Study On The Defect And Perfect Of Life Imprisonment System In Our Country

Theoretically life imprisonment refers to one kind of penalty means, which deprives a criminal lifelong freedom either in prison or in some certain place which carries out the penalty through labor. It is an important part of penalty system in our country. The main character of life imprisonment is that the time to deprive the criminal's freedom of person has no upper limit until the person lifelong. And it is the only penalty means less severe than death penalty, which is applied to those who commit severe crime. A pretty long period from now on, our country is remaining a state to perfect socialist market economy. Under this condition, kinds of social contradictions become more obvious, which inevitably leads to a good number of crimes. As the reclamation of the authority to examine and approve the death penalty being applied all around the country, there is a trend that number of death penalty would be greatly cut down. Many criminals will possibly be given a suspended sentence of death penalty or life imprisonment while be given a death penalty carried out immediately before. To make a good connection between death penalty and life imprisonment to solve the problem on those who are not sentenced to death penalty carried out immediately according to the policy of less and cautious death penalty sentence, it is necessary to summarize and analyze the present situation of the life imprisonment system. But now most available articles about life imprisonment are mainly discussing on the advantages, disadvantages, keeping and eliminating in theory. In research of life imprisonment, it is necessary to make a all-around observe and analysis on three steps, formulating, measuring and executing of the life imprisonment, taking the executing as the key point.Through reasonable classification and method of demonstration analysis of life imprisonment, the author has conducted an investigation of all the criminals of life imprisonment and postponed death penalty who are released, paroled, bailed for medical treatment, or even dead in one prison from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2006. And also through the actual investigation of 126 prisoners for life imprisonment and 95 for postponed death penalty, the author has made a statistic analysis on such aspects as the accusations, number of crime, development, factors, comparison and quantity distribution based on the commutation, parole, actual term and releasing age of the prisoners of life imprisonment.According to the investigation, 110 life imprisonment prisoners normally released away from prison are totally commuted to set-term imprisonment. The average of more commutation is for 3.2 times and the range for 5 years and 186 days. The problem existing in the commutation of life imprisonment is we cannot strictly distinguish the conditions of rendering meritorious service for the loose measurement and the understanding of the performance. Universally the method of percentage inspection is used for each 40 score is awarded as the performance of rendering meritorious service. Although there are many time for commutation, each of them is short and shows the character"leaking stream is small but steady, half steps are short but can be quick".Studying on the 105 prisoners who are normally away from the prison, the rate of parole is 95.5%, and the average term of parole is 2 years and 10 months. The proportion of parole of the life-imprisonment prisoners is obviously higher than the postpone-death-sentence prisoners'. The term of parole of life imprisonment is generally short, and the rule of which the term of parole of life imprisonment for 10 years doesn't work while the parole rate of life imprisonment is high.The average range of commutation of life imprisonment approaches twice of the parole of life imprisonment. The degree of commutation is obviously higher than parole. From the condition and effect, it is easier to get a parole than to get a commutation. On the contrary, current criminal law and rules providing the condition of commutation is much higher than the parole. The ruled condition of parole includes not only"have really fulfilled repenting performance", but also"won't endanger the society again"."Won't endanger the society again"means the prisoner is transformed to have no danger to society and will no longer commit a crime or even break the law after being away from the prison. The standard of the parole based on the estimating of the performance in prison and testifying out of prison is too high to be accurately judged and actually operated. To cut the risk of prevention and responsibility on committing crime again, the supervising institution make the conversion from the short term before imprisonment expiration to"little-risked"parole by considering that the criminal can endure not to commit crime during the initial period after being released. And the parole actually has developed into commutation.The author's suggestion is that the executing system should be take parole as major and commutation as auxiliary. Also suggests that we should cancel the rule that the prisoner can be commuted for"really has repented and corrected performance", set the condition for one can be commutated both for"really has repented and corrected performance and for meanwhile has rendered meritorious service", keep the rule that the prison should be commutated for his"having rendered significant meritorious service", cancel the parole condition as"won't endanger the society again", and take"really has repented and corrected performance"as the essential parole condition.The average term of 110 life imprisonment prisoners who are normally out of prison, including the imprisonment before verdict, has been carried out for 13 years and 6 days. And the term performed in prison is too short. The life imprisonment is not actually used as to deprive one's life time in prison. The insufficiency of actual term carried out leads to a weak effect of penalty. So the author suggests that the actual term of life imprisonment is no less than 15 years, not enhancing the term of the fixed-term imprisonment, and postponed death sentence no less than 20 years.Among the prisoners of life imprisonment who are normally released out of prison, 24.5% of which 27 persons have been sentenced for having committed several crimes. And the average term of criminal punishment has been absorbed by 6 years and 27 days. According to the investigation, the more the criminal commits crimes, the more term will be absorbed. Indeed the term actually carried out has nothing to do with the number of crimes or the absorbed term by life imprisonment, but firstly for the prisoner's performance and secondly for the length of imprisonment before verdict. Because the responsibility of committing one crime is equal to several crimes, it does no good to fulfill the special and normal preventative function of penalty. This will possibly lose all function of penalty. The absorbing principle in sentence of several crimes should be restrained by the basic criminal principle going as the penalty equals to the crime. Under the present life imprisonment system in our country, the term of life imprisonment actually carried out is too short. And the absorbing principle has its defect to follow the basic criminal principle for the penalty equals to the crime. It will possibly get the felony a light penalty. The author suggests the elimination of the defect of absorbing principle through raise the test term of parole. In the case of several crimes, when the heaviest one is sentenced to life imprisonment, the test term of parole should be raised by of fixed-term which is absorbed. The test term of parole should be life long when sentenced to several life imprisonments for several crimes. And it also works when the postponed death sentence is reduced to life imprisonment after two years imprisonment without any intentional committing crime.