| This dissertation, A Study on Criminal Policy on Economic Crime, starts from demarcating two vital concepts: economic crime and criminal policy. Then this dissertation proceeds onwards with sorting out China's economic criminal policy as against some foreign practices and analyzing China's policies on legislation against economic crime, the criminal punishment policy, the juridical policy and the policy for preventing economic crimes, as follows:As is known, economic crime and criminal policy are two vital concepts, but over these two concepts, the academia constantly holds starkly different understanding. After research on the related part of history, this dissertation finds that either economic crime in the sense of criminology or the economic crime in the sense of science of criminal law was born only over one hundred years ago. As a concept,"economic crime"got into shape in the free competition stage of capitalism, and its economic foundation was capitalist commodity economy. The inception and evolution of the concept were not directly relevant to the socio-economic foundation of the slave society or that of the feudal society. Thus economic crime is behavior committed in violation of the administrative and economic laws, rules and regulations, and with severe damage to the overall economic interests of the society that shall be prosecuted. As a whole, economic crime covers a varying range of criminal behavior. The history of economic crime reveals that the test for whether a certain behavior constitutes an economic crime or not is in constant changes. With the evolution of the economic structure, the charges for economic crime change both quantitatively and qualitatively, and therefore the concept of economic crime should not be viewed statically. The concept of criminal policy also attracts constant debates. Ever since Feuerbach introduced the concept of Kriminalpolitik at the beginning of the 19th century, the history of criminal policy research has virtually become the history of appending the definition of criminal policy. But, after taking a historical view of the criminal policy, this dissertation believes that there are only two versions of criminal policy as generally understood: one is the classical criminal policy (in the narrow sense), and the other is the modern criminal policy (in the broad sense). The classical concept of criminal policy stresses prosecution and control of crime through humane and reasonable application of criminal punishment, and is self-confined in dealing with crime with criminal law or criminal punishment. To be exact, the classical criminal policy is nothing but a set of policies and skills for applying penal policies or penalty. Its main purpose is set to examine the legislation and justice of criminal law and criminal law enforcement. As a branch of the science of criminal law, the classical criminal policy assumes an accessorial role, and apart from providing some policy and skill options for criminal legislation, justice and criminal law enforcement, it stands short of breaking through the existing framework of classical criminal law. The modern criminal policy inherits and supercedes the classical criminal policy. Besides the criminal law, the modern criminal policy stresses application of multi-disciplinary knowledge and achievements to find solutions to crime. The modern criminal policy is taken first as a set of values, that is, a set of basic rationale, attitudes and orientation regarding the relationship between human and society, crime and prosecution; then, it is taken as a set of executable policies and skills for prosecuting and preventing crime. All strategies, tactics, principles, rules and measures that are conducive for fighting against crime can be part of the modern criminal policy. This dissertation believes that, subject to the modern criminal policy rationale and principles, the so-called criminal policy is the total of all the strategies, principles, plans and individual measures that a state has formulated and enforced under the principle of rule of law for forestalling and suppressing crime and for protecting the society, keeping order and justice.China's criminal policy on economic crime since reform and opening up can be characterized as: 1. having a quick rate of criminalization and constantly enlarging the scope of economic crime; 2. tending to set severe penalty; 3. repeatedly launching"campaigns"to strike hard on the economic crime; 4. practicing a strong sense of utilitarianism and breaking the limits of law. The criminal policies on economic crime in the United States and Germany represent the two different legal systems'solution and practice for prosecuting economic crime, both of which have much for China to emulate. This dissertation briefly synthesizes the basic experience and successful practice of the two countries in fighting against economic crime by looking back to the related history of legislation.Legislation policy on fighting against economic crime is a major part of the study on criminal policy on economic crime. In this field, this dissertation highlights the following three issues: 1. criminalization in the field of economy; 2. criminalization in the field of crime committed by legal persons; 3. the non-criminalization amid the criminalization in the field of economy. This dissertation points out that, while we should give full awareness to the intrinsic characteristics of economic crime, the criminalization in the economy field should be carried out with due care so that the criminal law and other laws may have their own roles and the principle of economical application of the criminal law and its application as the last resort shall be followed. In applying the criminal law in the economic field, we should not deliberately set forbidden areas, or blindly believe in the awe the penalty conveys in the economic field. In China, we should be reasonable in setting the scope of criminalization and be cautious against excessive application of the criminal law in the economic field lest that it harm the vitality of economic development.The penalty policy on fighting against economic crime is the core of the criminal policy on economic crime. This dissertation analyzes the foundations of retribution, utilitarian and joint theories of configuring the penalty for the economic crime, highlights that configuration of penalty should follow the principles of balance, economy and self-constraint, and, based on comparison among the roles and statuses of different kinds of penalty in fighting against economic crime and foreign practices in this area, offers an objective appraisal of China's penalty configuration in fighting against economic crime. This dissertation proposes some solutions for improving on China's penalty configuration where fighting against economic crime is concerned, namely: reducing death penalty, softening the liberty-related penalty, improving on the property-related penalty, appending the qualification-related penalty, and perfecting the penalty configuration for crimes committed by legal persons. In the policy aspect of justice in prosecuting economic crime, this dissertation deals with the following three issues: 1. test for economic crime or non-crime; 2. application of non-criminal laws in determining the economic crime; and 3. penalty-awarding for economic crime. The complexity and diversity of the economic crime make it difficult to determinate whether an economic crime is committed. By analyzing the causes of the said difficulty, this dissertation proposes and analyzes a theoretical test. To follow up, this dissertation proposes a specific test. Generally speaking, the test should follow the principle of favoring the criminal and shall be applied strictly. The issue of application of non-criminal laws, particularly obvious in determining economic crime, is new in legal practice and should be well studied. This dissertation believes that, in determining economic crime, the application of non-criminal laws pointed by specific criminal provisions is actually the result of the legislator's borrowing the non-criminal laws with a view to avoiding excessive application of criminal provisions and to respecting the applicability of criminal law. Therefore, application of the non-criminal laws in determining economic crime has, per se, become part of the science of criminal law, and the construction and time-related validity of the non-criminal laws should thus follow those rules adopted for the criminal law. In determining the criminal penalty for economic crime, China's legal practice shows an obvious contrast between one extreme of giving excessive lenience and easily forgiving the economic criminal, and the other extreme of heavily punishing the criminal. Such a contrast is particularly bad for unification of judicial practice and the respect for law. As compared to foreign judicial practice, China's practice in the field of economic crime is relatively more severe. This dissertation thus proposes that, in light of the characteristics and pattern of economic crime, we may reduce the overall quantity of awarding criminal penalty for criminal crime, and should highly accentuate the awarding of property-related penalty, minor-degree liberty-related crime and non-criminal penalty as well as application of suspended prosecution and probation, and, within the scope allowed by law, try the best to reduce the awarding of death penalty and long-term liberty-related penalty.Policy for preventing economic crime is a natural part of the study of criminal policy on economic crime, since criminal penalty is only a secondary option in all possible countermeasures against crime and is the last resort, how to prevent economic crime becomes a very important issue here. After setting out the basic rationale that should be established for preventing economic crime and analyzing the causes for economic crime, this dissertation considers China's special situation and proposes to set up two firewalls to prevent economic crime. One is the economic ethics whereby the fundamental role of ethics played in preventing economic crime is highlighted. In preventing the company crime, we should emulate foreign practice to enhance the self-regulation of the enterprise, make and implement the enterprise law-abiding plan and strengthen the enterprise's sense of social responsibility. Incentives and pressure (interest-enhancing incentive mechanism and interest-constraining mechanism) are two devices for cultivating market economy ethics whereby the sense of morality and good faith of the subjects of market economy might be enhanced and those subjects without such senses might be deprived of survival in the market. The other is establishment of the mechanism of linking up the administrative enforcement and criminal justice and eliminating the rampant pan-administrative dealing of economic criminal cases. Subject to the principles of applying with priority the criminal law, no double jeopardy, and due process, this dissertation proposes the following solutions: 1. to establish the economic crime finding mechanism in administrative law enforcement; 2. to make specific and supplement the laws and regulations linking up the administrative law enforcement and criminal justice; 3. to highlight the status of the procuratorate and clarify the roles and statuses of the procuratorate and court in the administrative law enforcement and criminal justice; and 4. to enhance the legal training and supervision of the administrative law enforcement taskforce.To sum up, this dissertation believes that we should follow the rationale, principle, and values of the modern criminal policy to rationally view and examine China's current criminal policy on fighting against economic crime and follow successful foreign practice to reform and improve China's criminal policy on economic crime in light of the actual conditions of economic crime in China. The criminal policy tempered with mercy should be the direction of development where fighting against the economic crime is concerned.
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