Research On The Deinstitutionalization Of Treatments On Juvenile Offenders

The continuingly increase of juvenile delinquency has become a severe social problem in the recent years, and the number of crimes committed by the juvenile offenders who are set free after imprisonment has account for a relatively great proportion. In the environment that juvenile delinquency has attracted focus from the whole society, it's not appropriate to emphasize on purely punishment and strike. As in the background of trend of practicing punishment in society and promoting reforms of non-custodial treatment, in allusion to the characteristics of juveniles different from adults and custodial treatment toward juveniles bring about more negativities than positivities, it has become a common understanding for the juvenile justice systems of different countries to penalize non-custodial penalties to juvenile offenders.A retrospect to the past twenty years of development of juvenile justice system in China, from preparation to establishment, then to perfection step by step, shows that the typical Chinese style correction system played a positive role in striking juvenile delinquency and helping juvenile offenders back to society. And drawbacks and problems still exist, and the realization of non-custodial treatment is not satisfactory. For example, sentence of short-term imprisonment is paid more attention; application of suspended penalty is relatively low; rate of parole is low and the degree of socialization of practicing penalty is not high, etc.Viewing the juvenile justice system of Asia-pacific and Europe and American areas, some special measures are taken toward juvenile delinquency. To illustrate, a suspended fine penalty in Japan, protection and control system in Taiwan, probation and social service in Britain, suspended sentence in German and so on which are embodiment of trend of sentencing lighter punishment and emphasis on human rights of developed countries and areas, as well as a major trend of the development of criminal law of the present world. On the basis of connecting with Chinese conditions, it is a positive and effective measure of use the foreign exploration in this field for reference.Non-custodial treatment toward juvenile offenders should be taken as important content of juvenile justice reform in China: strictly restricting the application of custodial penalty; promoting juvenile division and establishing juvenile parole system; applying suspended sentence conditionally to those guilty juvenile offenders; improving the application rate of juvenile probation; putting forward socialization of practicing penalty and relative social support measures.