Spatiotemporal Pattern and Criminal Decision-Making Mechanism of Offense of Selling Offspring in China

Abstract

With the rapid development of the economic and social situation and the improvement of public security defense and governance, the quantity of cases of child trafficking by means of theft, forcible robbery, and deception has decreased significantly, and the offense of selling offspring has shown an obvious increasing trend. Based on the case data of child trafficking crime on the website of Chinese Judicial Documents, this study examines the spatiotemporal pattern and criminal decision-making mechanism of offense of selling offspring. The results are as follows: (1) Sold children are characterized by "younger age," most of them are zero-year-old infants, and males are far more represented than females. Most sellers are young and middle-aged men or young women, mainly unemployed, farmers and workers. They sell their offspring to buyers with strong demand through social networks of acquaintances, special occupational groups, traffickers, network media, or persuasion by buyers/intermediaries. The reasons for selling include economic difficulties, out of wedlock birth, extra births, intermediary solicitation, debt repayment. (2) Temporally, the annual change of crime can be divided into three stages: stable sequence and low incidence, rapid growth and sustained high incidence, and steady decline, which are mainly affected by China's population policy, action on combating trafficking, and the development of the website of Chinese Judicial Documents. The monthly change presents a synchronous trend on the birth and betrayal time of the children, with spring and summer being more represented than autumn and winter. (3) Spatially, the origin region of selling presents the pattern of "three sources" with "Sichuan-Shandong-Fujian" as the core, and the destination region of selling presents the pattern of "North-South two sinks" with "Shandong-Fujian" as the core on the macro level. Microscopically, it occurs in closed spaces with a frequent flow of people, and residential buildings and open spaces with a frequent flow of people. The overall trafficking path is "inter-provincial flowing out from the southwest source area and intra-provincial flow of the South-North sink area." Inter-provincial migration is mostly driven by interests and is dominated by trafficking criminal groups, while intra-provincial migration is mostly formed by temporary one-time gang crimes to meet the needs of buying and selling. (4) Based on the theory of rational choice, this study constructs a decision-making framework for the offense of selling offspring, and finds that the crime is mainly affected by the comprehensive influence of background factors, previous experience, and situational induction, and the bounded rational choice made by potential criminals under the decision-making evaluation of "benefit-cost-risk." After deciding to sell their children, potential criminals will choose the appropriate time, place, and way to maximize interests.

Keywords

• offense of selling offspring
• sold children
• trafficking route
• benefit-cost-risk
• criminal decision-making mechanism