Three questions every family asks first: where is he, is he safe in there, and can I see him. The third one has an answer most families do not expect.
The first thing an overseas family wants to know is not the charge. It is where the person actually is tonight, whether anyone is hurting him in there, and whether the family can get to him. Those three questions have clean legal answers, and the third one is the one families get wrong most often: in a Chinese criminal case, the family cannot visit. The defence lawyer can, and that is not a technicality — it is the only working channel into the building.
Not the police station, and not somewhere unknown. Article 85 of the Criminal Procedure Law requires that after a person is detained, he be taken to a detention house (看守所) immediately, and in any event within 24 hours at the latest. The detention house is a separate facility run by the public security authority but distinct from the investigators' own premises — which is precisely why the transfer is time-limited: questioning is supposed to happen at a place that is not the investigators' house.
The same article requires the family to be notified within 24 hours of detention, unless notification is impossible or would hinder the investigation in a national security or terrorism case. In a foreign-related case that notice has further to travel — it goes out through the foreign affairs and consular channel, which is one reason a family abroad sometimes hears days after the fact, or hears first from the consulate rather than from the police.
For the deadline structure that starts running the moment he arrives, see what day 3, day 7, day 30 and day 37 each mean. Where the detention house sits inside the wider process is set out in what happens once charges are filed.
The written rule is short and unambiguous. The Detention House Regulations (看守所条例) prohibit beating, corporal punishment and abuse of detainees, and Article 52 of the Criminal Procedure Law prohibits obtaining evidence by torture, threat, enticement or deception, and states that no one may be compelled to prove his own guilt.
Families ask this question because they have read the other thing too — that conditions and conduct in custody can diverge from what the regulations say. Both are true, and neither is answered by worrying from another country. Two points are worth holding on to:
For how a statement obtained this way is then attacked, and what the law actually gives a detainee inside the interview room, see should you confess: silence, timing and the record.
This is the question families most want to ask, and the answer is the one they least want to hear. As a rule, family members are not allowed to visit someone held in a Chinese detention house during the investigation. Not with a passport, not from overseas, not with an interpreter. There is also no phone: a detainee cannot be called, and cannot call out.
The one person who can reliably get in is the defence lawyer. Article 39 of the Criminal Procedure Law gives a defence lawyer holding a practising certificate, a law firm letter and a power of attorney the right to meet and correspond with the detainee, and requires the detention house to arrange the meeting within 48 hours at the latest. There is no cap on how many visits a lawyer makes or how long they last.
What a good visit actually produces, and how to judge whether one happened at all, is set out in how often a lawyer can visit someone detained in China.
Once visits are ruled out, what is left is narrower than families expect, and it is worth being precise about the limits of each — because all three are slower and less reliable than they look from abroad.
Letters are read by the detention house and may be withheld if the content is thought to obstruct the case. Nothing about the facts of the case, and nothing that could look like coordinating a story, should go into one. In a case where every day counts, a letter is a slow, one-way channel.
Most Chinese detention houses will not accept items brought from outside. Instead an account is opened for the detainee at the centre and money is deposited in RMB; he uses it to buy extra food, toiletries and clothing inside. Many overseas families have no idea how to open one or how to top it up — our lawyers usually do it for them.
A detained foreign national has the right to contact his embassy or consulate in China, and consular officers may request a consular visit. But there is no telling when that visit happens. Plenty of our clients tell us during our own weekly visits that nobody from their embassy has come in nearly two months.
None of this is a substitute for getting a licensed lawyer in front of him. It is what keeps him fed and clothed while the case is being built — and for a foreign national who does not speak the language of the place, that is not a small thing. Many of the foreign clients I meet cry within two sentences of the first visit, and then they say the same thing: finally, I can speak to someone who understands me.
For the consular route in detail, see what a consulate can and cannot actually do and your Article 36 notification right. For the first hours after the news reaches you, see what to do in the first 24 hours.
"I'm here to meet my client again today. Your family member has been taken away. Three very specific things: where are they being held? Will they be treated badly there? And from overseas, can you call them, can you fly to China and see them, can you send them clothes? I will cover all three today.
Start with where. Once someone is detained, the law says they go to a detention centre right away — within 24 hours at the latest. For example, in Shanghai, foreign detainees are held together, all in one centre. That's why the staff here know me by now.
Will they be treated badly? The shortest rule in the regulations says: no beating, no corporal punishment, no abuse. But what's written down and what they actually run into in there can be two different things.
Can you see them? This is what families most want to ask. It's also the thing they get wrong most often. As a rule, family members aren't allowed to see them. The one person they can reliably see is their defence lawyer — and the centre has to arrange that visit within 48 hours at the latest.
So what can the family do? Really, three things: letters, money, and the consulate. Letters you can write, but the letter can be withheld — what you can say in it, and how long it takes to reach them, you can probably guess. In a criminal case every minute counts. That's a long wait. If they are foreign, there's one more route: they have the right to contact their embassy or consular team in China, and consular officers can ask to visit — but there's no telling when. Our team visits clients in detention every week, and plenty of my clients tell me during those visits that no one from the embassy has come to see them in almost two months.
And one more thing: a lot of detention centres in China won't take items from outside. Instead, you open an account for them at the centre and put in RMB. That's how they buy food and clothes inside. Many families overseas have no idea how to open one or how to add to it — our team's lawyers usually handle that for them. Which is why in a foreigner's case, a lawyer ends up doing a lot of what should normally be the family's job.
Being held somewhere they don't understand the language — that's genuinely hard. Many of the foreign clients I've met tear up at the first visit, before they have said two sentences. Then they say the same thing: finally, I can speak."