On The Hsun Tzu's Thought Of Criminology

The thought—criminology—of Hsun Tzu is derived from a complicated and chaotic social environment in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. It is the liberation of ideas by allowing a hundred schools of thought strive that lays a solid cultural foundation for Hsun Tzu's criminology, especailly the exposition on criminal problems by Pre-Qin philosophers whose ideas become the direct theoretical source of Hsun Tzu's criminology. Hsun Tzu's expostion on criminal problems is explained from two aspects: cause of criminality and prevention of criminality. He proposes the doctrine of evil human nature. He believes that men are born evil and on the basis of which constructs his criminal ideology. In Hsun Tzu's opinion, criminality is not determined by a single factor, rather, it is a result of comprehensive functions of politics, economy, culture and so on. Accordingly, the prevention of criminality should be dealt with in many ways by combining political, economic and cultures measures instead of focusing on one aspect and thus the aim of preventing crimes can be realized. Hsun Tzu's thought of criminology is rather complete among ancient Chinese criminal ideologies and has a significant influence on the posterity. In the development process of criminology in feudal dynasties, it is easy to find the influence of Hsun Tzu's thought. In addition, some meaningful and influential contents in Hsun Tzu's thought of criminology deserve our study and reference. Currently, our nation is confronted with severe criminal problems. The crime rate is hign and it is on the rise every year. Different measure applied to prevent crime produce little effect. We must search for more theoretical support and practical ways to solve criminal problems. Our modern theories of criminology is mainly introduced from the west and we have little local theories. The ideologies of our ancient academicians is born and brought up in our own country, thus it is more compatible to our thinking patterns, behavioral habits and more appropriate to deal with criminal problems. Hsun Tzu's thought of criminology is comparatively deep and sound among different ancient thoughts of criminology in China.