A Study On The Feasibility And Necessity Of Mitigation Of Punishment In China

Making a comprehensive survey about the development and evolution ofhuman criminal law, we can know that the penalty system settings run along thetrack from harsh to gentle in generally. Especially, since the Modern EuropeanEnlightenment Movement, in the influence of the ideas of freedom, equality,humanitarian and humanity, the mitigation of punishment has become thedevelopment trend of world’s crimial law. But contrast with most countries in theworld, our country’s penalty system shows a clear tendency of heavy punishmentbecause of the influnce of the traditional severe penalty doctrine. The tendencyof severe punishment goes against the development of criminal law and comes tothe opposite direction of the world’s punishment trend. Thus, we should set up acorrect concept of punishment, establish a more gentle penalty system, adopt somelighter penalty measures, and gradually realize China’s punishment mitigation, tosuit the demands of the times and meet the needs of our country’s development.This thesis focuses on the severe punishment phenomenon in our country’spunishment system; makes a comparative analysis between the harms of severepunishment and the positive effects of light punishment; explains the feasibility ofa light penalty on China’s social reality, discusses the necessity of punishmentmitigation on the theory and the background of the harmonious society; anddiscusses the ways to realize the punishment mitigation from the perspectives oftheoretical basis, law amendment and judicial channels. This paper contains thefollowing details:First part, overview of light punishment. In this part, firstly,I will summarizethe major phenomenon of severe punishment in our punishment syestem andanalyze its harmful consequences. Then, compared the severe punishment, I willpropose the idea of light punishment, make a further explanation of the meaningsof light punishment and summarize the specific phenomenon of light punishmentof some countries in the world. Finally, I will discuss the positive effects of theimplementation of light punishment.The second part, a analysis of the feasibility and necessary of the light punishment. In this part, first, I will reason the fessibility of China’s lightpunishment from the views of Chinese economic condition, the structure of socialclasses and the legislative and institutional reforms of Chinese government inrecent years. Then, I will analyze the necessity of mitigation of punishment inChina from the relationships between the purpose of punishment, humanitarian,human rights, harmonious society and the punishment mitigation.The third part, the ways to implement China’s light punishment. In the part, Iwill discuss the theoretical basis of ligth penalty, embodied in the influences ofhumanitarian, severe punishment doctrine and principle of a legally prescribedpunishment for a specified crime to the punishment mitigation. Secondly, I willgive a analysis of some law amendments to carry out the process of lightpunishment. The law amendments mainly include the adjustments andmodifications of the death penalty and the fine penalty in Criminal Code. Finally,we should make further reforments to the judicial channels to ensure theimplementation of light penalty. We should improve the monitoring system ofpenalty implementation and establish a sound system of community correction.Only by doing these reforments, we can bridge the gap between the mitigation ofpunishment on the theory, legislation levels and the the judicial level.