Women's imprisonment as a mechanism of migration control in Hong Kong

Abstract

Despite its low crime rate, Hong Kong has a higher imprisonment rate compared with the rest of Asia and the West, and the highest known proportion of female prisoners in the world. At the heart of this prison crisis is the routine use of imprisonment as a mechanism of migration control, to keep out and immobilize those whom Bauman has termed 'vagabonds' in an increasingly stratified global order. This article examines the use of imprisonment and zero tolerance-style policing against mainland Chinese women, and argues that the current prison crisis has to be understood within the context of the twin processes of othering of migrant sex workers and liberalization of internal border controls in Hong Kong.