On Mitigation Of Penalty

The term of mitigation of punishment means that the criminal law evolves or develops in the direction of lighter punishment and the more frequent use of mitigated punishments. The definition of mitigation of punishment can be interpreted from many aspects such as the rule of historical development, the ideology of thoughts, the criminal policy, the punishment system and the practice of punishments, etc.Since the Enlightenment period came into being in Europe, the idea of mitigation of punishment has experienced a long history and is still flourishing right now. The thoughts on mitigation of punishment advocated by the Enlightenment thinkers and criminal classical school mainly include the natural law theory and the following three principles of criminal law, that is, the principle of prescribed punishments for specified crimes, the principle of proportion between crimes and punishment, and the principle of humanitarianism of punishment. The idea of mitigation of punishment developed by the criminal positive school which arose at the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century is mainly embodied in the theory of correction, which suggests that more attention should be paid to the correction of criminals so as to prevent crimes effectively. The new theory of social defense which arose after the criminal positive school claims that punishment should neither be the only nor even the major measure against crimes, and therefore advocates reasonable reaction against crimes. Restorative justice which sprung up at the end of 20th century proposes that victim-offender mediation, compensation and prevention should be applied to against crimes instead of punishments.The theory of criminology is the scientific foundation of mitigation of punishment. The findings of criminology show that the production and existence of crimes are inevitable in the society, which means that it is impossible to eliminate crimes even by using harsh punishments. Considering that the function of preventing crimes by punishment is so limited and the harm that will be brought about in the process of punishing crimes, we cannot expect that the purpose of preventing crimes can be achieved only by means of harsh punishments.The humanitarianism is the notional foundation of mitigation of punishment. The humanitarianism lays stress on the protection of the human rights of criminals. Generally speaking, it includes the following three points, that is, forbidding cruel punishments, protecting the basic human rights of criminals and helping them rehabilitate themselves to the society. The humanitarianism of punishment is the main and direct drive of promoting the mitigation of punishment.The social progress and development is the objective foundation of mitigation of punishment, which refers that the market economy is the economic foundation, the citizen society is the social structural foundation, and the democracy the political foundation hereof.The mitigation of punishment is a worldwide tendency for the development of punishment. In modern times, many countries have launched a movement of reform on punishment system, which mainly includes that the restriction and abolishment of death penalty, the better treatment for criminals sentenced to imprisonment and the wide use of light punishments such as fine, community-based corrections. Since 1970s, although the mitigation of punishment has met with some difficulties, the main trend has not changed hereof.The current criminal policy of China relies too much on severe penalties. We should follow the worldwide tide of mitigation of punishment and take active measures to carry out the reform of mitigation of punishment, which shall focus on the following points: quickening the reform of economic system and political system; building up the idea of human rights and the idea of rule of law, and changing the superstitious idea of punishment; strengthening the criminology research and the construction of other crime prevention methods; amending the criminal legislation including reducing dea...