Ok this is a cheat, and I concede I’ve not blogged much lately but am trying to get back into the groove. So I’ll kick off with some interesting statistics from today’s SCMP.
The Stats come courtesy of Professor Mike McConville at Chinese University of Hong Kong, and are the result of a 12 year study of the mainland’s judicial system. McConville reviewed 1,144 criminal cases, monitored 227 trials and interviewed 88 judges (interesting choice of numbers! Must have been hoping for good luck)
So without further ado, here is some of his statistical analysis:
55% of defendents in the monitored cases were migrants.
In 95% of cases the wonderfully efficient mainland police pursuaded the defendents they were guilty and secured a confession.
The percentage of cases in which a defendents allegations of torture were investigated was 0%.
25% of defendents had no legal represetation.
Judges rejected an rather large number of defence witnesses, the figure was 100%.
The percentage of defendents in serious cases, tried and convicted in under two hours was 80%.
And last but by no means least, according to McConville, the conviction rate in monitored cases was a whopping 100%… Did some one say Wild West
Doncha just love empirical evidence…