Is China s criminal law light or severe? Why is China s criminal law so light?

It cannot be generalized, and the formulation of criminal punishment is the product of the general common will of society, not only the will of the victim and the will of a small number of netizens. And this common will is actually embodied in the legislative activities of the legislature.

Legal basis: Article 234 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China provides that whoever intentionally injures the body of another person shall be sentenced to up to three years imprisonment, short-term detention or controlled release. Whoever commits the crime in the preceding paragraph, causing serious injury, is to be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years; Whoever causes death or seriously injures a person by especially cruel means, causing serious disability, is to be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than 10 years, life imprisonment, or death.

Where this Law provides otherwise, follow those provisions.

If you see the essence clearly, you will understand.

Don't look at what is said, just what is done.

For example, make a list of the minor punishments, then find out which offenses can lead to these lightened punishments, and finally summarize these offenses to make a portrait.

When deciding on the punishment of criminals, the sentence shall be based on the facts of the crime, the nature and circumstances of the crime, and the degree of harm to society, and in accordance with the relevant provisions of the law. Regarding the question of how China's criminal law determines the severity of the punishment, I will give you a detailed answer below.

1. How does China's criminal law determine the severity of punishment?

1. When deciding on the punishment of criminals, the sentence shall be made on the basis of the facts of the crime, the nature and circumstances of the crime, and the degree of harm to society, and in accordance with the relevant provisions of the law.

2. Legal basis: Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China

Article 3: Where the law clearly stipulates that it is a crime, it is to be convicted and sentenced in accordance with the law; Where the law does not expressly provide for criminal conduct, it must not be convicted and sentenced.

Article 4: All persons who commit crimes are equal in the application of the law. No one is allowed to have privileges beyond the law.

Article 5: The severity of the punishment shall be commensurate with the crime committed and the criminal responsibility borne by the criminal.

2. Factors to be considered in determining the type of punishment.

1. Determining the application of fines and penalties on the basis of the principal penalty is a requirement of the principle of criminal punishment. It is not difficult to see from the application of other types of supplementary punishments that the scope of application of supplementary punishments is always closely related to the severity of the principal punishment.

2. The application of fines and penalties in isolation from the principal punishment is likely to lead to inequality in the application of law. Since the enforcement of the fine sentence is closely related to the defendant's economic conditions, the "enforcement effect" of the fine can be carried out before the execution**.

3. There is no restriction on the application of fines and penalties in the application of the principal punishment, which is likely to cause confusion in the application of fines and punishments.

4. Splitting the relationship between the application of fines and penalties and the application of the principal punishment, in judicial practice, many localities often rely too heavily on fines and punishments when dealing with some property crimes where the circumstances of the crime are not too serious, and there is often a phenomenon that the principal punishment is relatively lenient while the additional fine punishment is very severe, which will undoubtedly create a danger and affect judicial fairness.

The Fifth Seminar on the Frontiers of Criminal Law, sponsored by the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was held in the suburbs of Beijing. As in the previous four seminars, the content of the discussions in the fifth symposium is somewhat indicative of the research hotspots in the field of criminal law in the coming year. At this meeting, the topic of the reform of the penal system attracted great attention.

Penal legislation: too much death penalty, too light life sentence?

There are five main types of criminal punishment in China: death penalty, life imprisonment, fixed-term imprisonment, short-term detention, and controlled release. In addition to the death penalty, the other four punishments are customarily referred to by scholars as life punishments.

At present, there are 60 or 70 crimes involving the death penalty in the sub-provisions of China's criminal law. There are two ways to judge whether the punishment structure is too heavy or too light, one is to compare the criminal punishment regulations of foreign countries, and the other is to examine the social effects of the criminal punishment. The former is the comparative path that jurists are accustomed to, while the latter is the reality that judicial practitioners face directly.

Chen *liang, a professor at Peking University Law School, believes that China's current penal structure is a penal structure that relies too much on the death penalty, and if the deterrent effect of punishment is calculated as a full score of 100, the death penalty contributes at least 80 points. The death penalty is too much, and the life sentence is too light. In the academic community, there are many scholars who hold similar views to Professor Chen *liang.

Among them, Professor Liang Lin from Peking University put forward the following view as early as in his doctoral answers**: China's penal structure is a heavy punishment structure based on the death penalty and long-term punishment. With regard to this assertion, he does not think it can be said to be wrong to this day.

According to the provisions of the Criminal Law of China, the term of fixed-term imprisonment is generally between six months and not more than 15 years; When punishment for multiple crimes is combined, the term of fixed-term imprisonment must not exceed 20 years. And in some countries, the sentence can be several.

hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of years. From this point of view, the prison sentence in our country is relatively light.

Chen Xian, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that the issue of the severity of punishment should be taken into account in an all-round way. "In some countries, there are few or no death sentences, and correspondingly, prison sentences are longer; On the other hand, the methods adopted by States for the combined punishment of multiple crimes are inconsistent, and some allow simple addition without limiting the results of combined punishment. As for whether the life sentence is too light, further empirical research is still needed to judge.

Professor Zhang Mingkai of Tsinghua University believes that society is constantly developing, and people's perspective on problems is also changing, which will inevitably lead to penal reform. Taking Japan as an example, the crime rate has not increased in recent years, but the life and death sentences have increased, and the most direct reason is that people's ability to be harmed has weakened.

Regardless of the country, the increase in life sentences inevitably involves two aspects: one is the reduction of the death penalty and the other is the increase in the cost of law enforcement. Since the 80s of the last century, there has been an increasing trend in the provision of capital crimes in China. If the sentence for life is increased without a reduction in the number of capital crimes, the academic community jokes about this:

This is an imbalance in the punishment structure in the real sense of the word, which is not quitting smoking, and drinking again. "Financial investment in punishment, such as building prisons, is a duty of the **. Professor Liang Lin emphasized, "We should not simply think that the increase in penal investment will crowd out the resources of public education and medical care."