In recent years, campus violence has occurred frequently, and the extremely vicious violence committed by minors is shocking, which also makes the debate about whether the age of criminal responsibility should be lowered more and more fierce.
"Whether the age of criminal responsibility should be lowered requires a series of questions: Does crime really tend to be' younger'? Can lowering the age of criminal responsibility achieve the expected results? The General Principles of the Civil Law (Draft) reduces the age of limiting civil capacity from 10 to 6, so will the age of criminal responsibility in the Criminal Law be reduced accordingly? Can lowering the age of criminal responsibility protect victims more effectively? " A few days ago, Song, a professor at the Institute of Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University, said at the "roundtable discussion on the age of criminal responsibility" held by the china law society Juvenile Justice Committee in Beijing. Experts and scholars attending the meeting discussed the above issues from multiple perspectives and dimensions.
"Younger Age" of Crime: True Proposition or False Proposition
Faced with the grim situation of juvenile delinquency, many people in society think that the age of criminal responsibility should be lowered, and there are also supportive views in academic circles. The reasons include: (1) lowering the age of criminal responsibility is a realistic need to curb the momentum of juvenile delinquency in the short term; (2) Young minors have the capacity and mental level to commit crimes; (3) The age of criminal responsibility is not a fixed number at all times; (4) Not lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility is not conducive to the fairness and justice of the law, and it is easy to lead to the victim's "evil inversion"; (5) Reducing the age of criminal responsibility is also the need to protect minors; Wait a minute.
However, Song and others believe that in order to reduce the age of criminal responsibility, it is necessary to make clear whether the people who commit serious social behaviors tend to be younger as a whole, but so far, there is no systematic statistics and research on minors under the age of 14 in China, and there is also a lack of a unified statistical system for reporting school violence.
Zheng Ziyin, deputy director of the Juvenile Law Committee of the Guangdong Lawyers Association, said that from the media exposure, the number of vicious violence cases of minors has increased year by year, and the violent circumstances have become more and more serious, showing a trend of younger age, but criminal responsibility is rare. Most violent cases are outside the criminal legal regulation. A large number of violent acts that have not been investigated for criminal responsibility have not entered the judicial process, so it is difficult to conduct systematic data statistics and empirical research.
Wang Mu, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, said that worldwide, children's behaviors that seriously endanger society have increased, which is the inevitable result of social development. One of the important reasons is the rapid development of society. The sharp increase in the amount of information not only promotes the precocity of children, but also advances the age at which children are "polluted" by a lot of bad information. It is a world trend that crimes are committed at a younger age. However, most countries in the world have not lowered the age of criminal responsibility because of the phenomenon of younger crimes. From the perspective of civilization development, not lowering the age of criminal responsibility is the result of rational understanding of crime. Of course, this does not mean that we should sit idly by and watch children commit crimes. We should try our best to adopt the method of education and prevention, educate and control children's bad illegal behaviors in time, and deal with crimes according to law.
Multi-dimensional understanding of "age of responsibility": criminal and civil have their own emphasis.
Participants believe that a comprehensive understanding of the "age of criminal responsibility" should be traced back to the source.
The age of criminal responsibility refers to the actor's understanding and self-control ability of the nature of behavior. Compared with more than 30 years ago, minors of the same age can indeed accept and master more knowledge and information. Some experts said that at present, the physical and psychological maturity of minors is higher than before, which provides greater possibilities for committing criminal acts, and psychological maturity improves the ability of minors to identify and control their own behaviors, which provides a basis for reducing the age of criminal responsibility.
However, other experts believe that the living environment has changed greatly and there are more risks. The growth cycle of minors' learning, practice and even trial and error has not been shortened, but it may be seriously insufficient. From this point of view, minors' mature age is not ahead of schedule, and their cognitive control ability is insufficient, so they are more susceptible to adverse effects and go astray.
Wang Ying, chief of juvenile criminal prosecution department of Haishu District Procuratorate, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, said that from the perspective of rationality, morality and recognition control ability, people's brain emotional control is basically completed at the age of 24 to 26. From this perspective, in fact, the age of criminal responsibility should be raised. According to some current judicial practice data, 94% of juvenile offenders will be corrected, and only 6% will become recidivists. These recidivists will commit more than 50% serious crimes such as rape, murder and robbery in their communities and countries. From this perspective, the criminal justice system should also take corresponding different measures.
Wu Zongxian, a professor at the Institute of Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University, believes that reducing the age of criminal responsibility is not supported by rigorous scientific investigation at present, and it also violates the principle of modesty in criminal law. If other legal and non-legal measures can be applied, criminal means should not be considered. It is very important that lowering the age of criminal responsibility will bring bad consequences, expand the criminal circle and be extremely unfavorable to social stability.
Wang Zhixiang, a professor at the Institute of Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University, believes that whether to lower the age of criminal responsibility involves the consideration of criminal policy. Our country's policy on juvenile delinquency is education, probation and salvation, and the criminal policy is consistent in legislative revision. It should be emphasized that the implementation of the criminal policy of education, probation and salvation does not mean that the bad behavior of minors cannot be properly punished, otherwise it will be very dangerous. The current law does have problems in dealing with the behavior of minors. For example, the third paragraph of Article 17 of the Criminal Law stipulates that those who are under the age of 16 are not subject to criminal punishment, and can be taken in for reeducation by the government if necessary. This provision is too general, and what is "when necessary" is difficult to operate in judicial practice. In this regard, we should reflect on the problems existing in legislation and law enforcement.
When it comes to the unification of laws, some experts suggest that the General Principles of the Civil Law (Draft) will lower the age of limited capacity for civil conduct to 6 years, which will change according to social conditions. However, Wu Zongxian believes that the age of criminal responsibility should not be lowered, because lowering the age of civil capacity is beneficial to the parties concerned and to maintaining social order. However, lowering the age of criminal responsibility will bring severe punishment to the parties concerned, and its significance to society is unpredictable. In this regard, Wang Zhixiang agreed that civil liability and criminal liability are two different responsibilities, and civil liability can be replaced but criminal liability cannot be passed on, which can only be borne by the perpetrators themselves. Reducing the age of a person with limited capacity for civil conduct in civil law cannot be a sufficient reason to reduce the age of criminal responsibility.
Whether to lower the age of criminal responsibility: a multi-dimensional study is needed.
Even if we advocate lowering the age of criminal responsibility, there are different opinions in academic circles. If someone thinks that considering the general level of minors' identification and control ability, they advocate directly reducing the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old; Some people also think that the age of criminal responsibility should be kept at 14 years old in principle, and exceptions should be added under 14 years old, and flexible principles such as bad circumstances should be adopted as the basis for conviction.
Whether the age of criminal responsibility of the perpetrator should be reduced to less than 14 years old for committing eight kinds of crimes such as intentional homicide stipulated in Article 17 of the Criminal Law is controversial at present. Gu Yongqiang, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, believes that this issue involves the core issue of the age of criminal responsibility, that is, the ability to understand the nature of behavior and self-control. In addition to considering the statutory principle of the age of criminal responsibility, we should also jump out of this system and consider other factors: First, the degree of social harm of this behavior itself. Whether it is really necessary to incriminate. Second, the prevalence of this behavior. It should be universal to stipulate the behavior of a class of people as a crime. Third, the legal meaning and social cognition of the concept of crime. There is no strict boundary between illegality and crime in western countries, and there is basically no strict distinction. Crime is a relatively strict and serious concept in China, and the understanding and evaluation of crime in society are also quite different, which will affect whether to lower the age of criminal responsibility.
Zheng Ziyin believes that a visual angle that cannot be ignored is how to effectively protect underage victims in bad behavior incidents. Because minors are highly imitative, their values are constantly being shaped. In practice, the number of underage victims is relatively large. If the law does not have correct value judgments and institutional arrangements, it will affect these groups and cause public opinion.
Judging from the historical development law, some experts said that the setting of the age of criminal responsibility in China has gone through a long development process, and finally formed the current classification standards of 14 years old, 16 years old and 18 years old, which have reasonable scientific basis and are in line with China's national conditions, and should not be lowered rashly. From overseas experience, Fei Meiping, a professor in the Department of Social Work at East China University of Science and Technology, said that a large number of empirical studies abroad show that lowering the age of responsibility can not curb juvenile delinquency, but will bring many new problems, such as cross-infection, labeling, and promoting the formation of anti-social personality among minors. Yao, a professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, and a lecturer at People's Public Security University of China said that we should be cautious about lowering the age of criminal responsibility in many ways.
Wang, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, and Dai Qiuying, an associate researcher at the Institute of Applied Law of the Supreme Court, said that solving the problem of juvenile bad behavior and lowering the age of criminal responsibility is only one of them, which needs to be considered comprehensively as a systematic project and discussed from multiple disciplines and angles. Future legislation needs full public discussion and rational argumentation. Some experts suggest that an empirical study on the age of criminal responsibility in China should be started as soon as possible, and corresponding countermeasures should be taken accordingly. Xi Xiao Hua, an associate professor in the Department of Social Work of Capital Normal University, and Zhu Jian, executive deputy director of the Office of the Shanghai Committee for the Protection of Minors, and others called for the establishment and improvement of a diversified juvenile justice system and the adoption of multiple measures to solve the problem of juvenile delinquency.