List of countries by incarceration rate
China. The rate of 118 is for sentenced prisoners in 2015 in Ministry of Justice prisons only. World Prison Brief: "1,649,804 [prisoners] at mid-2015 (via Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators - sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only, excluding pre-trial detainees and those held in administrative detention). The Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate reported in 2009 that, in addition to the sentenced prisoners, more than 650,000 were held in detention centres In China. If this was still correct in mid-2015 the total prison population in China was at least 2,300,000. ... 118 [rate] based on an estimated national population of 1.4 billion at mid-2015 (from United Nations figures) – sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only. (A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the prison population rate to 164 per 100,000.)" See also: Re-education through labor and Laogai.
Law enforcement in China
Citizens have a constitutional guarantee of the right to use their own spoken and written language in court proceedings. Courts and procuratorates are advised by the constitution that they "should provide translations for any party to the court proceedings who is not familiar with the spoken or written languages in common use in the locality." The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but the courts are subjected to party and government policy guidance that influences the outcome of verdicts and sentences. Conviction rates in criminal cases in the early 2000s were approximately 90 percent, and trials generally were little more than sentencing hearings. Although most suspects in criminal cases are legally guaranteed the right to counsel, they often meet their appointed attorney only once before the hearing; at best, a defense attorney can obtain a reduction of the sentence. In many politically sensitive trials, rarely lasting more than several hours, the courts hand down guilty verdicts immediately following proceedings, and death sentences are often implemented within days of the rejection of an appeal.