The China drug, crime and detention database

The China Drug, Crime and Detention Database Project is the first open access quantitative database focused on Chinese government drug policy and the country's justice system. It is an open access resource for researchers, advocates, journalists and organisations engaged in the study of drug policy, criminal justice, policing and detention in China.

Spanning 500+ categories and drawing on data from more than 200 publicly available sources, the database presents quantitative data on a range of topics, including: illicit drug use; drug harm reduction programs; criminal and administrative offenses; criminal and extrajudicial detention; judicial sentencing; and policing.

As an open access resource, the China Drug, Crime and Detention Database Project addresses a common issue faced by researchers: access to data. Today more quantitative data on drugs, crime and judicial sentencing in China are available than ever before. Unfortunately, government data are often scattered across numerous sources, with indicators appearing in earlier ministerial reports but disappearing from later editions. Other figures only appear in news reports or scholarly works. Although these sources are public, collating data drawn from them requires considerable time and effort. By providing a centralised repository for these data, the China Drug, Crime and Detention Database Project will address these problems.

Data visualisations will be produced in the future, and research findings will be released through The Journal of Illicit Economies and Development.

The database is the creation Mr. Emile Dirks, a research associate at the London School of Economics and Political Science's International Drug Policy Unit and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.