| Since "Criminal Law Amendment VIII" took pick-pocketing as a crime, its practicalapplication and social effects have been a hot public issue. This paper examines the judicialstatus quo and characteristics of pick-pocketing cases by a District Prosecutor’s Office ofFoshan City,“arresting whoever pickpockets” is the result of erroneous application ofcriminal substantial elements in the criminal law and of arrest conditions, the arrest conditionsof the suspected in pick-pocketing cases should be strict in criminal proofs and facts, minorpick-pocketing cases shouldn’t be punished as a crime,"public places" should be strict in itsidentified openness, sharing and order,"portable property" shall not include "around objects”.When arrest and penalty conditions are applied in pick-pocketing cases, criminal suspectscaught by plainclothes tracking should be identified as the attempted crime even the policepick-pocketing players have statutory responsibilities and obligations to protect citizens’ livesand property. Because conditions of current arrest and penalty are too loose, the suspects haveusually been identified as objects of arrest and penalty when the conditions are applied inpractice. Therefore, only when the penalty is limited to "imprisonment or more" can we get abest way to improve the function of arrest of procedural law. Even though the Code ofCriminal Procedure2012has specified concrete and necessary conditions of arrest, suchdifficulties as “released on bail”,“monitored living” have not been fundamentally overcome,then the realization of procedural mission in criminal coercive system has a long way to go.Furthermore, regulation of arrest procedures such as interrogating criminal suspects andlistening to the counsel’s advice, as well as sectional case symposium, case approval systemof host prosecutors, fast handling mechanism of minor criminal cases, is of great practicalsignificance. But compared with the procedural task of raising the overall case quality,ensuring legitimate rights and interests of suspects and defendants, it is more important toestablish a scientific evaluation mechanism of case quality and a procedural model of reviewand arrest, it is more urgent to improve regulations of defective case handling.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the body, about22,000words, is dividedinto three parts.The first part is a brief introduction to the practical review and arrest in pick-pocketingcases by a District Procuratorate of Foshan City. After an overall analysis of pick-pocketingcases by the District Procuratorate, such as case acceptance of reviewing and arresting pick-pocketing suspects, case handling, interrogating criminal suspects, listening toadvices of the suspects and their counsels, public security offices’ review and reconsiderationof non-arrest cases, case-handling responsibilities of host prosecutors, the mechanism ofsectional case symposium, the author found that there exist “arresting whoever pickpockets”and abnormally high rate of improper arrest in the District Procuratorate, furthermore, there isneither a system of listening to counsel’s advice nor applying pick-pocketing toquick-handling mechanism of minor criminal cases.The second section summarizes defections in terms of conditions, procedures andmechanism of reviewing and arresting pick-pocketing suspects. Firstly, as to arrest conditions,there is an overall characteristic of “arresting whoever pickpockets”, which is acomprehensive result of wrong or improper application of substantive pick-pocketingconditions, arrest penalty conditions, and necessity conditions. As for criminal proofs, thebiggest problem is confused criteria of identifying pick-pocketing behaviors. In judicialpractice, similar criminal facts may have opposite review results. In terms of applying arrestand penalty conditions and necessity conditions, it is uncommon to identify and reviewstatutory mitigating or attenuating circumstances in attempted crimes, to examine the victimloss, to identify the necessity of pick-pocketing suspects on the grounds of pick-pocketingsuspects’ non-local household registration. Secondly, when it comes to review and arrestprocedures, interrogating criminal suspects and listening to their views haven’t fully realizedoriginal legislative intention to enhance case handling quality. In judicial practice the systemof listening to counsel’s advice has almost not been pursued, because there isn’t any relatedauthoritative provisions. Finally, as to review and arrest mechanism, current sectional casesymposium is so unsystematic, so administrative in decision-making as to make it a mereformality and leave it to a final say. Case approval system of host prosecutors may inevitablylead to wrong arrests due to self-approval and host prosecutors’ impulsion of “arrestingwhoever should be arrested”.The third part goes to suggestions about how to improve review and arrest inpick-pocketing cases from the perspectives of conditions, procedures and mechanism. Firstly,as to conditions of review and arrest, how to interpret all the legal provisions accurately andhow to apply them appropriately are crucial in pick-pocketing cases. Generally speaking, it isthe fundamental guarantee to realize procedure functions of arrest system in order to establishthe judicial philosophy of respecting and safeguarding human rights, to implement criminal justice policy of “temper justice with mercy” strictly, to stick to “less arrest and cautiousarrest”. When it comes to conditions of proofs and facts, pick-pocketing incriminationstandards and pick-pocketing behavior identification standards should be regulated andspecified. pick-pocketing incrimination standards should be focused on precise ranges ofminor pick-pocketing cases. pick-pocketing behavior identification standards should beaccurately defined in terms of legal interests infringed."Public place" should strictly bedefined according to its openness, sharing and order."Portable property" should restrictivelybe interpreted, excluding “around objects”. As for arrest and penalty conditions, breakthroughshould rest on ignorance of victims’ loss and attempted crime plot so as to ensure that thesuspects were sentenced to imprisonment or more severe punishment, therefore, the standardthat the penalty is limited to "imprisonment or more” is an important measure to reduceimproper arrest rate. As for necessity conditions of arrest, a more systematic and scientificsystem should be established to certify social harm. Only “released on bail” goes with“monitored living” at the same time can we accomplish the procedural mission of ourcriminal compulsory system. Secondly, in the promotion of review and arrest procedures, thebig problem is “defective case handling", thus a scientific mechanism of case qualityevaluation and a procedural mode of review and arrest should be established. The system of“interrogating suspects and listening to their opinions” should be improved from theperspectives of regulating format of suspects’ opinions, supplementing certain provision that“if suspects disagree on alleged facts of the crime” should be a legal situation of interrogatingcriminal suspects. The system of “listening to the advice of counsels” should be regulatedfrom starting legal procedure, presenting counsel s’ advice, handling counsels’ materials,reviewing and adopting counsel’s opinions, and etc. Finally, in the aspect of perfecting reviewand arrest mechanism, sectional case symposium should be regulated by referring to AttorneyCommittee’s seminar and decision-making mechanism. Moreover, related system designs areproposed from the aspects of starting legal procedure, preparing case symposium, formattingdecision-making rules, promoting case reporting and decision-making procedures, changinghost prosecutors’ approval system into department head case approval system, exercisingquick handling mechanism of minor criminal cases in order to realize a balance betweenjudicial efficiency and case handling quality, to ensure suspects’ legitimate rights andinterests. |
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