British Journal of Criminology Advance Access originally published online on July 16, 2007
British Journal of Criminology 2007 47(6):847-860; doi:10.1093/bjc/azm036
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The British Journal of Criminology 47:847-860 (2007)
© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
WOMEN'S IMPRISONMENT AS A MECHANISM OF MIGRATION CONTROL IN HONG KONG
* Department of Sociology, 12/Floor, K.K. Leung Building, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong; leesym{at}hkucc.hku.hk. Also affiliated to the Department of Sociology, University of Essex
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Despite its low crime rate, Hong Kong has a higher imprisonment rate compared with the rest of Asia and the West, and the highest known proportion of female prisoners in the world. At the heart of this prison crisis is the routine use of imprisonment as a mechanism of migration control, to keep out and immobilize those whom Bauman has termed vagabonds in an increasingly stratified global order. This article examines the use of imprisonment and zero tolerance-style policing against mainland Chinese women, and argues that the current prison crisis has to be understood within the context of the twin processes of othering of migrant sex workers and liberalization of internal border controls in Hong Kong.