Study On China's Life Imprisonment System

Life imprisonment,as a kind of free punishment,has the advantages of free punishment compared with death penalty,and is punitive and severe enough.China's amendment to the criminal law(ix),for the first time,made provisions on life imprisonment,but did not copy the provisions of other countries,only in corruption and bribery crimes.It is not an independent punishment,nor is it an alternative measure of death penalty.With the application of life imprisonment measures in bai enpei's case and wei pengyuan's case,the issue of whether life imprisonment can be traced back to the past has aroused academic discussion.The abolition of the death penalty is not an overnight thing,it needs a process.Because of our social background and the inherent consciousness of our people,it is not the time to abolish the death penalty.However,how to gradually reduce and abolish the death penalty,how to carry out judicial reform,the criminal law amendment(ix)proposed life imprisonment,provided us with ideas.This paper consists of introduction,text and epilogue three parts,including the text is divided into the following five parts:Part I:life imprisonment overview.This part firstly introduces the concept of life imprisonment,life imprisonment this concept comes from the outside,many countries stipulate the system of life in prison in the world,but there is no uniform opinion on its concept.Secondly,this paper introduces the history of life imprisonment,its emergence and the process of continuous development and progress with the society.Finally,according to the regulations of different countries,the general classification of life imprisonment is introduced.Part two:legislative status of foreign lifelong imprisonment system.In common law countries to life in prison is the most typical in the United States,the punishment system of continental law system have long followed the rules of the life in prison,starting from the French penal code in 1810,life imprisonment system appears in the continental law system of punishment,now represented by Germany and Japan's life in prison system.Finally some Revelations of the foreign life in prison,including the existing life imprisonment system in China is different compared with abroad,compared to life in prison with immediate execution,the severity of the punishment is not obvious.Part three:the applicable conditions and nature of life imprisonment in China.The conditions of life imprisonment shall apply only to serious crimes of corruption and bribery,and to criminals sentenced to death with a reprieve.If a criminal commits a serious corruption and bribery crime before November 1,2015,it shall be treated separately whether he can be sentenced to life imprisonment.If the old law was intended to impose the death penalty immediately,the new law could be changed to life imprisonment.In the old law,if a defendant was to be sentenced to death or life imprisonment,he could not be sentenced to life imprisonment.Life imprisonment is not a new kind of punishment,but a measure of execution.Life in prison for the premise is the criminal was sentenced to death penalty with suspension of execution,due to the death penalty suspended death sentences includes,also belong to the death penalty,so life imprisonment is one of the death penalty execution method.Part four:the investigation of life imprisonment as an alternative measure of death penalty in China.Gradually reduce and even the application of the abolition of the death penalty is the trend of international criminal punishment,by a kind of punishment to replace the application of the death penalty,which can avoid the application of the death penalty,and guarantee of criminal punishment,in line with the principle of adaptive principle.Life imprisonment is undoubtedly a very good substitute measure.The application of life imprisonment can also solve the inherent defects of "life imprisonment is too light and death penalty is too heavy" in China's penalty structure.The fifth part:the idea of life imprisonment system,including the appropriate expansion of the scope of application and the development of life imprisonment into an independent form of punishment.At present,only serious corruption and bribery crimes in China are applicable to life imprisonment,the scope of application is too narrow.The amendment to the criminal law(ix)has reduced the death penalty for nine crimes,but there are still 46 death penalty crimes in China,far more than in other countries.Expand life in prison for can reduce the death sentence,and can solve the structure of the defects existing in the Chinese criminal law system,simultaneously conforms to our country the criminal policy of "careful with the death penalty" and decrease the death penalty in criminal reform.Current life imprisonment is not independent of the punishments,but a way of execution,suspended if life imprisonment as a mitigation in the criminal law system,to increase its applicable charges,allowing it to limit applicable death penalty function to larger,at the same time,the life in prison for mitigation can be independent penalty system in our country to be more perfect.