Collection

The data used were collected by a research team composed of professors and graduate students with a great deal of Chinese survey and general data collection experience. To increase the survey data’s validity and reliability, the researchers reviewed community corrections literature in March 2012, and began to develop the questionnaire in June 2012. Based on the literature review and the field observations, the first draft of the questionnaire was developed at the end of 2012. The drafted questionnaire was then revised several times before it was sent out for pretesting. The first round of pretests was conducted among college students, faculty, and staff at one local university in Hubei. Based on the feedback from the first round of pretests, the questionnaire was revised and then sent to local justice offices in a few urban and rural areas in Hubei for a second round of pretesting. The questionnaire was then revised again. This revised questionnaire was further pretested among the research team members. After this round of pretests, the final version of the questionnaire was formed in May 2013.

All of the members of the research team were required to have training on how to ask questions and complete a questionnaire before they went into the field to conduct the survey. Before the face-to-face interview, the county-level justice bureau was contacted either through an official introduction, a personal connection, or both, to obtain the permission needed to set up the survey time and place as well as complete the survey. Background data (included economic information, demographics, and overall community correctional development in the area) were first collected from county-level justice agencies, and then background data as well as information from community correctional officers were collected from the township-level justice agencies. The correctional officer data were collected via a face-to-face questionnaire survey as well as in-depth interviews. All of the completed questionnaires were checked by the interviewers at the survey site to increase the completion rate of each question and the entire survey. For both structured and unstructured interviews, the following aspects were made clear to the respondents: (a) who the researchers or the survey conductors were, (b) that the survey would be used for academic research and the findings would be used for policy making, (c) the data from the survey would be confidential and no individual respondent would be identified in publications or reports, and (d) the survey was voluntary and nobody should be forced to complete it. There was a concern that government officials could affect the responses given; consequently, when a questionnaire survey or in-depth interview started, the government officials were not at the site of the interview or survey and could not see the completed questionnaires and in-depth interview notes. Overall, 225 completed questionnaires were collected.

It is worth noting that most local justice offices in rural areas had one to two correctional officers, including the leader of the office, at the time of the interview. Even in the urban areas, some local justice offices also had one to two correctional officers. Thus, many respondents in this study were the office leaders. The office leader has multiple roles (see Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Huang, et al., 2014, which lists the roles), with community corrections being one of them.

Measurement

Dependent variables

The two dependent variables in this research are punishment and rehabilitation. Following Miller (2014), a factor of punishment was intended to be formed using the following questions: whether the justice system in China should (a) “make punishment its main goal,” (b) “ensure that offenders are adequately punished,” and (c) “prosecute offenders to the full extent of the law.” The answer categories for these items were strongly disagree (=1), disagree (=2), uncertain (=3), agree (=4), and strongly agree (=5). The factor analysis produced only one factor. However, a Cronbach’s alpha value for the three items was .46, which is much lower than the usual cutoff point of .70. A lack of consistency among the items indicated that Miller’s (2014) measure of punishment orientation may not necessarily apply as validly or reliably in China as in the United States.

This study also checked whether any two of the three items could form a factor with a Cronbach’s alpha of .70 and higher, but none of the pairs met this condition. Thus, the first question, “Should the justice system in China make punishment its main goals?” was chosen to measure punishment. This was done because the words in this question more accurately measure a respondent’s punishment orientation, whereas the second and third questions above appear to measure the appropriateness of punishment and rule of law. That is, respectively, they do not necessarily measure an individual’s punishment orientation.

With regard to analytical tools, ordinal regression was attempted, but the test of parallel lines indicated that the location parameters (slope coefficients) may not be the same across response categories. Although multinomial logistic regression could be a choice for this particular question, some of the categories had a small number of respondents (e.g., “strongly disagree” = 13, “agree” = 35, and “strongly agree” = 9). As a result, multinomial logistic regression was not appropriate. Consequently, the dependent variable of punishment was recoded to a dummy variable with “strongly disagree” and “disagree” as “0” and the other answer categories as “1.” Therefore, the analytical technique used for this dependent variable was binary logistic regression.

Rehabilitation was formed based on the factor analysis of four items, which were adopted from Miller (2014). The four items asked whether the justice system in China should (a) “provide counseling or therapy to offenders with mental health problems,” (b) “provide treatment for offenders with substance abuse problems,” (c) “improve the educational involvement and attainment of offenders,” and (d) “promote employment opportunities for offenders.” The five answer categories that were used for the punishment items were also used for these four items (strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5). Similar to Miller (2014), the factor analysis of the four items in this study produced only one factor, which accounted for 59% of the common variance in the four items. The factor loadings for these four items were .79, .78, .74, and .75. Regression-based factor scores were created from the estimated factor loadings. A Cronbach’s alpha value for the factor was .77. For this dependent variable, the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression method was used for the data analysis.

Independent variables

There are three groups of independent variables in this study: work characteristics, agency characteristics, and sociodemographics. Work characteristics include social work, correctional experience, justice experience, position, and caseload. Social work asked whether the respondent had training in social work (yes = 1). Correctional experience was measured by the number of years the respondent had worked in community corrections. Justice experience asked whether the respondent worked in the Chinese justice system including policing, court, procuratorate, and institutional corrections prior to entering community corrections (yes = 1). Position asked whether the respondent had an administrative position (=1) or not (=0). Finally, caseload was measured by the number of offenders supervised by the respondent. For a local justice office leader, the caseload may indicate the number of offenders for which the leader was accountable but may not necessarily directly work with.

Local agency characteristics include location and formalization. Location asked where the local justice office was located at (urban = 1, rural = 0). Formalization was measured by the four questions: (a) “Whatever situation arises, we have procedures to follow in dealing with it,” (b) “A ‘rules and procedures’ manual exists and is readily available within this organization,” (c) “My organization keeps a written record of everyone’s job performance,” and (d) “Job guidance is readily available.” The answer categories for these items were strongly disagree (=1), disagree (=2), uncertain (=3), agree (=4), and strongly agree (=5). The factor analysis of the four questions produced only one factor, which accounted for 69% of the common variance in these four items. Based on the above order, their factor loadings were .72, .85, .87, and .86, respectively. Regression-based factor scores were created from the estimated factor loadings. A Cronbach’s alpha value for the factor was .85.

Sociodemographics include gender, age, education, marital status, and economic status. Males were coded as “1” whereas females were coded as “0.” Age was measured by years. Education was measured by the highest degree completed or was studying for: elementary or less (=1), junior high (=2), high school (=3), technical school (=4), 3-year³ college (=5), bachelor (=6), and graduate school (=7). Marital status was measured by married (=1) and not married (=0). As it was extremely difficult to get a valid report on personal income in China, the average spending per capita in a household in 2012 was used as a proxy of the respondent’s economic status. The following categories were used to measure economic status (measurement unit was yuan with an interval of 5,000): 0 to 5,000 = 1; 5,001 to 10,000 = 2; 10,001 to 15,000 = 3; . . . 65,001 to 70,000 = 14; and more than 70,000 = 15.

Findings

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of the dependent and independent variables, including detailed information on the items of each factor/variable. The majority of the respondents (58.2%) disagreed that the justice system should make punishment its main goal. For the four items composing the factor “rehabilitation,” the majority (64% or higher) of the respondents agreed that the justice system should provide offenders with help in education, employment, and treatment. Similarly, the vast majority (77% or higher) of the respondents believed that they had rules and procedures to follow in their jobs. Half of the respondents were from local justice offices who served offenders in rural areas whereas another half of the respondents were from local justice offices who served offenders in urban areas. Seventy-five percent of the respondents earned or were studying for a social work degree or had trainings in social work. Sixty-two percent of the respondents were either the local justice office leaders or other types of administrators who also played a community correctional officer’s role. The respondents had an average of slightly more than 4 years experience in community corrections. Before their current job in community corrections, 39% of the respondents worked in policing, courts, procuratorates, or other justice system agencies. Most respondents were male and married with a mean age of 39. Approximately, 94% of the respondents earned or were studying for an associate degree or higher (not shown in the table).

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of Dependent and Independent Variables (N = 225).

Variables	Strongly disagree (%)	Disagree (%)	Uncertain (%)	Agree (%)	Strongly agree (%)
Punishment
The justice system should make punishment its main goal	Disagree = 58.2% Non-disagree = 41.8%
Rehabilitation (α = .77)
The justice system should provide counseling or therapy to offenders with mental health problem	0.9	8.0	7.6	59.6	24.0
The justice system should provide treatment for offenders with substance abuse problems	2.2	16.9	16.4	48.4	16.0
The justice system should improve the educational involvement and attainment of offenders	0.0	1.8	6.2	67.1	24.9
The justice system should promote employment opportunities for offenders	0.4	9.3	15.1	53.8	21.3
Formalization (α = .85)
Whatever situation arises, we have procedures to follow in dealing with it	0.0	7.6	12.0	71.1	9.3
A “rules and procedures” manual exists and is readily available within this organization	0.4	8.4	8.9	72.4	9.8
My organization keeps a written record of everyone’s job performance	0.9	6.7	15.6	67.1	9.8
Job guidance is readily available	0.4	4.4	8.9	72.9	13.3
	M		SD	Minimum	Maximum
Location (urban = 1)	0.50		0.50	0	1
Social work (yes = 1)	0.75		0.44	0	1
Position (administrator = 1)	0.62		0.49	0	1
Caseload^a	42.12		71.71	0	485
Correctional experience	4.15		2.64	0	9
Justice experience (yes = 1)	0.39		0.49	0	1
Gender (male = 1)	0.66		0.48	0	1
Age	38.93		9.79	20	58
Marital status (married = 1)	0.80		0.40	0	1
Education	5.44		0.78	2	7
Economic status	2.78		1.55	1	8

The caseload of 0 means the respondent(s) had been working in community corrections but did not supervise any offenders at the time of interview. As noted in the text, a justice office leader might be accountable for a certain number of offenders but might not directly work with them at all. Thus, the caseload of 485 or other large caseloads may reflect this situation. This variable had 204 valid cases.

Table 2 presents the bivariate relationships among variables, including dependent and independent variables, to provide readers more information about community correctional officers in China. A visual inspection of Table 2 revealed that none of the intercorrelations or the correlations coefficients among the independent variables exceeded .574. The variance inflation factors (VIF) were also examined, and the results confirmed that multicollinearity was not a concern. Table 2 also revealed that the first dependent variable, punishment, was significantly related to three variables—formalization, location, and age, which are very similar to results from the logistic regression estimation shown in Table 3. According to Table 2, the second dependent variable, rehabilitation, was significantly related to three independent variables—formalization, location, and position—whereas results from the multiple regression estimation shown in Table 4 indicated only the first two independent variables (formalization and location) were significant.

Table 2.

Bivariate Relationships Among Variables.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
1	1
2	−.027	1
3	.146*	.299**	1
4	.220**	−.154*	.087	1
5	−.004	−.004	.116	.212**	1
6	−.102	−.137*	−.123	−.324**	−.222**	1
7	−.026	−.009	−.047	.065	−.115	−.037	1
8	−.100	.009	−.001	−.127	−.056	.334**	−.015	1
9	.078	.076	.099	.033	.036	−.211**	−.209**	−.096	1
10	−.016	−.030	.099	−.500**	−.140*	.346**	.290**	.198*	.198*	1
11	−.138*	−.106	.001	−.235	.108	.444**	−.235**	.518**	−.209**	.290**	1
12	−.128	−.121	−.120	−.092	−.022	.240**	.087	.374**	−.234**	.093	.574**	1
13	.001	−.027	−.049	.152*	−.002	−.012	−.255**	−.101	−.090	−.138*	−.255**	−.012	1
14	.052	.073	−.008	−.006	−.077	.084	−.019	−.099	−.009	−.067	−.019	−.077	.025

Note. 1 = punishment; 2 = rehabilitation; 3 = formalization; 4 = location; 5 = social work; 6 = position; 7 = caseload; 8 = correctional experience; 9 = justice experience; 10 = gender; 11 = age; 12 = marital status; 13 = education; 14 = economic status.

p < .05, **p < .01.

Table 3.

Binary Logistic Regression Coefficients of Predictors of Punishment Orientation Among Community Correctional Officers in Hubei, China.

Variables	Punishment		Exp(B)
Variables	B	SD	Exp(B)
Agency characteristics
Formalization	0.349*	0.165	1.418
Location (urban = 1)	1.376**	0.410	3.957
Work characteristics
Social work (yes = 1)	−0.444	0.387	0.641
Position (administrator = 1)	−0.155	0.395	0.856
Caseload	−0.002	0.002	0.998
Correctional experience	0.014	0.074	1.014
Justice experience (yes = 1)	−0.595	0.342	0.551
Sociodemographics
Gender (male = 1)	0.786	0.424	2.195
Age	−0.051*	0.026	0.950
Marital status (married = 1)	0.017	0.499	1.017
Education	−0.434	0.227	0.648
Economic status	0.185	0.106	1.203
Nagelkerke R²	.187
Hosmer–Lemeshow test	p > .05

Note. B stands for unstandardized regression coefficients.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 4.

OLS Regression Coefficients of Predictors of Control Orientations Among Community Correctional Officers in Hubei, China.

Variables	Rehabilitation
Variables	B	SD
Agency characteristics
Formalization	0.295***	0.067
Location (urban = 1)	−0.438**	0.167
Work characteristics
Social work (yes = 1)	−0.085	0.164
Position (administrator = 1)	−0.292	0.170
Caseload	0.000	0.001
Correctional experience	0.048	0.032
Justice experience (yes = 1)	0.030	0.145
Sociodemographics
Gender (male = 1)	−0.054	0.173
Age	−0.018	0.010
Marital status (married = 1)	−0.080	0.215
Education	−0.036	0.098
Economic status	0.083	0.046
R ²	.165

Note. B stands for unstandardized regression coefficients. OLS = ordinary least squares.

**p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 3 presents the logistic regression coefficients of the predictors of punishment orientation among Chinese community correctional officers. In the table, the Hosmer–Lemeshow test was used to assess the model fit. The goodness of fit measure (p > .05) indicates that the model fits the data well.

According to Table 3, three variables were statistically significant: formalization, location, and age. Two of them are agency characteristics whereas the other is a demographic variable. First, formalization was positively related to the outcome with a coefficient of 0.349. That is, for each increased level of perceived formalization of an agency, a community correctional officer’s mean punishment orientation increased by 42% [=100 (exp(0.349) – 1)], holding all other variables constant. The variable location was positively related to log punishment orientation, with a magnitude of 1.376, indicating community correctional officers in urban areas were more likely to have a punishment orientation than their counterparts in rural areas. Furthermore, for the variable location, moving from the rural category to the urban category increased the mean punishment orientation by a factor of 3.957 [=exp(1.376)] or by 396% [=100 (exp(1.376) – 1)], holding all other variables constant. According to Table 3, the third significant variable, age, was negatively related to the dependent variable. In other words, younger community correctional officers were less likely to hold a punishment view toward offenders than their older colleagues were.

Table 4 presents the OLS regression coefficients of predictors of rehabilitation orientation among community correctional officers. There are two variables that were statistically significant: formalization and location. Both of the variables are agency characteristics.⁴ Formalization was positively related to the dependent variable. That is, higher levels of perceived formalization led to higher levels of rehabilitation. In contrast, location was negatively related to the outcome. To be more specific, Chinese community correctional officers working in urban local justice offices were less likely than their counterparts in rural local justice offices to support the rehabilitative approach.

Discussion and Conclusion

Two points are worth further discussion. First, with regard to control orientations, community correctional officers in China were more rehabilitative than punitive, but the majority of them supported both punishment and rehabilitation orientations, indicating their views of punishment and rehabilitation were not mutually exclusive. This finding is consistent with the findings from average citizens (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Goodlin-Fahncke, et al., 2015) and college students in China (Cao & Cullen, 2001; Lambert & Jiang, 2006) in previous research. Therefore, the finding is not a surprise and can be explained by a traditional pattern of thoughts as well as the dynamic and dialectical perspective. For example, China has long emphasized a rehabilitation orientation toward minor criminals and reintegrating them into society; however, it has also stressed severe punishment for extremist criminals (Jiang et al., 2007). In addition, Chinese people take a dialectical approach with a dynamic perspective. That means Chinese people believe that punishment is one way to help offenders reenter society. At the same time, they believe that rehabilitation is also a method to help offenders reenter society. Therefore, offenders can be helped not via “either-or” control orientation, but by using both of the orientations. From a dynamic perspective or longitudinal perspective, offenders can be effectively reformed via punishment at one time while they can be effectively reformed via rehabilitation at another time.

Findings from both the predictors of punishment and rehabilitation orientations show that agency characteristics have a stronger impact on community correctional officers’ control attitudes toward offenders than work characteristics and sociodemographic factors. These findings may be explained by China’s centralized party-state and local collectivism. For example, under the centralized party-state system, China features a unified political and legal system. To be more specific, through its top-down channels, mass media, and formal education, the Chinese government tries to promote unified macro control orientations to its citizens. Compared with the individualism-based United States or West, China, including its central government and mass media, is much less likely to highlight or discuss differences in control orientations in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, and other individual characteristics. Thus, this centralized practice may lead to a small impact (if any) of individual characteristics on criminal justice views and control views (Jiang et al., 2007; Jiang et al., 2012; Lambert et al., 2007).

However, China is a huge society with different levels of development in economics. Although its macro criminal justice policies and community corrections control are guided by the central government, community corrections practice is carried out by local justice offices. In collectivist China, individuals are socialized by their organizations and are expected to conform to the values, norms, and views of the groups. In this study, groups include local justice offices. As local justice offices can affect individuals’ views and are different in formalization and location (i.e., rural or urban), it makes sense that control orientations differed among community correctional offices. It is worth noting that this is an exploratory study. The above explanations are not conclusive and further research on the topic is needed.

Findings from this study should be read with caution. Even though respondents were selected from a large number of local justice offices in both urban and rural areas, the sample was not randomly chosen in China. Therefore, findings from this study are not necessarily generalizable to other community correctional officers in China. Related to this limitation, the respondents in this study were selected from one province. If more financial and official support is available, future research needs to use a random sampling method to select respondents from a broader region throughout China. As noted before, although agency characteristics affected the rehabilitation orientation, this study did not use hierarchical linear modeling for the analytical analysis due to small employee sizes from each individual local justice office (most offices had one to two officers interviewed). Thus, readers need to assume the estimated coefficients with this caution. Finally, the R squares for the two models used are less than .2, indicating that more predictors should be included in the models of punishment and rehabilitation orientations in the future research.

Despite these limitations, the current study makes a significant contribution to the community corrections field. It is the first empirical study of Chinese community correctional officers, their control orientations, and the reasons behind the orientations. It was found that Chinese community correctional officers integrated punishment and rehabilitation orientations. Moreover, agency characteristics were more likely than work characteristics and demographic variables to affect community correctional officers’ control orientations.

The current findings have implications for policy makers and professionals in China. For example, it was found that more community correctional officers supported both rehabilitation and punishment but favored the former more than the latter. As community corrections is considered more rehabilitative than institutional corrections (Jiang, Xiang, Chen, Goodlin-Fahncke, et al., 2015), the finding may suggest that community corrections is supported by community correctional officers. If correctional officers’ control orientations affect their supervision practice positively, the policy makers in China can encourage both punishment and rehabilitation strategies in the implementation of community corrections. The integration of punishment and rehabilitation is consistent with Chinese traditional views, and it may be effective in reforming probationers and parolees as in the United States (Paparozzi & Gendreau, 2005). In fact, a form of behavioral management supervision in probation and parole that integrates control and treatment models has also been recently renewed in the United States (Taxman, 2008). Based on the positive relationships between formalization and rehabilitation as well as formalization and punishment found in this study, decision makers in China can continue to strengthen the formalization of community corrections at the local justice offices to promote education, treatment, and employment opportunities for offenders as well as discipline and control them.

There is one suggestion for future research on community correctional officers’ control views. Previous research (Miller, 2014; Steiner et al., 2011) found that correctional officers’ control orientations affected their supervision strategies. The relationship between control orientation and supervision practice in China also needs to be examined to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of community correctional supervision. This connection can also be helpful for cross-cultural research in the field.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Xiaohong Jin, Deping Xiang, and Wendi Goodlin-Fahncke contributed equally to this article and are co–second authors. Their names are randomly listed.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Shanhe Jiang is professor of criminal justice, Wayne State University, and visiting chair professor, Central China Normal University. His recent research focuses on institutional and community corrections. He is the author or coauthor of more than 90 articles, chapters, and books.

Xiaohong Jin is associate professor of sociology, Central China Normal University. Her recent research examines community corrections and floating populations and crime in China.

Deping Xiang is professor of sociology, Wuhan University. He has published more than 60 articles, chapters, and books.

Wendi Goodlin-Fahncke is associate professor and undergraduate program coordinator for the criminal justice program at the University of Toledo. Her current research interests include the sexual exploitation of women, intimate partner violence, sexually deviant behavior, inmate health and well-being, and inmate gang participation. She has published in The Journal of Family Violence, The Journal of Criminal Justice, and Deviant Behavior.

Shengyong Yang is professor of social work, Central China Normal University. His research includes social work and community corrections issues.

Na Xu is a graduate student in sociology at the Central China Normal University.

Dawei Zhang is associate professor of sociology, Central China Normal University. He is also a research fellow at the China-Australia Social Work Research Center and Research Center for Social Development and Social Policy at Central China Normal University. His recent research includes community development, local governance, and social policy. He is the author or coauthor of more than 50 articles, chapters, and books.

References

Cao

Cullen

(2001). Thinking about crime and control: A comparative study of Chinese and American ideology. International Criminal Justice Review, 11, 58-81.

Cao

Frank

Cullen

(1996). Race, community context and confidence in the police. American Journal of Police, 15, 3-22.

Cao

Hou

(2001). A comparison of confidence in the police in China and in the United States. Journal of Criminal Justice, 29, 87-99.

Cullen

F. T.

Clark

G. A.

Cullen

J. B.

Mathers

R. A.

(1985). Attribution, salience, and attitudes toward criminal sanctioning. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 12, 305-331.

DeMichele

Payne

B. K.

(2012). Measuring community corrections’ officials perceptions of goals, strategies, and workload from a systems and perspectives: Differences between directors and nondirectors. The Prison Journal, 92, 288-410.

Guo

Zheng

(Eds.). (2004). Introduction to community corrections in China. Beijing, China: Law Press.

Jiang

Lambert

Nathan

(2009). Death penalty attitudes among Chinese citizens: Retributive or instrumental? Journal of Criminal Justice, 37, 225-233.

Jiang

Lambert

Wang

(2007). Correlates of formal and informal social/crime control in China. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35, 261-271.

Jiang

Sun

Wang

(2012). Citizens’ satisfaction with police in Guangzhou, China. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 35, 801-821.

10.

Jiang

Wang

(2008). Correlates of support for capital punishment in China. International Criminal Justice Review, 18, 24-38.

11.

Jiang

Xiang

Chen

Goodlin-Fahncke

Huang

Yang

. . . Zhao

(2015). Public support of community corrections in China. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 59, 772-789.

12.

Jiang

Xiang

Chen

Huang

Yang

Zhang

Zhao

(2014). Chinese community corrections: Development and challenges. The Prison Journal, 94, 75-96.

13.

Jowell

(1998). How comparative is comparative research? American Behavioral Scientist, 42, 168-177.

14.

King

Maruna

(2009). Is a conservative just a liberal who has been mugged? Exploring the origins of punitive views. Punishment & Society, 11, 147-169.

15.

Klockars

C. B.

Jr. (1972). A theory of probation supervision. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology & Police Science, 63, 550-557.

16.

Lambert

Hogan

Barton

S. M.

Jiang

Baker

D. N.

(2008). The impact of punishment and rehabilitation views on organizational commitment among correctional staff: A preliminary study. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 33, 85-98.

17.

Lambert

Jiang

(2006). A comparison of Chinese and U.S. college students’ crime and crime control views. Asian Journal of Criminology, 1, 1-13.

18.

Lambert

Jiang

Wang

Tucker

(2007). A preliminary study of gender differences on views of crime and punishment among Chinese college students. International Criminal Justice Review, 17, 108-124.

19.

S. D.

(2014). Toward a cost-effective correctional system: New developments in community-based corrections in China. Victims & Offenders, 9, 120-125.

20.

Liu

(2013). The impact of punitive legal orientation on China’s institutional corrections. Legal System and Social Development, 6(2013), 134-145.

21.

(2001). Population migration and crime in Beijing, China. In Liu

Zhang

Messner

S. F.

(Eds.), Crime and social control in a changing China (pp. 3-21). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

22.

Miller

(2014). Probation supervision and the control of crime opportunities: An empirical assessment. Crime & Delinquency, 60, 1235-1257. doi:10.1177/0011128712443186

23.

Paparozzi

DeMichele

(2008). Probation and parole: Overworked, misunderstood, under-appreciated-but why? Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 47, 275-296.

24.

Paparozzi

Gendreau

(2005). An intensive supervision program that worked: Service delivery, professional orientation, and organizational supportiveness. The Prison Journal, 85, 445-466.

25.

Robinson

Porporino

Simourd

(1993). The influence of career orientation on support for rehabilitation among correctional staff. The Prison Journal, 73, 162-177.

26.

Sampson

Jeglum-Bartusch

(1998). Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law & Society Review, 32, 777-804.

27.

Stack

Cao

Adamzyck

(2007). Crime volume and law and order culture. Justice Quarterly, 24, 291-308.

28.

Steiner

Travis

L. F.

III Makarios

M. D.

Brickley

(2011). The influence of parole officers’ attitudes on supervision practices. Justice Quarterly, 28, 903-927.

29.

Taxman

F. S.

(2008). No illusions: Offender and organizational change in Maryland’s proactive community supervision efforts. Criminology & Public Policy, 7, 275-302.

30.

Tian

Tong

(2011). Who are more likely to commit property crime? Retrieved from http://www.022net.com/2010/12-13/444148233351258.html

31.

Tyler

T. R.

Weber

(1982). Support for the death penalty; instrumental response to crime, or symbolic attitude? Law & Society Review, 17, 21-45.

32.

Unnever

J. D.

Cullen

F. T.

(2005). Executing the innocent and support for capital punishment: Implications for public policy. Criminology & Public Policy, 4, 3-38.

33.

Wodahl

E. J.

Garland

(2009). The evolution of community corrections: The enduring influence of the prison. The Prison Journal, 89, 81s-104s.

34.

(2010). Evaluation of police performance: An empirical comparison between Chinese and Americans. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38, 773-780.

35.

Sun

(2009). Citizen trust in police: The case of China. Police Quarterly, 12, 170-191.

36.

Sun

(2010). Perceptions of police: An empirical study of Chinese college students. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 33, 93-113.

37.

Sun

Triplett

(2009). Race, class or neighborhood context: Which matters more in measuring satisfaction with police? Justice Quarterly, 26, 125-156.

38.

Sun

(2011). Support for the death penalty: Empirical comparison between Chinese and American college students. Punishment & Society, 13, 354-376.