The Initial Discussions On Some Issues Of Public Surveillance Punishment

Public surveillance punishment is one of the five principle penalties provided by the criminal law in our country. It is part of freedom restriction punishment. It has been over 60 years since it was firstly set up in the Liberation Zone and the Anti-Japanese Base in 1940's. During more than 60 years, public surveillance punishment made an important role in our country's political life, and was ever widely used as one kind of administrative compulsory measures. However, as a real penalty in present judicial practice, public surveillance punishment is almost ignored. Fewer cases in People's Court apply to it. This situation is quite different from the reality, that is, non-imprisonment penalty is commonly executed worldwidely. What's the reason? The thesis attempts to trace back to the history of public surveillance punishment, making a comparison of our country's public surveillance punishment and foreign freedom restriction punishment, analyzing the main problems of public surveillance punishment, advancing suggestions and measures of the improvement of public surveillance punishment.The article is divided into five chapters, besides the introduction and the ending.Chapter One is the review of public surveillance punishment in our country. It briefs the process of embryo, development, establishment of public surveillance punishment in the criminal law, making an analysis of the difference between public surveillance punishment in the early period of the foundation of New China and that in a strict penalty sense, emphasizing on the introduction of public surveillance punishment provided in 1979 Criminal Law and the revision of 1997 Criminal Law.Chapter Two is the comparison of our country's public surveillance punishment and foreign freedom restriction punishment. By the introduction of freedom restriction punishment in some countries such as England and Russia etc., it summarizes the differences between our country's freedom restriction punishment and the foreign one, and the common points as well, reflecting the developing trend of penalty in the world nowadays.Chapter Three is the problems in the application of public surveillance punishment. It describes five characteristics of public surveillance punishment, preliminarily probing into advantages and disadvantages of the executive places and subjects which are controversial among present theoretical world, analyzing the main problems of public surveillance punishment in judicial practice.Chapter Four is the argument about preserving or abolishing public surveillance punishment. It sums up two viewpoints on preserving or abolishing public surveillance punishment which has been existing in the theoretical world for a long time, submitting the proposal and reason for preserving public surveillance punishment.Chapter Five is the suggestions and counter-measures of reform and improvement of public surveillance punishment. On the basis of the great social and political change in the past 30 years, it proposes that public surveillance punishment does not fit in with the requirement of our country's reality, appealing for passing the legislative revision of public surveillance punishment as soon as possible, promoting a serial of suggestions and measures of reform and improvement of public surveillance punishment from the angles of law and system .