Research Of 'Juvenile Delinquency Act' In Taiwan Area Of China

Juvenile delinquency has become a serious social problem in the world.Many countries or regions have carried out research on this issue and constructed an independent juvenile legal system.Taiwan is a typical example.Juvenile delinquency in Chinese mainland has become increasingly serious,but Chinese mainland has not established an independent juvenile legal system yet,and the entire juvenile justice system relies on the adult criminal law system.Juvenile justice treatment mainly focuses on criminal punishment and the juvenile detention education and work-study schools has been rarely applied due to some historical reasons.Therefore,juvenile justice in Chinese mainland lacks early intervention and follow-up counseling.Taiwan is an inseparable part of China and it shares the same moral tradition,human customs,family values,and value judgment of things.Although law is a tool for governing the country,the law is rooted in national history,social tradition,and ethics and the soil sharing the similar components of social factors shall adapt to the growth of similar ‘legal plants'.It is a reliable shortcut to establish and improve juvenile justice in China by analyzing the juvenile criminal policies in Taiwan and drawing on the operation mechanism of Juvenile Delinquency Act.The stipulation of Juvenile Delinquency Act in Taiwan of China is a symbol that Juvenile legal system gets rid of adult legal system.An independent juvenile legal that aims to protectionism and children right first has come into being,which puts the Juvenile Delinquency Act as the central part,supporting by the Children and Juvenile Welfare and Right Protection Act,Children and Juvenile Sexual Transaction Protection Regulations and etc.Juvenile Delinquency Act of Taiwan has been revised several times after its formulation,which is in line with the evolution of juvenile criminal policy.Juvenile criminal policy is a mirror reflecting the prevention of juvenile delinquency of a country or region,and it objectively responds to the demands of political,economic and social changes to social defense,and proposes a series of means and strategies for preventing juvenile delinquency.Juvenile criminal policy of the world now sways between protection and punishment of criminal policies for juvenile,while Taiwan still insists in the application of protective and corrective juvenile criminal policy and is advancing in the direction of protecting juvenile welfare,and strengthening the protection of juvenile victims in consideration of two-way principle of protection,after it has undergone the transformation from retributive to punitive,and from protective to corrective.The Juvenile Delinquency Act always aims to protect the juveniles from the inhuman punishment and to prevent the juvenile criminals from the formulation to revises.Therefore,the Juvenile Delinquency Act expanded its applicable objects into juvenile delinquents and predelinquents.However,due to the impact of juvenile criminal policies,the applicable scope,rightfulness,moderation and value about predelinquents has aroused disputes in juvenile law community and judicial department,especially the treatment to play truant juveniles.How to handle with this kind of cases is a question,counting it as children welfare protection or still staying at juvenile judicial jurisdiction.Influenced by the traditional criminal concepts in China Mainland,the responsibility to look after juvenile is mainly by family,then by the rehabilitation shelter of government.However,for juvenile delinquents,those families themselves exist lots of problems and the applicable rate to rehabilitation shelter is low,the remedy to juvenile delinquents is almost in blank.The suggestion is to bring the juvenile delinquency into judicial jurisdiction.Besides,serious delinquent conducts have already been proved to be one source of juvenile criminals.Therefore,the prevention is the most important measures to juvenile criminal treatment and prevention needs to be adopted for serious delinquent minors.The original intention of the establishment of the Juvenile Court in Taiwan is to protect the healthy growth of the juvenile,to adjust their growth environment,and to correct their characters.Juvenile courts dominate the handling of juvenile cases.The prosecution's decision to file a non-prosecution decision indicates that it has the power to cooperate in protecting juveniles.The juvenile police team is at the forefront of dealing with juvenile delinquency incidents and has the responsibility of cutting-edge prevention.China's juvenile justice organizations has various issues,such as limited resources,insufficient strength,insufficient independence,and inadequate supporting systems.In drawing on the experience of the construction of juvenile justice institutions in Taiwan,China should take the construction of juvenile trial organizations as a starting point,give full play to the promotion of the construction of juvenile procuratorates,comprehensively promote the construction of juvenile police centers,and make an overall plan for the construction of the judicial team for minors.Juvenile Delinquency Act stipulates that the dual-disciplinary mechanism of protection and criminal punishment shall be adopted for juvenile,and the protection shall be the main part,and the criminal division shall be supplemented.The severity of protective treatment from weak to strong is exhortation,admonition with counseling for holiday life,protection and management,placement counseling,and probation education.The decision on the punishment of juveniles can not only evaluate the "delinquency",but should mainly assess the "protective" factors.The choice between protection and criminal punishment to juveniles is to balance the responsibility of criminal juveniles and then to evaluate the “protective” factors.As Chinese mainland only has a single criminal punishment mechanism for juveniles,it is necessary to add protection measures.The protective factors should limit the application of custody instead of the application of corrective measures and establish classified prevention system and multiple protective measures to achieve the well connection to corrective measures of juvenile delinquency.Juvenile Delinquency Act has established special procedures that are different from the criminal procedure rules of ordinary criminal cases to protect the best interests of juveniles: the whole case transfer,pre-trial investigation,pre-argument,trial,protection,and reverse transfer system.The juvenile court may take protective measures for the juveniles being tried,such as rapid counseling and delivery observation in the process of juvenile delinquency trial.Compared with the pre-trial investigation system of Taiwan,Chinese mainland has stipulated juvenile social investigation system,but there is always a problem that the investigation subject is chaos,so it is suggested that the procuratorate shall set up special positions for specialists to carry out juvenile social investigations.The various revisions of the Juvenile Delinquency Act have laid a legal foundation for juvenile justice welfare.Meanwhile,the formulation of the legal system for juvenile welfare and rights protection of juveniles and juveniles with the characteristics of social law and rights protection has undoubtedly provided social welfare support for the prevention of juvenile delinquency.In addition,the improvement of the victim protection system has weakened the contradiction between the protection of juveniles and the protection of the rights and interests of the victims,and balanced the difference in value orientation between the juvenile justice system and the defense society.Since China has not established an independent juvenile legal system,the adjustment of juveniles' criminal behaviors still follows the ordinary criminal legal system,but the concept in this ordinary system conflicts with the concept in juvenile justice system giving priority to protection,which results in the failure to implement the juvenile criminal policy of education first,punishment supplemented in China.After analyzing the Juvenile Delinquency Act in Mainland of China,the main issues lies on the following aspects,flexible age of criminal responsibility to juvenile criminals,unsuitable criminal structure and types in juvenile criminal regulations,lack of professional requirements to the personnel when handling cases,unitary conditional non-prosecution function,criminalization in public security regulations,simplification of dealing procedures and corrective measures;lack of protective and corrective measures in litigation phase,over-sticking to the principle of some special juvenile protective regulations,lack of reward and penalty regulations,delinquent conducts specified in Juvenile Act is not reasonable,lack of prevention measures and protective measures from family,government,school and society,ambiguous and inapplicable regulations and so on.Therefore,under the " Juvenile Delinquency Act " system,it is proposed that Chinese mainland should formulate an independent law to adjust the wrongful behaviors of juveniles,specifically from the following aspects: First,the core of the Act is to reflect the best interests of juveniles and mainly focus on the adjustment of the environment that is not suitable for the growth of minors.Second,the Act shall focus on the establishment of a dual treatment mechanism for minors to establish juvenile protection and criminal punishment.Third,the protection of the Act lies in the establishment of a system of observation and protection that clarifies the duties of relevant personnel.Fourth,the aim of the Act is to establish a hierarchical prevention model,forming a prevention system with family education as the focus,social forces as the support,and the judiciary as the last line of defense.