The Research Of The Issues On The Crime Of Endangering Public Security With Dangerous Methods

The issues on the expansion of the judicial application of the crime ofendangering public security with other methods have caused the attention of thecriminal law academia. Many behaviors that shouldn’t be included have been definedas this crime, such as drunken driving, theft manhole cover,“penci”, clenbuterol case.The tentacles of the crime of endangering public security extends to all aspects ofsocial life, co-producing a large number of different judgments on the same cases,which contradict the principle of legality.The author believes that in order to solve the current situation of expansion of theapplication of the crime of endangering public security with dangerous methods, weshall sort out the vague provisions of this crime within the context of the validCriminal Law one by one, and strictly define the scope of this crime’s scope, on thebasis of the current criminal law theory together with judicial practice. This essay isdivided into three parts. The first part introduces the development of the relatedlegislations and legislative background of the crime of endangering public securitywith dangerous methods. Preliminary understanding of this crime can be figured outby sorting out the Criminal Law of1979, the Criminal Law of1997, as well asamendments to the Criminal Law, the relevant judicial interpretation of this kind. Thispart also paves the way to analyze the cause of the expansion of this crime’s judicialapplication. The second part of this essay demonstrates the practical expansion of the scope of the crime of endangering public safety with dangerous methods by theanalysis of the well-known cases and the comparison between the different verdict ofthe similar cases. This part also analyzes the defects of this crime’s expansion,explains why this crime becomes "pocket crimes" with two aspects: the ambiguity ofthe provisions and the misinterpretation of the crime in legal practice. Based on theresearch and comparison of the relevant documents, the third part of this essayanalyzes the arguable points of the theory of this crime, concludes the way to preventthe expansion of this crime’s application caused by the ambiguity of the theory byconstraining the elements of the crime. Based on the principle of legality and theprinciple of the punishment conformable to crime, the author defines the object of thecrime on public safety and identifies the behaviors with other dangerous methods withtwo aspects of the definition and recognition. It the last, this essay examines thedifferent verdicts of similar cases, and demonstrates the point of view in legal practiceregarding this crime’s judicial application.In the current legal practice in China, the expansion of the judicial application ofthe crime of endangering public security with dangerous methods is becoming moreand more severe. Therefore, this essay conforms to the requirements of the principleof legality, studies theoretical aspects of the crime with a systematic research, reckonsthe restriction of the limited scope of the application of this crime. The author hopesthat this essay may provide some inspiration for the theoretical study and benefit thejudiciary.