Research On Lenient Punishment For Juvenile Delinquencies

The minors are hope of motherland’s future. Since the implement of theone-child policy, the effect of minors became more greatly on their families. Thus therationalization of applying criminal penalties for juvenile offenses could affect thefuture of the family, even the development and stability of the whole society. In China,it adheres to the principle of lenient punishment on punishing juvenile offenses.However, there are only principled and general regulations relating to the punishmentof juvenile delinquencies in the Criminal Law. In addition, there is no specific MinorsCriminal Law in China, and the current Criminal Law only regulates it generally inthe part of General Principal, so the relevant regulations in the Criminal Law could befurther improved. But it indicated that the law is attaching greater importance whenregulations of punishment against juvenile offenses were mentioned in Criminal LawAmendment (8)(Amendment8). However, the relevant provisions in Amendment8are not clear enough for juridical practice, and there is no relevant judicialinterpretation at present. Consequently, when dealing with juvenile delinquencies inpractice, some regulations lack of operability and some of the regulations are arguable.In this thesis, it develops these three new amended aspects of punishment againstjuvenile offenses from the perspective of Amendment8, and then discusses how to improve it.The whole thesis could be divided into four parts excluding the introduction andconclusion:Part Ⅰ: Overview of juvenile delinquency. The number of Juvenile delinquenciesincreased in China and has become one of the most serious social problems in China.So the prevention of juvenile delinquency and research on relevant regulations couldbe an important issue of our Criminal Law. Concerning on this issue, we insist thepolicy of "education first, penalty second" and follow the principles of "penaltyeducational, penalty complementarity and penalty tolerance". Amendment8revisedthe relevant regulations of not applying recidivist system to minors, exemption ofcriminal record reporting obligations of the minors and the application of probation ofminors, and these are meaningful for the improvement of our lenient punishment forjuvenile delinquencies regulation system.Part Ⅱ: Issues about minors do not constitute recidivism. The amended CriminalLaw stipulates that the recidivist system cannot apply to the person who is "undereighteen", but there is not further explanation about how to calculate the age. It needsfurther improvement of the theory and practice. In addition, the "Criminal LawAmendment (8)" only regulates that minors do not constitute general recidivism, butwhether the special recidivism could be applied to the minors is not stated in law so itneeds further discussion.Part Ⅲ: Establishment of elimination of minor criminal record system. Criminalrecord has been like the tag firmly attached to the juvenile offenders and it tends toaffect the developments of their lives. We have not yet established the elimination ofminor criminal record system."Criminal Law Amendment (8)" is a milestone byestablishing the elimination of minor criminal record when the minors begin a careeror enlist. It is necessary and feasible to establish the elimination of minor criminalrecord system and it is an inevitable trend of the development of our criminallegislation relating to minors.Part Ⅳ: Probation system of juvenile offenders. Minors are too young to beunaffected by the surrounding environments, thus the probation system of juvenile offenders will effectively avoid the drawbacks of the prison sentence. In most of thecountries, laws trend to put the minors into society to help them reintegrate."CriminalProhibition Order" and "Community Correction" are first stipulated in the Criminallaw. It indicates that the criminal law is gradually improving the system of lettingminors serve his sentence outside prison. But these systems in our country areimmature, and there are many problems in practice, which require deeper discussionand further improvement.