Countries have different definitions of the age of teenagers. As far as China is concerned, teenagers refer to people aged 12-25. Since people of this age group have different physiological and psychological characteristics from adults, the study of juvenile crime is to study and explore the causes of juvenile crime, methods to reduce and prevent juvenile crime, and the treatment of juvenile offenders. of sentencing.
Today, juvenile crime has become the third major social problem after environmental pollution, drug trafficking, and drug abuse. It has attracted strong attention from all over the world, and China is no exception. Especially in today's harmonious socialist society, where material civilization and spiritual civilization develop together, juvenile crime is a top priority that we urgently need to solve. Young people are the future of the motherland and the hope of mankind. As far as our country is concerned, in the 1950s and 1960s, juvenile crimes accounted for about 20%-30% of the total number of criminal crimes in the country. In the 1980s, the number increased to more than 70%, which is still high. According to statistics from our province (1991-1995), the juvenile crime rate and school student crime rate have doubled compared with the 1980s. Especially since the 1990s, with the deepening of my country's reform and opening up and the rapid development of social economy, my country's juvenile crime has shown new characteristics such as younger age, gangsterism, and viciousness. Statistics show that the initial age of juvenile delinquency in the 1990s was 2-3 years earlier than in the 1970s, and the number of crimes committed by people under the age of 14 increased significantly, with the youngest being under 10 years old! There were 27 criminals under the age of 14 in our city, compared with 35 in 1998 and 47 in 1999. 75% of youth crime is gang related. In recent years, among juvenile crimes, there have been an increasing number of major criminal cases backed by violence, and the level of violence has become higher and higher. Moreover, juvenile crimes rarely consider the consequences during the crime process. The criminal methods are barbaric and cruel, and the social impact is very bad. According to statistics, criminal cases involving minors currently account for 65% of all criminal cases in our country. Therefore, studying juvenile delinquency has always been a difficult task.
Countries have different definitions of the age of teenagers. As far as China is concerned, teenagers refer to people aged 12-25. Since people of this age group have different physiological and psychological characteristics from adults, the study of juvenile crime is to study and explore the causes of juvenile crime, methods to reduce and prevent juvenile crime, and the treatment of juvenile offenders. of sentencing.
1. Reasons for juvenile delinquency
There are many types of juvenile delinquency, but there are two fundamental reasons: 1. Teenagers’ own psychological and physiological factors2. The influence of external social environmental factors on adolescents.
1. Teenagers’ own psychological and physiological factors can easily lead them to commit crimes.
(1) Adolescence is a critical period of life development. Physical and mental development is unbalanced, and psychological development lags behind physical development.
Psychologically, they are in a semi-childish and semi-mature state, with strong plasticity; physiologically, their bodies are developing rapidly, they are energetic, and they are easily suggestible. It is a period of rapid development of personality and independence. During this period, teenagers' awareness of autonomy and self-reliance has been strengthened, and they have their own independent opinions when problems arise. They love to solve problems by themselves and are unwilling to be restrained, and their sense of maturity becomes more and more prominent. Psychologically, they hope that society and their parents will treat them as adults and give them more free space and autonomy, but they still have to rely on their parents and society financially and in life. Therefore, once the materiality of these teenagers is not satisfied, they can easily transfer the objects to which they are attached, which is called "power transfer." They form small groups based on their interests and personalities. As long as one person in these small groups is affected by bad information and has criminal tendencies, it is easy to form gang crimes. This is also the reason why gang crimes have increased in recent years. (2) Most juvenile offenders have reversed moral and life views and weak legal awareness. (1) With the development of social economy, most young people can work hard, keep pace with the times, consciously improve their own quality, and become active pioneers and builders of the socialist motherland. However, unhealthy factors in the commodity economy, such as money worship, hedonism and extreme individualism, have also caused some teenagers to lose their way. Formed wrong values ??of life. They mistakenly believe that the value of life lies in taking from society. In their eyes, fighting, brawling, cheating, and hooliganism are all "fun things" and "glorious things", and those who dare to take risks and do their best are "heroes." Selflessness and self-sacrifice ring hollow in the eyes of most young criminals. It is most beneficial to do everything for yourself, and even use this as a legitimate reason to commit crimes, mistaking crime as a legitimate way and way to get rich. (2) Weak legal concept. The author found this in a survey of several primary and secondary schools. With the deepening of legal education, although students' legal concepts have been enhanced, there are still a considerable number of students who are not interested in legal education and only care about their academic performance and whether they can get into college. Even if they engage in legal education, it is superficial and passive. Therefore, the legal awareness of these students needs to be improved urgently. For example, Feng, a second-grade student in a certain school, took advantage of opportunities after school to rob lower-grade classmates of their money by beating and intimidating them. The police asked him if he knew what he was doing was a crime, and his answer was: Aren't I just paying back the money? If that stuns the police. There are also people who commit crimes just to test the police's investigative capabilities, and after being caught, they think they are joking. Some even regard entering the public security bureau as a "big deal", and so on. A large number of facts show that due to unbalanced physical and mental development and weak legal concepts, most juvenile offenders are easily tempted and influenced by bad information from the outside world, and are prone to break the law or even commit crimes.
2. The external environment is the main factor that promotes juvenile delinquency.
No one’s growth and life are isolated, and they are inseparable from society and the surrounding environment. Teenagers are no exception. They grow up in the reality of society. The physical and mental characteristics of adolescents determine the importance of their growing environment for their healthy growth. There is a proverb in our country: If you are close to Zhu Zhechi, you will be black, if you are close to Mexico. It shows that the environment has a great influence on people. (1) The negative impact of family environment and education on adolescents. The family is not only the basic unit of society, but also the first lesson for children. Parents are their children's first teachers. Family education has a profound impact on the formation of children's outlook on life and morality, and is the most direct and main cause of juvenile delinquency. Defects in family education are the basis of children's bad personality, lurking the risk of teenagers embarking on the path of illegal crimes. Surveys on the family circumstances of juvenile offenders are generally biased and mostly deformed. Some parents are at odds, some are divorced, some have improper education and poor management, and some live with their elders and indulge in sensuality. Xiao Xin, a 17-year-old boy, hacked his grandmother to death, wounded his grandfather, and stole money from the Internet. His parents' lack of education and his grandparents' overindulgence caused him to become addicted to the Internet after dropping out of school, and eventually fell into the abyss of crime. This is a typical case. Teenagers are innocent. Such a shocking and unscrupulous case has sounded the alarm for family education. (2) Defects in school education are an important cause of juvenile delinquency. The school education period is a critical period for the formation of young people's outlook on life and world view, and is the only way for young people to grow up healthily. But today, there are still many schools that only focus on exam-oriented education and one-sided pursuit of enrollment rates.
They believe that legal and moral education are only the needs of the situation, so they ignore moral education, lack legal education, and deal with it passively. Some nominal activities have been carried out, such as offering mental health education courses and student legal education lectures. Due to the lack of correct understanding, the transformation and updating of educators' own concepts have been ignored. In the end,
This is just a formality. There are also some teachers who often punish students in disguise, discriminate against poor students, especially students with double differences, let them go their own way, and even push them out of their homes and into the society. These practices have increased the reserve of juvenile delinquency to a certain extent and become an important cause of juvenile delinquency. (3) In the process of establishing my country's market economic system, some factors that are not conducive to the healthy growth of teenagers are another major cause of juvenile crime. With the deepening of reform and opening up, the invasion of various social ugliness from abroad, and the emergence of some spiritual and cultural dross in our country's history, have played an extremely corrosive role in the healthy growth of young people. Such as pornography, gambling and drugs; the proliferation of unhealthy movies, videos, books and periodicals that promote sex, love and murder; illegal Internet cafes, game arcades, video parlors and other places around schools and communities; they are all important factors that induce the rise in juvenile crime. social factors. According to statistics, 14.1% of schools have unhealthy books and periodicals for sale, 26.1% of schools have video halls near them, and 19.2% of crimes are caused by the poisoning of pornographic, violent and other books, periodicals, and audio-visual products. Juvenile crimes caused by the spread of bad information on the Internet have increased. Increase. Teenagers' sexual development gradually matures, they like to contact the opposite sex, and they are full of curiosity about the opposite sex. If they are induced by bad information from the outside world at this time, they will commit crimes due to puppy love, poor sexual desire control, and uncontrolled greed. Example: This is the case of Zang, a student from Class 3 (1) of a junior high school in a certain county, raping a female classmate. According to his own confession, he watched pornographic videos and books and committed crimes. There are also teenagers who regard the fugitives in movies and TV shows as heroes, and the methods of committing crimes as their own business, and the methods of committing crimes are cruel. For example, a young man, Yan XX, took a 12-year-old child to Shanghai to play and spent all his family's 600 yuan. They planned to rent a car by deception and hit the driver on the head with a prepared bottle of wine on the way home, but the robbery failed. Asked why he did this, he replied: "I saw it in the movie to rob money."
3. The juvenile legislation system is imperfect and generally lacks enforceability.
Although our country has enacted the "Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency" and the "Law on the Protection of Minors", these laws lack corresponding punitive measures for offenders, and "violations" have appeared in the judicial work of some cases. There is an embarrassing situation to follow the law.” In addition, the society's legal education and moral propaganda for young people are just a formality, and the lack of help and education for juvenile delinquents is also an important social reason for juvenile delinquency. As can be seen from the above, bad social environment (including the Internet environment) and wrong family education methods are encouraging or even directly promoting juvenile delinquency.
Second, prevent juvenile delinquency
To sum up, it can be seen that the problem of juvenile delinquency is a complex social problem, with both internal objective reasons and external factors. objective reasons. Therefore, the author believes that the prevention of juvenile crime should start from the following aspects:
1. Establish and improve the juvenile legislative system, strengthen social responsibility, and increase publicity so that juvenile protection is not just a form. 1) Law, as a social norm that regulates people's behavior, clearly stipulates people's rights and obligations in accordance with the law and provides people with a code of conduct or model. The psychological and physiological characteristics of teenagers determine that they are susceptible to temptation and have poor self-protection ability. Therefore, relevant departments should, on the basis of further improving legislation, formulate feasible targeted and preventive legal measures to regulate the behavior of teenagers, optimize their living environment, and make the prevention of juvenile crime truly legal. 2) Although juvenile delinquency is a serious social problem that has attracted strong attention from all walks of life, some moral and legal publicity in society is often inadequate for one reason or another. Therefore, it is necessary to further strengthen research and publicity on juvenile law popularization. . a) All units should give full play to their functions, especially in areas with poor social security, regularly analyze and study the prevention of juvenile crime, timely summarize and promote typical experiences, discover and solve existing problems, and promote the prevention of juvenile crime In-depth development of work. b) Working methods should be innovative. Pay attention to the use of modern means such as informatization and networking to carry out prevention work and improve work level and efficiency.
For example, innovative activity carriers for youth community cultural and entertainment activities, psychological counseling, skills training, employment guidance, follow-up and education, etc. We will establish a system to continuously meet the needs of young people for healthy growth and truly implement the prevention of juvenile crime.
2. Increase efforts to purify the growth environment of young people and create a good environment for their healthy growth. An unhealthy growing environment is a "breeding ground" for juvenile criminal activities. Optimizing the growth environment will play a positive role in preventing juvenile crime. Therefore, we will vigorously clean up the cultural market, carry out special rectification of newspapers, periodicals, audio and video products that promote obscenity and pornography, and resolutely ban illegal Internet cafes and game arcades in and around campuses. Film, television, radio, press and publication departments and various broadcast venues at all levels of society must adhere to the correct direction of public opinion and severely punish illegal and criminal acts that provide content and information that endangers the physical and mental health of young people in accordance with the law.
3. Families, schools, and society should each take their own responsibilities and integrate with each other to jointly build a solid line of defense to prevent juvenile crime. (1) Family. The family is the basis for preventing juvenile delinquency, family education is the first educational front for adolescents, and parents are their children’s most direct teachers, so the role of family education must be given full play. On the one hand, we must use scientific and healthy education methods to educate young people, starting from childhood and starting from small things. We must not only be strict with them, but also be patient with them. When children achieve results, we must remind them not to be satisfied and not to increase their sense of pride. When you have shortcomings, don't rush to reprimand them. It is necessary to analyze the reasons, find the starting point of education, and then guide them to recognize and correct their mistakes. Let them experience the love of their parents and the warmth of family from education. On the other hand, parents should lead by example and lead by example. Parents' words and deeds have a great influence on children's growth. Improper parental behavior and improper education methods will bring adverse consequences to the physical and mental health of teenagers. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the legal awareness of parents of students, refrain from doing illegal things, set a good example, and be close friends of their children in life, but they cannot be tolerant or go to extremes. Only in this way can teenagers grow up healthily. (2) School. School education is an important measure to prevent juvenile delinquency and cultivate the healthy growth of adolescents. a) Improve the shortcomings of the education system and reform the education system. Legal education, frustration education, ideological and moral education should be carried out for young people, and included in regular teaching courses, so that young people can receive enlightenment education on legal concepts from an early age, establish correct values ??of life, enhance the ability to distinguish right from wrong and resist the erosion of bad information, and develop The habit of observing discipline and law during student days. When they go into society, they can correctly exercise their rights and consciously perform their obligations in the family, collective and society, which has a profound impact on their lives. b) Improve the moral quality and legal awareness of teachers, make up for the lack of family education, and reduce the risk groups of juvenile crime. The study of moral character, laws and regulations is not only a matter for students, but also for teachers to some extent. Investigations show that reprimanding and scolding students who make mistakes will only make students feel disgusted, form a rebellious mentality, give up on themselves, and even produce negative consequences. Especially children from single-parent families and estranged families need to be called by the teacher's heartfelt and indescribable love to set sail in adversity, have a sound personality, and become useful people to the people and society. (3) Society. a) Give full play to the advantages of the social environment, create a relaxed employment environment for young people, and avoid the disorderly flow of unemployed young people. According to surveys, many people who turn to crime are unemployed vagrants who have nothing to do all day long and have no food or clothing, so they will inevitably steal and rob. Therefore, while expanding employment opportunities, communication and coordination of employment information between regions should be strengthened. Relevant government departments should allocate and manage the flow of migrant workers and rationally allocate human resources to generate maximum social and economic benefits and avoid migrant workers. Quantity imbalance leads to blind and disorderly flow of personnel. (2) Do a good job in the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders and severely crack down on various crimes that endanger the growth of juvenile offenders. Juveniles who commit crimes are both victims and victims, and most of them have the desire to reform. Therefore, strengthening and improving the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders and their return to society after serving their sentences is the basis for preventing juveniles from committing crimes again. Political and legal departments, social departments and families of delinquent young people must care for and care for the rehabilitated youth in their lives and work. We also actively contact the labor department to provide information and employment opportunities for unemployed young people, and cooperate with the labor and education department to consolidate the results of assistance and education. c) Give delinquent teenagers enough respect and trust so that they are not discriminated against, so that they are confident in the future, have a sense of belonging to society, and love life and society. This will be more conducive to continued education and transformation.
Sentencing of juvenile crimes
Our country’s laws belong to the civil law system and are highly clause-based. At present, some legal systems for juveniles are not perfect, and there is no set of laws and regulations that are complementary to the "Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency" and the "Law on the Protection of Minors" and have strong enforceability. In addition, due to the lack of coordination among various departments within the judicial organs, the reform education for juvenile offenders is lacking. Therefore, the sentencing of juveniles in our country still needs a process of gradual improvement from practice to theory. However, Article 44, Paragraph 1, of my country's "Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency" stipulates: "Pursue criminal responsibility for minors who commit crimes, implement the policy of education, reform, and rescue, and adhere to the principle of giving priority to education and supplementing punishment." It sets the tone for sentencing juvenile offenders.
The author believes that although juvenile offenders are criminals, their particularity determines that their punishment methods are different from those of adults. Therefore, the following suggestions are made: (1) Under the principles of education, rescue, and probation, minors who need to be sentenced need to be followed up, and social investigation agencies need to be established based on advanced foreign experience to allow social investigators to appear in court to minimize the need for Sentencing harm to minors. (2) Not only set up juvenile courts, but also help and save sentenced juvenile offenders, and conduct irregular inspections and return visits to juveniles who have been released from prison to promote their independent and positive behavior and prevent them from re-offending. For example, Paragraph 2 of Article 152 of the Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that no cases involving crimes committed by minors over the age of 14 but under the age of 16 shall be heard in public. Cases involving crimes committed by minors over the age of 16 but under the age of 18 are generally not heard in public. The purpose of this regulation is to protect the personal privacy of minors, reduce the pressure that may be exerted on them from all aspects, and help them build the confidence to learn and live again. For example, the "Expedited Trial Rules for Juvenile Cases" issued by the Fengtai District Procuratorate of Beijing is at the forefront of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of juvenile criminal suspects. Thirdly, in terms of detention places, they must be separated from adults to avoid mutual infection, and special places for the detention and rehabilitation of minors should be set up. These all reflect the special treatment of juveniles in our country's criminal law.
In short, preventing and reducing juvenile crime is a major matter related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and requires the care and protection of schools, families and society. The prevention and rehabilitation system for juvenile delinquency is still a task that requires the attention of the whole society and is a major matter related to the national economy and people's livelihood. This is not only the responsibility of the judicial administration system, but also the obligation that the whole society should bear. We need further improvements in future work to truly achieve the goal of reducing and preventing juvenile crime.
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