A Study Of Cult Crimes

As a social phenomenon, the cult affiliates to various social systems; as a historical existence, it accompanies the development history of human beings. Entering the 21st century, it seems that the cult in China vanishes with the dying of the Falungong organization, however, the soil for the growth of the cult still exists. What's more, the cult organizations turn on a diversified tendency and enter into an under or half-under ground situation which constitutes an unstable factor to the society as well as continuously endangering the interests of the common citizens. From a perspective of sociology and criminology, the article aims at uncovering the related questions of the cult crimes and provides a unique concern of its prevention and controlling measures.The thesis consists of four parts, and is made of forty thousand words.Part one defines the related questions of cult and cult crimes. First, author try to concluding the concept and the character of the cult roundly and original, and after inspecting all kinds of the theory overseas and the theoretic definition in our country. It raises the definition of this article, the cult is the religion that attacking the order of society and traditional ethics, which is basing on recognizing the cult is a kind of religion. Moreover, it analyzes the superiority of this definition in theory and in practicing; secondly, it discourses the concept and the feature of cult crimes, and it considers the feature of cult crimes is the cheating preliminary and the great organizing capacity. Last, It discourses the perniciousness of cult crimes from cult violating citizen, main human rights and infest the order of society.Part two studies the reason of cult crimes. It analyzes both the general and particular reasons of cult crimes. As to the general reasons, the thesis gives a detailed survey regarding internal and external causes. The internal causes are that there is a general faith desire in human's heart and the cult organizations intentionally misinterpret the religious classics to delude and abet ignorant people. And the breaking of the social values provides the main external cause of the spread of cult and frequent happening of cult crimes. Besides, the factors causing great psychological pressure such as fierce competition, fast life rhythm, heavy burden of work, life, studying as well as the economic crisis and the decline of the traditional religion are also the external causes that evoke cult crimes. Secondly, it discusses the specific reasons of the cult crimes in China regarding the special state situation and historical and cultural tradition. Some groups of the society are experiencing faith crisis because of the various problems arousing from the transformation of the society such as the violation of the traditional values, the decline of the original worship of the state and other problems emerging from the process of the establishment of the market economy. Owing to the loopholes of the present regulation system of the religious groups, there exist a great number of underground churches which become hotbeds of cult because of lack of concern and regulation. The saint-worship in the traditional folk beliefs and the long standing sect culture provide conditions to cult crimes as well.Part three mainly discusses the prevention and control measures of cult crimes. From the angel of state policy and legislation, the author especially studies the prevention and control measures of cult crimes in western countries such as the United States, French etc., and introduces the legal measures and non-legal measures adopted by the government and legislature. Thus, the author concludes three characteristics of the legal system of prevention and control of cult crimes, namely inactive in legislation, active in legislation and gradual building-up and improving. In this way, the author puts the regulation of cult crimes into a horizon of world view. secondly, the thesis generally introduces Chinese traditional and historical legislative evolution process, which puts the cult into a broad background of time to study, and reflects the inheriting nature of the state's attitudes and measures in fighting against cult and cult crimes; lastly, it concludes the present preventing and controlling measures and puts an emphasis on the discussing of adopting criminal law and related judicial interpretation to fight against cult crimes. It mainly analyzes the constitute characteristics of cult crimes from the angel of criminology, and briefly analyzes the complicated governing measures such as banning cult organizations and forming the anti-cult social atmosphere.Part four, combining with part three, analyzes horizontally and vertically the reasons of the deviation in prevention and control measures of cult crimes between china and western countries. It firstly uses a comparative and cultural analysis method. In the aspect of religious culture, it points out that there is a utilitarian tendency in Chinese folk beliefs which leads to the lack of godly religious tradition. Chinese beliefs are full of pragmatism, utilitarian and comparativism and religion is not highly regarded in social life, consequently, all aspects of the society can accept the banning measures against cult organizations; from a perspective of history, it compares the differences of the state and church relations between china and western countries and points out that there is no separation of church and state in china. What's more, the state power has a leading and controlling influence on religion, which has an impact on the prevention and control policies in china and thus forms the deviation between china and western countries in this issue. secondly, it briefly analyzes the present prevention and control measures in china, and proposes that we should replace "cult" with "dangerous beliefs" in legal documents, and the government should balance the relationship between fighting against dangerous beliefs and safeguarding freedom of religion and prudently adopts the banning measures; lastly ,it gives some suggestions such as establishing the principles of prudently using criminal law against cult behavior, protecting fundamental rights of cult believers, and improving legislation ,sticking to the ultimate of criminal law, improving registering system of religious groups, helping the religious groups step out the underground situation, and long term research and study on cult, combining fighting and regulating.