Rule of Law | The Supreme People's Court calls for the correction and education of "problem juveniles", what is the difficulty?

Interface News Reporter | Zhai Ruimin

Interface News Editor | Liu Haichuan

On April 16, 2024, the Supreme People's Court stated that the punishment should be punished in accordance with the law, and revealed that four minors under the age of 14 have been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment in the past three years.

From 2021 to 2023, the people's courts concluded a total of 73,178 juvenile criminal cases and sentenced 98,426 juvenile offenders, accounting for 2% to 2.5% of all criminal offenders in the same period.

Among them, for the crime of homicide or serious injury of minors between the ages of 12 and 14, since the implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment (11), the people's courts have concluded a total of 4 such cases and 4 people, and the offenders are between the ages of 12 and 13 and have been sentenced to 10 to 15 years imprisonment in accordance with the law.

The Supreme People's Court stated that the people's courts adhere to the principle of "education, reform, and rescue" and the principle of "education first, punishment secondary" in juvenile crimes, and at the same time, adhere to "tolerance but not connivance" in punishment.

Previously, the murder of Wang Moumou, a junior high school student in Feixiang District, Handan City, sparked heated discussions. The Supreme People's Procuratorate has approved the prosecution of three juvenile criminal suspects. This is the second case of juvenile criminal prosecution approved by the Supreme People's Procuratorate in the past month or so, and this move highlights that the mainland is stepping up the pursuit of responsibility for serious juvenile criminal offenses.

Jiemian News noticed that after the recent occurrence of a number of vicious juvenile crimes, there are calls for further lowering the age of criminal responsibility on the Internet. In this regard, a lawyer in Shanghai, who requested anonymity, told Jiemian News that the current setting of the age of criminal responsibility in the mainland has been relatively reasonable, "It is not of much significance to continue to adjust the age of criminal responsibility downward, and it cannot be lowered indefinitely because of very few cases." ”

Amendment (11) to the Criminal Law shall come into force on March 1, 2021. It stipulates that a person who has reached the age of 16 shall be held criminally responsible for committing a crime. Persons who have reached the age of 14 but are not yet 16 years old and commit eight types of criminal acts, including intentional homicide, shall bear criminal responsibility. Where a person who has reached the age of 12 but is not yet 14 years old commits the crime of intentional homicide or intentional injury, causing death or seriously injuring a person by particularly cruel means, causing serious disability, and the circumstances are heinous, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate approves prosecution, he shall bear criminal responsibility.

Huang Yong, deputy director of the Criminal Law Office of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, once introduced in the book "Legislative Background and Interpretation of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China" that the determination of the age of criminal responsibility is a major issue involving the adjustment of criminal policy, and it is necessary to conduct an overall evaluation and study based on the country's economic and social development, the reality of juvenile delinquency, the physical and mental development and changes of juveniles, juvenile judicial policies and historical and cultural traditions, and other factors, which need to be very cautious.

The lawyer pointed out that there are also rigid parts of the definition of the age of criminal responsibility in the mainland, mainly referring to the so-called absolute lack of criminal responsibility under the age of 12, and whether it is necessary to establish a prosecution mechanism is still worth considering. ”

In recent years, there have been many calls from the legal profession that the criminal law of the mainland can refer to the relevant foreign systems and introduce the rule of "maliciously making up the age", for example, it can be stipulated that the age of criminal responsibility can be excluded from the application of the age of criminal responsibility for offenders who have reached the age of 10 when it is proved that they have the ability to recognize that their acts are illegal and have the ability to control their behavior. However, the above-mentioned lawyer said that the establishment of the rule of "malicious age supplementation" should be more difficult for the current social situation in the mainland, and the revision of the law itself is lagging behind, and it also needs to go through a complex process, which cannot be completed in a short time.

"Juvenile delinquency tends to be at a younger age, and there is always a need for a solution. Ma Hao, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, told Jiemian News that lowering the age of criminal responsibility is one aspect, and in addition, legal remedies should also be established for children at this age who have seriously harmful social behaviors, and minors cannot be allowed to go home after committing crimes.

The lawyer, who requested anonymity, also said that from a practical point of view, the most rapid solution to the problem at present is to promote the promotion of specialized schools and the correction and education of young juvenile criminal suspects.

According to article 45 of the mainland's Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, as amended in December 2020, where minors have conduct provided for in the Criminal Law, and are not subject to criminal punishment because they are under the age of criminal responsibility, the administrative departments for education, together with the public security organs, may decide to give them special correctional education upon assessment and consent by the Specialized Education Steering Committee.

Huang Yong said in the book that for minors who have committed ordinary harmful behaviors that disrupt social order due to lack of education, supervision and other reasons, strict discipline by guardians may be more conducive to their return to society. However, for minors who commit serious violent crimes such as homicide or intentional injury causing serious injury or death, and are in great danger to their persons, specialized education and corrections shall be carried out in accordance with law. This is an important system for dealing with juvenile delinquency.

"What the outside world should pay more attention to is the establishment of special schools and the improvement of the correction system. The lawyer pointed out that in the past, there were such correctional schools on the mainland, but they were relatively few and the geographical distribution was uneven, which also led to many juvenile offenders being sent back to ordinary schools for compulsory education in judicial practice. This is where the contradiction in dealing with this kind of problem is that it is not appropriate to let juveniles who have committed crimes go back to ordinary schools, as they may not only not be able to receive a complete correctional education, but also pose a safety hazard to other juveniles.

Ma Hao introduced that vocational schools are the work-study schools in the past, and the current development of vocational schools needs to face many difficulties, first of all, they need the support and cooperation of parents, and they also need government financial support, which depends on the economic conditions of various places. It is understood that because of the small number of students, some provinces and local specialized schools are relatively scarce, and in some places there are one or two, and in some places there are no ones at all.

China Youth Daily recently quoted data from the Ninth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate as saying that as of May 2022, there are more than 110 specialized schools in the country, and there is not yet one specialized school in 9 provinces, and only Guizhou Province has more than 30 specialized schools, and every state and city has them.

The Supreme People's Court pointed out that the emergence of problem children is due to both family and social reasons, and is the result of the comprehensive influence of a variety of factors. However, the education and correction procedures for "problem juveniles" have been blurred, resulting in a large number of juveniles who have violated the law and are in a state where no one is able to supervise them and corrections fail, so that they often repeatedly carry out illegal acts, eventually causing evil consequences and constituting crimes. For example, in a case in a certain place, the defendant was administratively detained by the public security organs five times, but none of them were actually executed.

Ma Hao said that taking school bullying as an example, the mainland has issued 16 laws, regulations and policy documents, which can be described as relatively perfect, and the problem is how to follow the law. "Parents, communities, schools, the Communist Youth League and the Women's Federation are responsible for the protection of minors, but how to implement them is a core issue. The current situation is that there is a poor connection between various departments, you think he should be in charge, he thinks you should be in charge, and in the end there is no way to implement it to the specific competent department, which is the trouble. Ma Hao said.

The WeChat public account of the Shanghai Law Society recently published a paper by Lu Jing of East China University of Political Science and Law entitled "Research on the Improvement of the Specialized Education System for Minors", pointing out that in the context of the increasingly strong call for juvenile justice reform and the promotion of a large number of practical needs, if we want to change the practical problems of the specialized education system for minors, it is urgent to introduce special legal documents and strong operational implementation rules.

On April 16, the Supreme People's Court also made a proposal that the situation of weak correctional institutions for young minors should be changed as soon as possible, the construction of specialized schools should be accelerated, and the establishment of an independent juvenile justice system should be gradually promoted, so that minors who have committed acts that seriously endanger society but have not yet committed criminal offenses can receive the correctional education they deserve.