Society
China's changing approach to enforcing laws
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-06 11:01
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BEIJING - Like his neighbors and friends, Chen Shuangxi (pseudonym) dined with his family on the evening of Lantern Festival and enjoyed the first full moon of the Chinese lunar year.
The man is serving his imprisonment, but not behind the bars.
Chen, living in Jinhua of eastern Zhejiang province, was sentenced three years in prison with a reprieve of four and a half years in 2006 for his involvement in an illegal pyramid scheme. He has been on the community correction program ever since.
"This festival is a very important occasion for family reunion. I am grateful that I could stay with my family like others," Chen said.
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China started to trial run the program in 2003 in Beijing and Shanghai, then extended it to 27 provinces.
Having fulfilled their compulsory education and services, offenders on the community correction program can go to work and meet their friends just like ordinary people.
"For some convicts, a more humanistic correction environment can help change their attitude and lifestyle," said licensed psychologist Fang Ting.
Community correction programs have flexible rules. Chen got a half-year deduction from his sentence after he saved a drowning child in August 2009.
The country's efforts to improve out-of-prison correction programs illustrates the principle of "tempering justice with mercy", said Nan Ying, vice president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC).
Statistics showed that the reoffending rate of those under community correction has stayed below 0.2 percent to date, he said.
Another humanitarian move is the increasing use of the lethal injection to replace the traditional method of bullet to the back of the head, which has been in use for decades and was the only lawful execution method until 1996.
In the past 13 years, the lethal injection has been trialed in big cities and some provincial capitals.
Last year, northeastern China's Liaoning province took the lead to completely abolish execution by bullet.
Prof. Sun Xiaoxia, with Zhejiang University Law School, told Xinhua the increasing rate of non-incarceration sentences and lethal injections in executions not only showed a change in the concept of penalty but also demonstrated growing awareness of humanity.
"China's legal system has been 'going human' for the past decades," Sun said. "But this is not the only approach. We also have much harsher punishments for crimes that undermine public interests."
In 2009, an SPC judical interpretation and a death verdict by a city court forced many Chinese to realize drunk driving is not a minor offense but a crime that badly endangers public safety.
Last year the country was shocked by several deadly car accidents caused by drunk driving. A drink driver in Nanjing, capital city of eastern Jiangsu province, hit nine pedestrians and six cars, leaving five dead including a pregnant woman.
In contrast to the public's call for a tough penalty, the maximum sentence handed out was only a three-year prison term. The judges were constrained by the criminal law.
Although, in serious traffic accidents, drivers could be convicted of "endangering public safety" and serve longer sentence, courts seldom handed down such heavy verdicts to drink drivers.
To address this problem, the SPC issued a judicial explanation regarding the drunk driving crimes.
The document made it clear that drink drivers should be charged with "endangering public safety" if they displayed intentional indifference with regards to the consequences of their behavior, for instance, making no efforts to stop the car after an accident and causing further casualty.
In July 2009, the Intermediate People's Court of Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan province sentenced a drink driver named Sun Weiming to death, the first such verdict in China. In the second trial, the verdict was changed to life imprisonment.
