ABSTRACT
Crime is highly related to urbanization. On the one hand, modern society provides more opportunities for crime, such as more portable goods to be stolen, or more exposure to likely offenders as routine activities theory convincingly reveals. On the other hand, the breakdown of traditional norms during rapid social transition in the urbanization process also weakens social control on individuals and contributes to an increase of crime, as Durkheim’s anomie theory powerfully explains. When the Chinese Communist Party took over the control of the Chinese mainland in 1949, its urban population was as low as around 10 percent. In 1953, the first National Census data showed that only 12.3 percent of Chinese people lived in cities. China’s hukou system was launched in 1958 to control rural to urban migration and to reduce demographic pressures in cities caused by rapid socialist industrialization.
