In the 4th century BCE, the reformer Shang Yang organized the households of Qin into groups of five and ten that watched over one another and were liable together (什伍连坐). According to Sima Qian, anyone who failed to report a wrongdoer was cut in half at the waist. Anyone who hid one was punished like a soldier who surrendered to the enemy.
Chinese Wikipedia calls it the earliest known written law of lianzuo, a system in which a group is punished for the wrong of one person.