Conceptual Updating and Improvement Path for China's Criminal Norms of Juvenile Delinquency

HE Ting & WANG Lida 

Abstract: China's criminal norms for juvenile delinquency suffer problems such as outdated legislative models, a lack of special provisions on convictions, an extensive criminal punishment system, and an oversimplified rights recovery system. Therefore, it is necessary to find an appropriate path to improve and strengthen the protection of special, prior rights of minors, based on updating relevant concepts. From the perspective of the law of juvenile delinquency, the law of human development reflects the decisiveness of juvenile delinquency, and the law of age-crime curve showcases the stages of juvenile delinquency. In terms of the treatment of juveniles who have committed crimes, the approach to juvenile delinquency in criminal law should shift from "commutation for children at discretion" to "child-friendly" and from social defense to individual rehabilitation. Based on conceptual updating, the criminal norms for juvenile delinquency should be improved in four aspects: first, establishing special rules to broaden the path of exculpation; second, promoting the leniency of sentencing by taking into account the perpetrator factor; third, introducing special types of punishment and methods of enforcement to strengthen preventive and educational punishments; fourth, building a multilevel rights recovery system to ensure the rehabilitation and development of juvenile offenders.

Keywords: juvenile delinquency · age-crime curve · decriminalization · perpetrator factor · rehabilitation system