Causes Of Crime In Shanghai Crime

Crimes and Their Cause in Shanghai

Opium use was addictive and the addicts had to chip in more money for their continued leisure’s. Unfortunately, these addicts were too weakened to work, they had depleted most of their investments, and could not easily avoid the drug. This lead to development of mechanisms to acquire money to acquire the substance. These mechanisms were however through use of force and violence and eventually resulted to crime activities. Some of the crimes that popped up include:

Human Trafficking for prostitution

In the previous centuries prostitution was seen a lesser social evil compared to opium smoking. By the early 20th century gambling and Sex dens provided a better venue for opium consumption. In the Dreams Splendor

An addict was always willing to spend to the last copper without fear or regrets for opium. In The Dreams of Shanghai Splendor, a young man who visited Shanghai lost all his father’s fortune. In a different case, Tu Shaoxia, lost all his fortune through smoking and the leisure accompanying it. This young man pulls a rickshaw for a living. At the end of the story he quits and reforms from using opium. The story further tells us that non-opium users were the acceptable society. Shanghai’s opium use business lead to lose of property to many people through addiction and

They found it hard to quit using the substance and lose self-responsibility and respect. However, substance consumption defenders argued that it was a personal choice to consume the product and that anybody who indulged into the activity knew of the side effects. In the publication by Wu Jianren’s Hen hai, 1906, Chen Bohe loses touch with his fiancée and later indulges into opium use. He however finds it difficult to quit opium and return to the respectable society and he finally dies in hospital. This is the sad story of the crimes in Shanghai: life of addicts is full of misery and it’s hard to quit and may die when trying to quit.

Corruption and Widespread Gang Activities

Opium operations were mainly handled by local trade guilds and gangs. These gangs would control all the operations and in some cases these operations used violence. These gangs further bribed police officials to have disputes judged to their favor. The competition among trade guilds only encouraged for the growth of gangs. Envy for prostitutes by brothel visitors could turn out ugly and this resulted to violence in the brothels. Merchant-official corruption, use of gangs to protect the trade, and greedy traders lead to increase in violence, smuggling, and bloodshed to get the product.