Research On The Criminal Responsibility Of Juvenile Delinquency In China

The "Amendment(XI)to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China" promulgated in 2020 lowers the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old.After the promulgation of this regulation,how to manage juvenile delinquency has once again become a hot issue in the academic circles.Caring for and protecting minors is the basic philosophy of juvenile justice in countries all over the world,and the treatment of juvenile crimes needs to face the contradiction of balancing the principle of criminality and juvenile protectionism.The practice of setting the age of criminal responsibility through legislation certainly sets a clear standard for the treatment of juvenile delinquency,but it faces the new contradiction of rigid application of legislation and easy judicial arbitrariness.The practice of using a minor’s age and upbringing as sentencing circumstances alone cannot fundamentally solve this contradiction,and how to achieve "tolerance but not indulgence" is the key to our thinking about the problem of juvenile delinquency.At present,there is still a bias in the concept of governance of juvenile crimes in China.In cases of juvenile crimes,too much emphasis is placed on the protection of juvenile offenders,less emphasis is placed on the necessary discipline,and the protection of social interests,including innocent victims,is neglected.The basic direction of the development and improvement of the criminal responsibility system is ensured by grasping the inner purpose of the system.The system of criminal responsibility for minors is based on the value orientation of the "two-way protection principle",i.e.,the protection of both the interests of minors and the interests of society;the basic requirement is to protect the human rights of minors,not only to protect their physical and procedural rights,but also to focus on the protection of their developmental rights.In the period of transformation of the social structure,the prevalence of the concept of human rights protection,the new characteristics of juvenile crime,and the in-depth study of juvenile criminal theory,these changes have prompted a new public understanding of the management of juvenile crime,and at the same time brought new challenges to the system of juvenile criminal responsibility.The current governance philosophy of "tolerance is connivance",decentralized legal regulations,and single criminal treatment measures for minors have created an embarrassing situation of "one release" and "one close" in practice.In this regard,to improve the system of criminal responsibility for minors,we should first establish the concept of "gentle and heavy" governance,and be as lenient as necessary and as strict as necessary for juvenile offenders;secondly,to make special legislation to provide a comprehensive and systematic legal basis for judicial practice;finally,to improve the criminal treatment system for juvenile delinquency,especially non-criminal treatment measures Finally,we should improve the criminal treatment system for juvenile delinquents,especially the non-criminal treatment measures,to avoid over-reliance on penal measures and to enrich the diversity of criminal treatment measures.From the current public discussion on the problem of juvenile delinquency,it is important to avoid equating the "exposure rate of juvenile delinquency" with the "juvenile delinquency rate" and the "seriousness of individual cases" with the "prevalence of such cases." The majority of the public lacks a professional understanding of the juvenile justice system.In this regard,first,we must acknowledge and pay attention to the significant influence of public opinion,especially online public opinion,on legislation in the current Internet era;second,we must recognize that academics and public opinion are not incommunicable,and that they have in common the pursuit of fairness and justice,but differ only in their cognitive level,research methods and expressions;third,researchers on juvenile justice must come out of the "ivory tower" and come up with a professional understanding of the juvenile justice system.Third,researchers on juvenile justice must come out of the "ivory tower",produce convincing empirical data,and argue their views with popularized and vernacularized basic concepts of juvenile justice,so that they can be accepted by the public and public opinion.