Perilous Research

As the crime opposite to actual damage offence, potential damage offence has a very important position in criminal legislation, and there are more and more substantive regulations about it. It also has an appropriate place in criminal theories. As far as the legislation of our country is concerned, the Criminal Law revised in 1997 adds some regulations about potential damage offence in order to meet the needs of protecting legal rights, and criminal theory circle pays more attention to it. But in present conditions, there are still deficiencies. This article emphatically discusses two problems about potential damage offence: one is its definition, and the other is unpremeditated potential damage offence. First, although Criminal Law of our country adds regulations about potential damage offence, but doesn't define it definitely, and there are different definitions of it in theoretical circle. By distinguishing danger and dangerous situation, the article compares three different definitions of potential damage offence home and abroad, and analyses the deficiencies of the definition in our country, and thus establishes the foothold with which the author defines potential damage offence: distinguishing danger and and dangerous situation considering some other definitions as references. Therefore, this article thereafter makes further analysis of dangerous situation, clarifies the position of it, then redefines potential damage offence: potential damage offence is a crime that has a statutory dangerousness and has produced specific potential damage condition, which symbolizes the accomplishment of the crime. In order to further define dangerous situation, the article discusses how to judge it and points out that the judgment of it is in fact judgment of objective facts. As to concrete definition of dangerous situation, we should consider all related factors. Second, along with the development of society and the application of modern scientific and technological achievements, not only danger sources but also the dangerousness of unpremeditated crimes is increasing greatly. Although all countries consider acts as crimes that put others' lives, health or important public or private property into danger to maintainsocial stability, they haven't reach agreement in theory. Moreover, in our country there are deficiencies in the legislation about unpremeditated potential damage offence, which should be improved. The author analyses two opposite viewpoints about whether an unpremeditated dangerous act constitutes a crime, and then expound his opinion: such an act constitutes a crime. At the same time, the article gives some suggestions about deficiencies in our country's legislation about unpremeditated potential damage offence: first, as far as the definition of potential damage offence is concerned, we should pay attention to its constitution factors so as not to enlarge the scale of unpremeditated potential damage offence; second, as far as the penalty for unpremeditated potential damage offence is concerned, the author expounds reasons that the main penalty for this kind of crime is a fine.