Study On The Duty Crimes Of The Officers' In The States Or The Counties Of The Song Dynasty

Official misdeed is mainly defined to be the criminal activity taking place in performing official duty or taking advantage of official status and authority, and thus bringing cognizable damage to individual and society.Officers'duty crimes could have been seen from the ancient time in Chinese history, but they were various in different dynasties. To prevent government official from committing a crime, the emperors in Song Dynasty had made a lot of efforts in legislation, judicature, inspection, official selection, administration and supervision of public opinion, and framed large numbers of measures to punish the official offenders.However, there were still a few chiefs of prefecture and county in Song Dynasty degenerated into criminals in office. Their misconducts always fell into the categories of taking bribes, neglecting duty, arrogating powers and lying, which had roots spread to various directions with trunk of feudal despotism. Under the system of magistrate running state, redundant officials, superfluous army, extravagant expenditure and factional strife had a far-reaching impact on polity of Song Dynasty, especially on the crimes committed by government officials. The official misdeeds brought a great deal of damages to the governance of Song Dynasty, which led to losing public and private property, aggravating financial difficulties, reducing administrative efficiency, weakening battle effectiveness of army, polluting social ethos and undermining political and economic stability.During different periods of Song Dynasty, the corruption-combating presented different features. In early times of the dynasty, emperors Tai-zu and Tai-zong put rigorous laws into practice so as to consolidate their rule. After emperor Zhen-zong ascended throng, the punishment for official criminals became less severe. In despite emperors Shen-zong and Xiao-zong carried out stricter laws to prevent official violation, the accumulative difficulties could not be solved at one stroke and decadent tide of the empire could not be stopped.