User:MYao

About me
I am an undergraduate at Rice University studying Cognitive Sciences and Anthropology. I am also pursuing a minor in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. My interests include urban poverty, human rights, gender equality, racial justice, and policy/law. I am particularly interested in inequalities between genders, racial groups, and different socioeconomic groups.

Originally, I created this Wikipedia account to contribute to the Wikipedia community and to add to the amount of information available to the public as a part of my Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities course. Currently, I am using Wikipedia for my Human Development course. I hope that through user collaboration, I can explore and write about the topics that I am especially invested in.

Capital punishment in China
The name of the article that I plan to revise is ‘Capital Punishment in China.’ I am interested in writing especially what types of crimes are categorized as capital crimes in China, as well as the legal procedure for processing capital crimes and capital punishment. Capital punishment is a huge human rights issue, and I would like to learn more about and then add historical, political, and cultural context surrounding capital punishment law in China to this particular Wikipedia article. Also, I am currently working at the Texas Innocence Network in the capital punishment division, so I am intrigued by the state of capital punishment in hard states like China. I would like to expand the sections on “Reform,” “Support,” and “Criticism” in order to give article readers a sense of the current reality of capital punishment in China and the international community’s actions and concerns regarding this. I would also like to add more the reasoning behind China’s support for capital punishment.

Some sources I plan to use:

"Death Penalty 2015: Facts and Figures." Death Penalty 2015: Facts and Figures. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2017. This website gives global figures in 2015 regarding the death penalty. It states that executions in China were in the thousands.

Hildebrandt, S. "Capital Punishment and Anatomy: History and Ethics of an Ongoing Association." Clinical Anatomy 21.1 (2007): 5-14. Web. This article mentions the lack of ethical and legal restrictions on using the bodies of the executed for medical purposes. There is also documentation on the harvesting of organs from the executed.

Hood, R. "Capital Punishment: A Global Perspective." Punishment & Society 3.3 (2001): 331-54. Web. This article discusses the global movement towards abolishing capital punishment and explains to some extent the defiance of countries that still retain the death penalty in the face of international pressure.

Jiang, Shanhe, and Jin Wang. "Correlates of Support for Capital Punishment in China." International Criminal Justice Review 18.1 (2008): 24-38. Web. This article gives an insight into the public's view on capital punishment. The study showed that the surveyed college students had a strong support for capital punishment.

Liang, B. "Sources of Variation in Pro-Death Penalty Attitudes in China: An Exploratory Study of Chinese Students at Home and Abroad." British Journal of Criminology 46.1 (2005): 119-30. Web. The article examines the attitudes of students in China in regards to the death penalty.

Miao, Michelle. "Capital Punishment in China: A Populist Instrument of Social Governance." Theoretical Criminology 17.2 (2013): 233-50. Web. The article discusses establishing political party legitimacy using capital punishment.

Ning, Zhang. "The Political Origins of Death Penalty Exceptionalism: Mao Zedong and the Practice of Capital Punishment in Contemporary China." Punishment & Society 10.2 (2008): 117-36. Web. This article discusses how Mao Zedong affected the current Communist legal system.

Scobell, Andrew. "The Death Penalty in Post-Mao China." The China Quarterly 123 (1990): 503. Web. Capital punishment has had a long history in China and remains an integral part of the Chinese legal system.