死刑威慑力的犯罪学分析

Criminological analysis on deterrent power of death penalty

Death penalty is the most effective deterrence to grave crimes, which has been the key basis for the State to retain death penalty. In fact, either in legislation or in execution, death penalty can not produce the special deterrent effect as expected. With respect to this issue, people tend to conduct normative exploration from the perspective of ordinary legal principles or the principle of human rights, which is more speculative than convincing. Correct interpretation based on the existing positive analysis and differentiation based on human nature which sifts the true from the false will not only help end the simple, repetitive and meaningless arguments regarding the basis for the existence of death penalty, but also help understand the rational nature of both the elimination and the preservation of death penalty, so as to define the basic direction towards which the State should make efforts in controlling death penalty in the context of promoting social civilization. Zhang Yuanhuang is a professor of law at Beijing Normal University, and a doctoral tutor and director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Policy. He has been to Paris II University as a senior visiting scholar. He is an executive director of Chinese Criminological Society and a director of the Chinese branch of International Association of Penal Law. His main publications include: Basic Issues of Modern Criminology (China Procuratorial Press, 1998), Principles of Criminology (Law Press, 2^nd ed. 2008), Criminology (Renmin University of China Press, 2008); and he has more than 70 articles published in law academic journals.