对我国少年司法制度的再思考

我国少年司法制度自诞生以来,在治理少年犯罪和保护少年成长上发挥了重大积极的作用,但仍存在很多问题,尚待完善。本文从具体案例入手,指出我国未成年犯罪形势还很严峻这一现实问题。从少年司法制度应采取何种制度模式这一问题对我国少年司法制度进行反思,建议心理医生介入少年司法制度,在试行未成年人犯罪前科消灭制度的基础上逐步推广,建立适合未成年特点的社区矫正管理制度。     

英国少年保释制度的评析与借鉴

保释制度是一项历史悠久的司法制度。近二十年来，英国少年保释制度发展迅速并日渐成熟，在帮助青少年犯罪嫌疑人、被告人悔过自新、回归社会和维护青少年合法权益方面，取得了巨大成功。英国少年保释制度具有深厚的理论支撑：无罪推定原则、天赋自由思想和权利保障理论。对英国少年保释制度的研究，有利于我国少年司法制度的发展，尤其是在未成年人保释制度的建立与完善方面，具有极其重要的借鉴意义。     

从保护青少年权益出发,完善我国的少年司法制度

本文指出针对我国目前少年司法制度中存在的问题,从青少年福利角度出发,有必要从理念、立法角度、组织体系、刑罚种类等方面,对我国少年司法制度加以完善,以期更利于保护青少年,使其更易于回归社会.     

澳大利亚少年刑事司法新动向

为解决本国青少年犯罪日趋恶化的问题,澳大利亚颁布了新的法律,出台了新的举措,对青少年刑事司法制度进行了颇有成效的改革,使澳大利亚少年刑事司法具有简易化、交易化、轻刑化、社会化趋势。     

美国少年司法严罚刑事政策的形成、实践与未来

建立独立的少年司法制度，在保护主义的理念下处理少年犯罪，曾经是美国的骄傲，也是其他国家效仿的范本。但自20世纪70年代后期开始，严罚刑事政策开始逐步占据美国少年司法刑事政策的主流，呈现出逐步背弃福利型少年司法传统的趋势。这种转变是在少年犯罪恶化与古典犯罪学派复兴的社会背景与理论背景下发生的，也是对少年司法理念的歪曲。少年司法严罚刑事政策的推行激化了少年法院存废的争论，也遭到了激烈的批评和日益深入的反思。     

论青少年立法的基本特征

由于青少年犯罪较之成年人犯罪有其很大的特殊性,因而决定了青少年法规——就处理违法犯罪类型的青少年立法而言,与普通刑事立法有许多不同点。这些不同点反映了青少年法规自身的特征。本文试图探讨国外青少年立法的基本特征和少年司法制度问题,旨在为我国的青少年立法提供借鉴。将国外青少年法与普通刑事立法相比较,可以看到有以下主要不同点。     

对我国少年司法制度的关注

从1899年美国伊利洛斯州制定了世界上第一部少年法庭法至今,少年司法制度的产生与发展已经有了上百年的历史。在我国,虽然国家及社会非常关心和重视青少年的保护与教育工作,但是有关少年司法制度的建设却起步较晚,直到1984年11月,上海市长宁区法院建立了国内第一个专门审理未成年人刑事案件的合议庭,即少年法庭,少年司法制度才真正在中国大陆上出现,可以说少年法庭作为我国少年司法最重要的载体,至今刚刚经历20个春秋。在过去的20年间,为了加强对未成年人法律保护和预防未成年人犯罪,1991年、1999年我国先后制定了专门的未成年人保护法和预…     

关于完善我国少年司法制度的若干思考

我国的少年司法制度取得了一系列的成就,积累了大量的实践经验,但依然没有自成体系的不同于成年人案件处理的司法制度。这严重阻碍了我国少年司法的建设和发展,不利于未成年人犯罪的预防,也不利于对少年犯的教育和挽救。在此,笔者结合国情现状,对完善我国少年司法制度进行思考。     

日本未成年人犯罪与预防——以日本福井县未成年人犯罪为调查对象

日本是世界发达国家中未成年人犯罪率极低的国家,学者提出了许多理论去解释这种犯罪状况.笔者通过对日本福井县的实地考察,发现这一现象与日本发达的少年预防犯罪体系及少年司法制度有关,其主要通过裁判所优先主义、审前的调查先行主义和观察监护制度、审判处理时的保护处分制度以及审后的社会复归程序等防治措施,确保有效地改造青少年和收到预防青少年犯罪的良好效果.其经验十分值得我国借鉴.     

我国青少年刑事司法原则概述

我国的少年刑事司法制度遵循七个原则，它是我国少年刑事司法制度建立和完善的基础，新中国创立以来，针对少年犯罪设定了一系列法律处置规则，它与我国的少年刑事诉讼组织和程序、少年犯罪刑罚适用规则和少年犯罪刑事矫正规则共同组成了我国完整的少年刑事司法体制。     

Punishment,Accountability, and the New Juvenile Justice

The juvenile justice system has undergone radical change in the past three decades. The procedural revolution that began at the end of the 1960s with the Gault decision has more recently evolved into a substantive revolution. The changes in juvenile justice have been many and in some instances drastic, particularly in the apparent demise of the rehabilitative ideal. New theories or models have emerged, incorporating terminology such as punishment, justice, and accountability into the vocabulary of juvenile justice practitioners and the lexicon of state juvenile codes. The transformation in the philosophy and underlying goals of the system has been well-documented over the past decade or so. It is now time to ask critical questions about the significance and meaning of this transformation and to bring attention to unresolved issues. This article suggests the issues that need to be addressed in order to make both practical and philosophical sense out of the changes in the mission of “juvenile justice.”     

Recent Trends in Sentencing Policies in the Netherlands

This article considers sentencing in the Netherlands and in particular the changes that have been introduced since the 1980s, both in the adult and in the juvenile justice system. Several questions will be treated in the article. Sentencing in the Netherlands in the last two decades is analysed and some explanations for the changing trends are presented. Results indicate that the Netherlands is following a general pattern, prevalent in Europe and the US, of more punitive and repressive punishment. Also, the extent to which new sentencing options, such as community sanctions have made a difference to the upward trend in imprisonment, will be analysed. In an effort to reduce the costs of the system new policies are being developed, introducing both 'front door' and 'back door' varieties in sentencing. These will lead to some important and radical changes in the criminal justice system.     

Presidential address: Juvenile justice at the crossroads: Presidential address to the academy of criminal justice sciences

Three interacting factors appear to significantly affect our treatment of youths and thus our juvenile justice policy: ideology, the media, and politics. As a result of these factors, although juvenile violent crime is decreasing, legislatures still advocate a harsh, punitive stance toward youthful offenders. Legislative initiatives have resulted in determinate sentencing for juveniles, more youths handled by the adult criminal court, and more youths sentenced to adult institutions. Recent evidence suggests that the public supports more prevention and early intervention strategies for youths and favors rehabilitation rather than punishment. These conflicting trends suggest that we are at a crossroads: the juvenile justice system can continue its harsh, reactive stance, or it can choose a more proactive approach. The members of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences have an opportunity to play an active role in the development of criminal justice policy.     

The Justice Model in the Juvenile Justice System: Washington State's Experience

In 1977, the Washington State Legislature enacted radical modifications of its juvenile justice code. Explicitly abandoning the parens patriae philosophy of the juvenile justice system, a "justice" philosophy was adopted. Provisions of the law include a determinate sentencing structure, the divestiture of status offenses, greater due process rights for juveniles, and a formalized diversion process which emphasizes accountability rather than treatment. This paper brings together the available research on the implementation of the law to assess how the introduction of a justice approach has influenced equality, fairness, and punishment levels in Washington State's juvenile justice system.     

Blended Sentencing Laws and the Punitive Turn in Juvenile Justice

In many states, young people today can receive a “blended” combination of both a juvenile sanction and an adult criminal sentence. We ask what accounts for the rise of blended sentencing in juvenile justice and whether this trend parallels crime control developments in the adult criminal justice system. We use event history analysis to model state adoption of blended sentencing laws from 1985 to 2008, examining the relative influence of social, political, administrative, and economic factors. We find that states with high unemployment, greater prosecutorial discretion, and disproportionate rates of African American incarceration are most likely to pass blended sentencing provisions. This suggests that the turn toward blended sentencing largely parallels the punitive turn in adult sentencing and corrections—and that theory and research on adult punishment productively extends to developments in juvenile justice.     

Social information processing, subtypes of violence, and a progressive construction of culpability and punishment in juvenile justice

Consistent with core principles of liberal theories of punishment (including humane treatment of offenders, respecting offender rights, parsimony, penal proportionality, and rehabilitation), progressive frameworks have sought to expand doctrines of mitigation and excuse in order to reduce culpability and punishment. With respect to juvenile justice, scholars have proposed that doctrinal mitigation be broadened, and that adolescents, due to aspects of developmental immaturity (such as decision-making capacity), be punished less severely than adults who commit the same crimes. One model of adolescent antisocial behavior that may be useful to a progressive theory of punishment in juvenile justice distinguishes between instrumental violence, by which the actor behaves thoughtfully and calmly to achieve personal gain, and reactive violence, which is characterized as impulsive, emotional retaliation toward a perceived threat or injustice. In particular, social cognitive differences between instrumental and reactive violence have implications for responsibility, length and structure of incarceration, rehabilitation, and other issues that are central to a progressive theory of juvenile culpability and punishment.     

我国未成年人犯罪刑罚执行制度研究——兼论社区矫正制度

未成年人犯罪刑罚执行制度的基本理念在于保护和教育,对此,我国目前的体制虽然取得了一定成效,但仍存在具体操作性不强、执行主体不清、责任主体不明等缺陷,缺乏系统化。而社区矫正恰是完善我国未成年人犯罪刑罚执行制度的优先选择,应对原有项目加以改进并进行整合,同时在立法上应进一步完善刑事法、构建特别法体系,完善慎逮制度、充分发挥暂缓起诉制度的保护和帮教作用,重构未成年人缓刑制度、取消对未成年人的劳动教养等。     

The Double Paradox of Juvenile Justice

This article considers the history of a century of juvenile justice. Illinois 'invented' the separate 'children's court' in 1899 and this concept was spearheaded in Northern America, Great Britain and continental Europe in the first decades of the new century. However, a century after its foundation the future of the juvenile court is in doubt everywhere in the Western world. Some conclude that there is a cyclical pattern in juvenile justice policies. That proposition is rejected in this article. The proposition of a cyclical pattern also presupposes that there is no real problem at stake in treating juvenile offenders. The main point of this article, however, is that juvenile justice cannot escape trying to solve a very complicated foundational issue. This issue is a double paradox, that is, juvenile justice has to solve two philosophical questions: the justification of punishment and the justification of punishment for non-adults. This diagnosis presents a new conceptual framework for an analysis of the history of juvenile justice.     

The Children's Code Reform Movement in New Mexico: The Politics of Expediency

Like many states, New Mexico has experienced a "get-tough" movement in regard to the handling of juvenile offenders. In 1993 the state formulated a major revision of˜the˜Children's Code, and this revision did a variety of things. Among the changes incorporated into the Children's Code revision was a movement from essentially one category of offenders - delinquent children – with provisions for transferring certain serious offenders to adult court, to three categories. The additional two categories of juvenile offenders included "youthful offenders" and "serious youthful offenders." The upshot of these designations was that the state legislature more carefully defined the jurisdiction of the children's (juvenile) court, and prescribed more severe punishment for the most serious offenders. This article explores some of the forces at work in bringing about the revisions in New Mexico's Children's Code. We argue that the personal and institutional goals of politicians and other opinion leaders were more important than a rational reaction to any real crisis. Specifically, the threat to institutional resources posed by such serious offenders may well have kept institutional stakeholders within the juvenile justice system from objecting to recent changes in New Mexico's juvenile code.     

Disproportionate minority contact in the Dutch juvenile justice system

To examine whether disproportionate minority contact (DMC) exists in the Netherlands, the representation of minority youth was determined for all stages of the juvenile justice system. Using native Dutch youth as a reference group, the odds ratios (OR) to be registered and arrested as suspect, for alternative punishment and for incarceration, were calculated for the minority youth. In all stages of the juvenile justice system, the ORs for minority youths were considerably higher, except for alternative punishment, having lower ORs. This indicates that DMC exists in the Netherlands. DMC should be politicized and programs should be developed to eliminate this inequality.