On The Principle Of Lenient Penalty Of The Elderly Crime

Senior citizens are a social group which had been widely respected. However, aging societyexacerbated a large amount of social problems, including increasingly exposed elderly crimes. In anotherword, elderly crime is a reflection of aging society in field of crime. Facing to this status, China’s criminallegislation and criminal justice against the trend should make the necessary adjustments. Compared withjuvenile delinquency, it is an indisputable fact that our national criminal law on senior crime is not integrityand it is a very weak issue on criminal law theory. Thankfully, in recent years, a growing number ofscholars and legal officers have proposed constructive suggestions on elderly criminal responsibility system.In criminal law study, elderly crimes, especially the protection of elder offenders had been extensively andin depth discussed, forming many valuable theories as result. Most of these studies, the old offendersshould be protected as special group and be given special consider in the criminal legislation. Unfortunately,up to present date, the criminal law in China, the protection of elder offenders is only a brief requirement inAmendment Ⅷ to the Criminal Law of the People Republic of China. That is very unfavorable for thecriminal protection of elder offenders. As a result, it is very urgent to study this problem. This paperattempts to combine theory of elderly crime and criminal legislation. In view of the amendment, this essaywill discuss elderly criminals which were rarely researched before and study deficiencies of related issues.The paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is to discuss the concept of elderly crime. Firstly, I analyze the extensive concept andthe narrow concept concretely. Based on different meanings of science of criminal law and criminology ofthe elderly crime, we conclude the extensive and criminological notion is desirable, and the scope of thisarticle is limited to here. Secondly, according to the causes of the elderly crime, we fide out the intimateconnection between the crime and the changes in body function.The second chapter is to expound the reason of lenient penalty form the point of view of the penaltheory. Combining leniency with rigidity in the criminal judicial concept requires the old people of smallpersonal danger and social harm should give a lighter or mitigated punishment. The humanitarianism andeconomy of penal also requires making lenient punishment for old people. And the fundamental reason forthe old’ s crime leniency is due to the change of penal liability, which often lowered because of the old’ s decrease of action capacity and discernment ability.The third chapter is to introduce our country ancient times, the modern times and other countries aboutthe senior citizen crime stipulation and these stipulations to now the criminal legislation enlightenment. Ourcountry ancient times had the quite rich legal culture, from now to on it has several special stipulation.Moreover, world other countries have multiform about the senior citizen crime special regulation, providedprecious profited from the experience and the enlightenment for our today’s criminal legislation.The fourth chapter offers a proposal on the legislative defect, such as the high age of lenient penaltiesfor the elderly; the death penalty standard of the elder crime is not clear; there is no provision aboutexempting elder crime for recidivism; and no relevant provision in criminal procedure law.In order to structure a thorough lenient penalty mechanism, except the legislative perfection, we alsoneed the perfection of relevant mechanism. The fifth chapter is to discuss the defects in judiciary andexecution of punishment and offer a proposal from the investigation system、accusatory system、judicialsystem and enforcement system.