On The Perfection Of Public Surveillance

Public surveillance which is a punishment of limiting freedom is the unique punishment in China, and played an important role during the new-democratic revolution. However since the reform and opening policy had been carried out, the structure of our society has changed greatly. Thus we have difficulty in making the decision which is to adopt or abolish public surveillance. Public surveillance was established as one of the five main punishments of our national criminal punishments in Criminal Code 1997, and the debate has been cooled down for a little while. However, this issue has been hotly debating again recently. As we can see from the statute of public surveillance, the rule is too general and lack of specific and clear standard of its application and execution. We have to admit that it is a fault, but it leaves much room to reform and polish the system. After analyzing the two contradictive stands, i.e. for and against the system, and investigating the foreign systems of punishment of limiting freedom, we find that it is meaningful to discuss and give some advice for how to reform and polish public surveillance theoretically and practically both in legislation and judicature. There are four parts in this thesis:The first part deals with public surveillance in general. Firstly, we start from the definition of public surveillance. After comparing different views, standing on the current statute of our country and its essential characteristic as a criminal penalty, we come up with a comparatively reasonable and complete definition of is a criminal penalty which is in charge of the public security organs, and the criminals serve their sentence outside prisons, and are under the supervision of people in the community which they live in. Secondly, we analyze and summarize the characters of public surveillance. Public surveillance is a kind of dual confine penalty of freedom and qualification. According to the law, criminals should perform certain obligation and be forbidden to excise certain rights during the time. Unlike prisoners who are put into prison, the criminals convicted public surveillance serve their sentence in their community, an open environment which illustrates the affairs of the community of public surveillance. The core essence of public surveillance is the particularity of its objects, which is described from personal danger and social risk. Thirdly, the writer thinks it is necessary to sustain public surveillance especially on the background that criminal penalty becomes more and more lighter and softer, such as"protection and observation system"in US, and"community service"in UK, those systems inspire us to reform and polish public surveillance.The second part is the debate, whether to reserve the system or not. The only reason why some people propose to abolish the system is that we faced obstacles in application and execution. Firstly, the writer describes the dilemma, the executing institute faces and the changing time causes. Secondly, the writer comments on different scholars'views about whether to save public surveillance from different perspectives as historical perspective, penalty system, and the nature of the penalty. The writer thinks we should save public surveillance. Public surveillance has unique economical value and human sympathy value, and we need those merits to perfect our penalty system. Of course there are many problems, but they can be solved through the improvement of legislation and judicature.The value and function of public surveillance are described in details in the third part. The function and value of public surveillance should not be discussed without the general function and value as a criminal penalty. After comparing and analyzing different descriptions about the function of criminal penalty, the writer thinks the functions of public surveillance reflect on punishment, reform, education, pacification and compensation, there is also a unique and incomparable function which is that it can keep the criminals'families stable and integrated through this way. While discussing the value of public surveillance, the writer emphasizes its value for economy, human sympathy, freedom, utilitarianism, socialization. Reducing the cost and saving the judicial resources, the economical value of public surveillance matches to the economical value of criminal law——"biggest gain, least pay". At the same time, the criminals who are convicted public surveillance live in their community and serve their sentence under other people's supervision, which means they are sort of free, all of these embody the human sympathy, freedom, utilitarianism value of Public surveillance. People's supervision is a vivid example of criminal penalty socialization principle.The fourth part gives some specific advice on how to reform and polish public surveillance. First of all, we must determine a guiding ideology, we should take advantage of the criminal policies of the party and the government full, and we should make sure the penalties more targeted, effective and practicable. On legislation aspect, we can widen the applicable scope of public surveillance, make it the first choice for certain group of people; we can strengthen the punishment degree, such as compel the criminals to work; we should supplement the consequences the criminals don't follow the rule, for example, depriving of their freedom when they breach the rule severely. On judicature aspect, judicial institute change their belief in sever penalty, and apply it to some certain group of people, priority to other forms of penalty. On execution aspect, we can change the executing body, establishing a special institute whose leader is grass-roots administration department of justice with the help of grass-roots public security organs and the administrative of criminal's community, compel them to work at public welfare place such as homes for the elderly and orphanage, establishing a special area to guide and correct minor. We also should establish and develop the mechanic of evaluation and supervision, take the advantage of the special law supervision of prosecution and the social supervision of common people. All of the measures help public surveillance regain its prosperity and play its deal part in new era.