理念、制度——和谐社会构建中的少年司法之走向

和谐社会构建中的少年司法制度改革,首先必须明确少年司法的正确理念,并在此理念的指导下,设计出既符合少年司法科学意义、又尊重中国现实的完善的少年司法制度。我国少年司法制度应当在“保护少年”的理念指导下,制定一部独立的《少年法》,对少年犯罪、少年不良行为作出实体认定和司法程序适用的规定。     

The judicial response to crime and the criminal: A utilitarian perspective

This paper examines the hypothesis that the sentencing decision of the criminal court is consistent with utilitarian principles and that the judiciary uses the length of incarceration as an instrument for the maximization of societal well-being. A theoretical model is developed, whose principal arguments are offender and offense attributes, resource costs, the availability of alternative sanctions, and the general crime rate. Four questions are considered: (i) How does a utilitarian court respond to a general increase in crime? (ii) How does the availability of alternative sanctions affect the length of incarceration ? (iii) How does a utilitarian court respond to offenders who are more likely to recidivate? (iv) How does the court respond to offenders who commit more serious offenses? The model is empirically evaluated, using cross-sectional data for the state of Georgia for individuals sentenced to prison in 1978 for a UCR index offense. The theoretical model provides few specific behavioral rules for the court to follow. Answers to the foregoing four questions are shown to depend upon both the efficacy of sanctions and the cost of the administration of those sanctions. It is not possible to predict, for example, how a utilitarian court should respond to a rise in crime or how it should respond to offenders who are likely to commit more serious offenses. The empirical analysis shows that, in fact, the sentence length varied inversely with the general offense rate, with the likelihood of imprisonment, and with the length of postprison probation. The evidence also indicates that sentences vary with the individual's original record but not with the offender's age or race. With the exception of possible gender bias, the court's sentencing behavior was consistent with utilitarian principles.     

Procedural justice at German courts as seen by defendants and juvenile prisoners

The article summarizes German research on procedural and distributive justice at criminal courts. The first German field studies addressing these topics are presented. Procedural justice characteristics like neutrality, courtesy, equal consideration of evidence, voice, and fairness of procedural rules are relevant for Germans. A study on juvenile prisoners shows no support for equity theory and some for the Group Value model. Lay assessors receive positive evaluations by juvenile prisoners.     

Sentencing Using Statistical Treatment Rules: What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us

The existing literature seriously misinterprets the available evidence on the predictability of high rate criminal offending and thus the potential value of statistical treatment rules that impose stiffer punishments on offenders with higher predicted risk of recidivism. The misinterpretation results from the failure to take account of the fact that the data used in existing risk assessment exercises come from environments characterized by informal (and sometimes formal) attempts by judges and other actors to base penal treatments on expected recidivism. Findings of little or no predictive power for baseline covariates may simply indicate the efficient use of the available information. We lay out the problem in detail, provide examples from several literatures and then consider general solutions to the problem.

未成年犯罪人非监禁处遇制度

未成年犯罪成为全球严重的社会问题,引起了世界各国的高度重视。未成年犯罪人非刑罚处遇制度作为一种针对少年违法犯罪进行特殊处理的制度,早已在世界上广泛适用。而我国由于诸多因素的影响,未成年犯罪人非刑罚处遇制度还没有形成一个统一的法律体系。在相关法律中增设专章,增加未成年犯的非监禁措施的种类,增设社会服务刑,发挥工读学校和少年法庭的积极作用,以达到有效预防及矫正未成年人犯罪的目的。     

未成年人刑事案件审查逮捕程序的改革

在未成年人刑事处理走向宽缓化趋势及审查逮捕程序改革的双重背景下,对未成年人刑事案件审查逮捕程序的改革价值在于推进刑事司法改革。文章从改革的背景谈起,对改革的价值、实务部门对改革进行的探索、针对改革探索的一些论争,进行了归纳梳理,进而对改革的进程提出相关建议。     

未成年人犯罪“防矫”模式的构建

我国未成年人犯罪现状堪忧。文章在分析未成年人犯罪成因的基础上,从预防与矫正的角度提出了对未成年人犯罪应采取的模式。建议制定《社区矫正法》,设立未成年人社区矫正专章;成立专门的未成年人犯罪社区矫正机构;组建专业的未成年人犯罪社区矫正队伍,建立有效的未成年人犯罪社区矫正预防措施。     

DIFFERENTIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY? IMMIGRANT YOUTH AND PEER INFLUENCE*

There is reason to suspect that lower levels of exposure to criminogenic peer‐based risks help explain why immigrant youth are less involved in crime and violence. However, it also is possible that if and when they do encounter these risks, immigrant youth are more vulnerable to them than are native‐born youth. Drawing from literature on the adaptation experiences of immigrant adolescents, we hypothesize that immigrant youth will be relatively more susceptible to the effects of both 1) exposure to deviant peers and 2) unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers when compared with their nonimmigrant counterparts. Using a sample of approximately 1,800 adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study, we find support for our first hypothesis but not the second. Specifically, in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal models, we find that exposure to deviant peers has a greater impact on violence among immigrant youth than it does for native‐born youth. Furthermore, this pattern of results is supported with supplemental, sensitivity analysis using the AddHealth data. In contrast, there are no statistically significant differences across immigrant generation status with regard to the effect of informal socializing with peers on violence.     

Overview of: “Getting the Law Involved a Quasi-Experiment in Early Intervention Involving Collaboration Between Schools and the District Attorney's Office”

Research Summary Precursors to serious and chronic delinquency often emerge in childhood, stimulating calls for early interventions. Most intervention efforts rely solely on social service programs—often to the exclusion of the juvenile justice system. The juvenile justice system has been reluctant to become involved in the lives of relatively young children fearing net widening or further straining resources that could be used for older youth with documented delinquency histories. We report here the results of an early intervention program sponsored by and housed in a district attorney's office in Louisiana. Using a quasi-experimental design, we examined outcomes associated with program involvement as well as whether the obvious involvement of the prosecutor's office was associated with further reductions in problem behavior.

• 1 : The results revealed that significant reductions in problem behaviors of young children could be attributed to program participation.
• 2 : The obvious involvement of the district attorney's office, however, was associated with limited, albeit significant, reductions in specific problem behaviors.
• 3 : These findings show that successful early intervention efforts can be made part of the juvenile justice system and that in some limited situations prosecutorial involvement can result in positive outcomes.

Policy Implications The expansion of early intervention programming into the juvenile justice system offers opportunities to address early problem behavior. Our study and its results have the following policy implications.

• 1 : Closely coupled partnerships between schools and the juvenile justice system can effectively address, mitigate, and perhaps prevent an early onset of antisocial behavior.
• 2 : Even so, coupling early intervention efforts to the mission of the juvenile justice system warrants debate. Net-widening, resource diffusion, and the potential for officials to rely too heavily on the deterrent characteristics of the justice system represent serious threats to the integrity of effective early intervention programs.
• 3 : We suggest substantial debate and consideration is given before coupling early intervention efforts to the juvenile justice system.