“This path-breaking empirical account of Chinese criminal justice takes the reader inside the offices of the public prosecutor to understand the ways in which criminal cases are constructed against suspects – first by the police, reinforced by the prosecutor and endorsed by the judiciary. Rules and procedures set out a legal rhetoric of independent prosecutorial oversight, but in practice, prosecutors are required to confirm police accounts and are rewarded for high conviction rates. Underpinned by extensive fieldwork and presented thoughtfully for the non-Chinese law expert, this is an important piece of scholarship within the field of comparative criminal law and justice.” – Professor Jacqueline S Hodgson, University of Warwick,
“This path-breaking book gets directly into the heart of the Chinese criminal justice. Its detailed description of police interrogation and the penetrating analysis of the legal and political context bring a fresh understanding of the centrality of police dossiers in the construction of criminal cases in China.” – Professor Hualing Fu, Warren Chan Professor of Human Rights and Responsibilities, The University of Hong Kong,
“This is a wonderfully rich ethnographic study of the criminal process in China. Mou exposes the deep connection between the flaws of the process and its institutional design, including in particular the many pressures on institutional actors within the criminal process. Her work is a compelling indictment of a system structurally set up, as she argues, to produce miscarriages of justice, and a fascinating, timely and important contribution to research on law in action in China.” – Professor Eva Pils, King's College London,
