Expositions Of Severe-Penalty Doctrine

Severe-Penalty Doctrine, as the guiding ideology of criminal law, had reflected the Penal Code in the ancient China and the ancient West in long times. In the contemporary China, Severe-Penalty Doctrine can still find traces in the Criminal Law, even in a period to become a guiding role in the criminal theory. In China, we haven't made in-depth studies of Severe-Penalty Doctrine. This article attempts to analysis Severe-Penalty theory and show a reasonable draw of the country's social management.Severe-Penalty Doctrine in ancient penal system embodied many kinds of penalty, severe penalties for minor crimes, developed physical punishment, cruel death penalty, severe penalties for thought crimes, widely use of extortion of confessions by torture. The Legalists initiator of Severe-Penalty doctrine, later Confucianism carried out a revision, but the core remains severe penalty. Western in ancient also has a severe penalty history, mainly because of religious and autocratic rule. At first, ancient China criminal law under the guidance of Severe-Penalty Doctrine, pay attention to the fear of physical punishment. When the Confucian doctrine became mainstream thinking, the Criminal Law gradually attention to ethical values. And as the feudal autocratic development, thinking was severe punished. Because of in an agricultural society, under an authoritarian rule, the lack of social control and blind faith of the penalty, in ancient China, Severe-Penalty Doctrine was widely used. In contemporary China, both in 1979 Penal Code and the Penal Code in 1997, or Strike-Hard criminal policy it can be seen that China is still subject to the influence of Severe-Penalty Doctrine. And the reason for this period compared with of the ancient society embodies some new characters.Severe-Penalty Doctrine has too many negative effects, no matter in terms of human rights, justice perspective to understand, it is correspondingly deviated from the ideology is to be critical and abandoned. However, China is facing many social problems, and can't completely abandon the Severe-Penalty Doctrine. Therefore, in order to bid farewell to Severe-Penalty Doctrine in China is still a long way to go. To abandon Severe-Penalty Doctrine, it should be from the values, governance and institutional changes to the criminal law.