A Research On Criminal Significance Of Victims' Fault

In real life, unlike most traditional theories of criminal law determined autonomously by criminals, the incidences of most crimes are often the result of interaction between victims and criminals. In judicial practice, victims'fault is quite a common issue, but unfortunately, compared with the research on victims and victims'fault in criminology and criminal procedure law, the relevant research in substantive criminal law has still in its infancy now. There is a lack of adequate attention for criminal victims'fault in criminal law, and the present criminal code does not prescribe for such faults. It is merely considered as the discretionary circumstances of sentencing in judicial practice, which does not correspond to the deserved status of criminal victims, for victims'fault can influence or determine whether a crime or culpability is established. In order to make up the deficient study on criminal victims'fault, this paper introduces the relevant research on victims'fault in other subjects, analyzes and learns from foreign theories and legislations related to victims'fault, and presents its significance in criminal law in a relatively systematical way.The first part of this paper mainly deals with the problems about how to get victims into the perspective of criminal law, and how to define the criminal victims. It mainly introduces the research result about victims in the field of criminology and criminal procedure code and the comparison among victims from the perspective of criminology defines the criminal victims discussed here.The second part studies scientific concepts and content of victims'fault, and classify it for the purpose of more thorough analysis. After the specific analysis and comparison of the various methods in accordance with the existing different standards on classification, the author puts forward his own three-tier classification.In the third part, the author provides a theoretical basis and argument for the proposition-- victims'fault can influence culpability and criminal penalty, describes the major theories at home and abroad based on the influence of victims'fault on culpability and criminal penalty, and makes comments on it, then puts forward his own point of view--legal interest impairment theory.The fourth part of this paper takes a number of typical victims'faults as examples, analyzes and studies their criminal significance at length. The author selects some typical instances of victims'fault from general provisions and sub sub-provisions respectively, analyzes them specifically, and tries to provide not only a relatively clear guidance to the application of victims'fault in judicial practice, but also a way of thinking for other scholars'studies on victims'faults.The final part examines the comparison on the relevant legislations of victims'fault at home and abroad, and analyzes the inadequacy of the current legislations in our country. Then the author comes up with proposals for the legislations of victims'fault according to China's national conditions.Based on the above analysis, we can conclude that victims'fault has a criminal significance for it will be introduced into the conviction and sentencing of crime. It also plays an important role in both theory and practice as it is helpful to maintain fairness and justice, achieve the proper evaluation and fair treatment of victims so as to reduce crime.