The Archived Criminal: Mandatory Prisoner Autobiography in China

Most offender narrative being studied has been in oral forms, produced in the reciprocal process of researcher-(ex) offender interviews. This chapter offers an introduction to a variation of offender narrative study within the prison and rehabilitation context: the narrative of written autobiography. Since the early 1940s, Chinese reform institutions have required written autobiographies from new admitters, provided with clear presubscripted guidelines of instructions as well as postcensorship. For this chapter, we trace back and analyse this model based on 28 prisoners' autobiographies in mainland China between 2007 and 2009, as well as archive documents in different historical periods. We have found that the mandatory offender autobiographies are highly functional writings with clear requirements that embody the existing power structure. We have also found considerable commonality with findings in Western contexts on the presence and problems of narrative compliance in rehabilitation. We argue that narrative criminology should further engage in understanding the practice of narrative censorship and co-authorship in criminal justice processes, as it takes on different forms in different historical–social contexts.