Maturing from punishment to prevention

When a 15-year-old boy stood in a courtroom in Chongqing in 2004, the numbers appeared to tell a straightforward story: 41 robberies in less than a year and more than 600 yuan ($89) taken from classmates.

Then the teenager broke down.

"My parents divorced and no one cared for me. I was bullied and no one helped me. Now that I have made a mistake, everyone has come to judge me," he cried.

His words stayed with Mei Mei, a prosecutor with the Dadukou District People's Procuratorate. She began asking: If someone had intervened after the boy's first mistake, could his life have taken a different course?

Mei and her colleagues established the "Sha Jie" (Sister Sha) youth rights post, through which they visited schools and brought police, educators and civil affairs officials into juvenile crime prevention. What began with seven people grew into an alliance of over 500 prosecutors, 1,600 volunteers and 100 counselors.

The boy's case encapsulates a transformation across China over the past four decades, where juvenile justice has shifted from specialized criminal prosecution to a comprehensive system combining punishment, education, victim protection and social governance.