Research On The System Of Community Impact Assessment In The Application Of Probation

The System of Community Impact Assessment(hereinafter referred to as the System)is used by judicial administrative organs,commissioned by people's courts,to investigate into and make an assessment of a defendant's overall condition,including his or her criminal record,personal situation,family background,occupational background,community environment and damage to the victim,and the System is applied to those potential probation cases.The System serves for the Article 4 of applicable conditions of probation in the Amendment? to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.The System could make the judgement more scientific and more rational on situation that a defendant would make severe harmful effect on his or her living community or not after probation being applied.As regulations on the applicable conditions of probation are too ambiguous,the application rate of probation remains at a low level in judicial practices in China,thus failing to keep pace with the international practice of penalty mitigation.If put in practice,the System would open up a new world for increasing application rate of probation,while judges could apply probation more on objective and scientific investigation results instead of their subjective judgements.However,due to the lack of clear and specific laws related and regulations on the System before probation being applied,the System is running poorly in judicial practices and some problems are still beingunsolved.Such problems are as follows: the assessment system is too flexible and laws and regulations over-inclusive;the investigation and assessment methods with the System itself all need to be improved and scientized;assessment personnel are lack of professional knowledge and practical experience;communities are strong in mobility,leading to unfaithful assessment conclusion;judicial administrative organs fail to fulfill their obligation and take a perfunctory attitude;supervision systems need to be enhanced.All these problems mentioned above prevail in the judicial practices over the country,and they have heavily prevented the System from development and improvement and limited the increase of probation application rate.Taking the actual working situations of local People's courts and Departments of Justice into account,those problems would be demonstrated and analyzed more specifically in this article.At the same time,this research would also make an analysis of the practical functions and importance of the System and give a clear image of how the System works in judicial practices.Under the circumstance of deepening comprehensive reforms of the judicial systems,we should further improve the System.First of all,we should make clear the procedure,investigation deadline and main body of the System;then,we should strengthen the publicity of community correction and the System,so as to initiate community residents' enthusiasm of taking part in judicial works;last but not least,we should ensure that responsibility is hold accountable and supervision taken into places during the whole practice of the system,so as to create a more heathy and just judicial environment for the application of probation.