The Adjustments Of The Structure Of The Principal Punishments Of Our Country Under The View Of The Criminal Policy Of Temper Justice With Mercy

The Chinese Communist Party has brought forward the concept of the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy for the first time in the sixth plenary session of its sixteenth central committee of Chinese Communist Party, which is an indication of significant changes in the field of criminal policy. Mercy, which is the key of this policy, is far more important than the punishment in the criminal policy for the first time. The author began writing this thesis with the study of the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy. It is the feasible measures that make the changing theory become reality. It is our first job to adjust the structure of the principal punishments of our country in order to carry out the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy. A scientific and perfect structure of criminal penalties is the foundation of executing criminal penalties and carries out the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy more efficiently.The author has found five hundred and forty-two theses with the subject of"the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy and the structure of punishments"on www.cnki.net and has chosen sixty-eight theses as the reference finally. Meanwhile, the author has also chosen several academic works, which name is the general theory of criminal penalties, the study on the legal criminal penalties—the structure and realization of the balance between crimes and criminal penalties, as academic support. After studying these theses and works, the author finds out that the existing studies on the structure of punishments are usually finished in dispersive ways, which means they usually focus on separate criminal penalty, such as death penalty, life imprisonment, fixed-term imprisonment and public surveillance. The views of these studies are relatively narrow and they lack unitize guidance of the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy though they are relatively helpful in improving separate criminal penalty. As a result, these studies fail to solve the problem of unbalanced structure of criminal penalties. With the appearance of the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy, some scholar has focused on the rebuilding the structure of the criminal penalties of our country. But they only pointed out a probable direction without feasible measures.This article has used these studies for reference. The article begins with the discussion of the relationship between the criminal policy and the structure of the punishments: The criminal policy points out the direction and provides the bases for rebuilding the structure of punishments. The structure of punishments is the reflection of the criminal policy. The author points out that it is essential to adjust the structure of punishments timely to make it fit with the criminal policy of temper justice with mercy after the study of the changes of criminal policy and the structure of punishments in history.As regard to the structure of the principal punishments of our country, the author has classified into three types to discuss, which is harsh criminal penalties, normal criminal penalties and low-grade criminal penalties. In the type of harsh criminal penalties, the author has stress the key to restrict death penalty is to enhance the severity of the replacement penalties to death penalty. The author asks to increase the term of death with a suspension of execution and life imprisonment instead of increase the upper limit of fixed-term imprisonment. In the type of normal penalties, the author has first made a study on the range of the criminal penalty of our country. Then the author makes suggestions on unifying the principals of collocating criminal penalties and the legal criminal penalties reasonably, which provides reasonable room for judges to make reasonable judgments. In the type of low-grade criminal penalties, the author discusses the actuality and cause of formation of public surveillance. The author points out that it is not enough to rebuild public surveillance only by executing it with diversification. It is also essential to rebuild the administrative punishment—the reeducation-through-labor, which links up to public surveillance, to enlarge the application of public surveillance.