Chinese Law on Juvenile Delinquency and Its Efficiency
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Abstract
An overall reduction of juvenile criminal cases in China can be explained by the reform of procedural law which allows Chinese prosecutors to stop criminal proceedings in many cases and apply educational measures. Another reason for the success in reducing juvenile delinquency can be seen in the ideological side of combating the youth crime. Chinese ideological response to juvenile crime is a mixture of Confucian culture and Marxist theory. These are not new. What is new is the adaptation of the Western idea of procedural rights at the same time. This eclectic approach achieved good results in reducing juvenile delinquency rates. The presence of Confucian values offers a good ground for restorative justice practices to be administered by the courts. This strong emphasis on moral education makes Chinese law different from the Western models of juvenile justice which lacks the presence of social ideals, morality, patriotism, and collectivism. The paper examines legal framework of juvenile delinquency law in the Chinese Confucian and socialist ideological context.
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