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.

中国毒品、犯罪和拘留数据库项目是第一个专注于中国政府毒品政策和国家司法系统的开放数值型数据库。作为开放数据资源,该数据库供研究中国毒品政策、刑事司法、治安和拘留问题的研究人员、倡议人士、记者和相关组织使用。

该数据库使用了200多个公开数据来源,涵盖500多个子类别,涉及议题包括:非法药物使用、减少危害干预措施、刑事和行政犯罪、司法审判和治安等。

作为开放数据资源,该项目解决了中国问题研究者面临的共同困境:如何获取数据。相较以往,中国现在公开了更多关于毒品、犯罪和司法审判的数据。但这些官方数据往往分散在难以计数的信息来源中,碎片化且不稳定。例如,一些早年国家政府报告中包含的数据类别在近年报告中消失了, 有些数据仅出现在新闻报道或学术著作中。虽然这些数据是公开的,但从中收集、整理信息需要大量的时间和精力。通过集中梳理这些分散的数据,该数据库为解决这些问题。

http://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/international-drug-policy/IDPU-China-drug-database