Punishment in Contemporary China by Enshen Li

Author:Enshen Li [Li, Enshen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology, Penology
ISBN: 9781351039369
Google: uYNiDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 39507078
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-06-28T02:48:28+00:00

Article 278 of the CPL reaffirms that the power to arrange, assess and reach victim-offender reconciliation is afforded to three criminal justice institutions – police, procuratorate and court – during their phase of the criminal justice process. They are responsible for designing the reconciliation agreement and supervising its enforcement. For cases where reconciliation is successfully attained between the offender and the victim, the police and procuratorates may suggest that the court impose a lenient sentence (Article 279). For cases where criminal circumstances are minor, the prosecution may decide not to prosecute the offender (ibid).

Ng and He (2017) conducted intensive interviews with judges working in two different grassroots courts in China to understand the typical features of victim-offender reconciliation. Their findings reveal that victim-offender reconciliation has become increasingly popular among the judiciaries in the handling of minor criminal cases at the local level (Ng and He, 2017). As a form of official-led negotiation between victims and defendants, victim-offender reconciliation focuses mainly on four types of petty cases – minor violent crimes, traffic-related crimes, property crimes and public order crimes (Ng and He, 2017). The data from their interviews show that the major reason for judges to call for victim-offender reconciliation is that reconciliation appears to be a safe option for avoiding petitions and appeals (from litigants) (Ng and He, 2017). Maintaining social stability to facilitate the building of a harmonious society has been demonstrated to serve as the motive behind the courts’ favour of this new measure (Ng and He, 2017).

In fact, a large pool of empirical research shows that since the mid-2000s, victim-offender reconciliation has been used as one of the regular measures by legal agencies to deal with petty offenders, penetrating all three agencies of the criminal justice system – namely investigation (police), prosecution (procuratorates) and adjudication (judiciaries) (Song, 2008; Chen, 2008; Liebman, 2014; Jiang, 2016). Drawing on publicly available judicial decisions from one basic-level rural county court and one intermediate court in Henan Province, Liebman (2014) argued that the success of victim-offender reconciliation is the most salient factor leading courts to exempt offenders from criminal liability or impose lenient punishments. His findings manifest that in Henan Province 82 of the county court cases reported settlements with victims or their families. Among them, 52 cases involved payment of compensation and restitution in which defendants had ‘obtained the forgiveness of victims or family members’ (Liebman, 2014: 25). Likewise, in Huang (2013) and Jiang (2016), the findings illustrate that in some advanced regions where restorative justice has a relatively long history (e.g. Beijing and Shanghai), more than 90% of minor injury cases over the last 5 years were finalized with a settlement agreement between the offender and the victim at the investigatory stage. As a result, most minor cases were concluded by police while others were excused from prosecution by procuratorates and conviction by courts (Huang, 2013). Although the percentage of minor cases handled with victim-offender reconciliation is still generally low at the nationwide level, in some areas where the total

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