On The Operation Of Power In Criminal Law

Generally speaking, criminal law is a law on social protection and one that protects political security, which has inner close connection with power. So, to introduce the power mechanism into criminal law, study power in criminal law and discuss criminal law out of power is of great practical significance and value to find out the real personality, intrinsic features and belonging of fate of Criminal Law.From the point of view of crime, the different views we hold towards the root causes of crime determine how we treat crime, and where there are different attitudes towards crime, there will be distinct strategy of power with which to control crime. When crime is considered harmful, power strategy of punishing crime is taken accordingly; when crime regarded normal, corresponding power strategy of preventing crime taken; and crime considered beneficial , power strategy of utilizing crime. Utilizing crime is to make use of individual crime which is of small damage to the society to control the whole crime of great damage to society .Superficially, this kind of strategy may create crime, treat crime with indulgence and make use of crime, which is contradicting the basic principle of criminal law; however, it actually reaches the basic purpose of controlling crime to the fullest extent. As a modern strategy of crime controlling resulted from rational historical evolution, it is designed for punishing, preventing and utilizing crime, while taking into account the harmful side, normal side and beneficial side of crime at the same time.As power is intervened, power mechanism brings great influence on the process of the real operation of criminal law. At the stage of how to define crime in criminal law, to a great extent, power mechanism plays big role in that the dominating groups validate their own morality and social political view as the mainstream view of the society; when crime is to be acknowledged,under the power mechanism ,crime may be acknowledged as non-crime or vice versa ; When the stage of deciding of punishment comes, away from the principle of criminal law that crime should be commensurate with penalty, the severity of penalty may be determined according to the requirements of power; Then, when it comes to the execution of penalty, the basic principle of criminal law may be denied when power is involved in, criminal acts may be disposed according to what the politics require. Anyhow, the entire process of the real operating of criminal law is manipulated by power mechanism behind the criminal law. The involvement of power mechanism in criminal law brings unprecedented confusion into the principle of the orthodox criminal law :First, the criminal law punishes both crime ,which includes not only practical crime but also ideological crime, and non-crime, thus blurring the concept of crime. Second, the essential character of the orthodox criminal law is mixed up by the expansion of the adjustment objects and methods in criminal law .Power mechanism destroyed thoroughly a series of traditional principles of criminal law, bringing confused disorder into it and confronting it with enormous difficulties in explaining its logic. However, under the complicated superficies of the Criminal Law with power intervened, civilization of criminal law and the crime-controlling mechanism by way of power are veiled, which fully represents both crime-controlling mechanism and self-regulating mechanism attached to power criminal law. On one side, a set of effective crime-controlling mechanism was set up as power is used in criminal law by way of its practical and virtual control, punitive and non-punitive control and microscopic and macroscopic control; on the other side, by force of its purpose and procedures imposed on it ,the mechanism itself also generates another self-regulating mechanism ,which enable the execution of power in criminal law not only to control crime to the greatest degree but also to the largest acceptance to social mass.To sum up, crime is controlled to the largest extent when power in criminal law is executed in a manner acceptable to society. While controlling crime effectively so as to keep the rule of the authority, it is not contrary to, instead, it even conforms to the acceptability of people in society.