The predictors of decisions to grant parole in China: Evidence from four prisons in Z province

Based on a sample of 1098 prisoners, this study examined the influence of age, race/ethnicity, family relationships, and drug use along with legal factors on decisions about whether to grant parole to prisoners in Zhejiang Province, China. The first model showed that age and family relationships of offenders do not play as strong a role in China as in the United States, but race/ethnicity and drug use have a significant impact on parole decisions. The second model demonstrated that with the addition of legal factors, the influence of extrajudicial factors is no longer significant, while legal factors such as administrative punishment, monthly scoring assessment, surrender of ill-gotten gains or payment of compensation, risk of recidivism, crime type, fulfillment of monetary sanctions are important factors in parole decisions in China. Finally, this paper explains that the legal factors may be the key criteria upon which Chinese judicial organs make parole decisions.