Local juvenile tribunals are relying on their 17 years' experience
dealing with youth offenders as they evolve into an independent
juvenile court.
"The municipal authorities have given us great support on the idea
of setting up a juvenile court," said Chen Jianmin, president of
the juvenile tribunal with Shanghai's Changning District.
Juvenile tribunals only handle criminal cases. But the number of
civil cases involving child support and minors' education rights
has soared in recent years.
The problem is that those civil cases are being handled through
Civil Law, which was not designed to adequately protect
children.
"An independent court may help solve such problems," Chen said.
Special courts for juvenile cases began in 1899 in the United
States. China established its first juvenile tribunal in 1984 in
Shanghai's Changning District Court.
Juvenile delinquency was rampant in China after the country dragged
itself out of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), a time when
children received little or no education.
In
1979 in Shanghai, the number of people younger than 25 involved in
crimes reached 15,000, or 78 percent of all criminal offenders.
That was the highest percentage in history.
Juveniles were treated as adults in the court system then, but
officials soon realized the equal treatment was flawed because the
juvenile recidivism rate at the time was a whopping 10 percent.
After juvenile tribunals were set up under the principles of
"instruction, reform and redemption," the recidivism rate plummeted
to 1 percent.
The tribunal's obvious success rate led to the establishment of
2,500 other tribunals throughout the mainland.
Minors were often given leniency when they were punished by the
tribunals.
The judge's work didn't end once the penalty was issued. Judges
continued to supervise the juvenile offenders to help them better
themselves.
But new problems arise in ever-changing societies and tribunals
began having problems handling all the casework.
Statistics show that in the last decade, the juvenile delinquency
rate accounted for 10 percent to 14 percent of all the criminal
offences in the city. More than half of those juvenile cases were
committed by gangs. Online crimes are surfacing as well.
To
better crack down on juvenile delinquency and make full use of
judicial power, the city reduced the number of juvenile tribunals
in 1999 from 20 to four respectively in Changning, Putuo, Zhabei
and Minhang district courts.
Those tribunals were then put in charge of juvenile cases for the
entire city.
The centralization helped considerably. Because independent courts
are allotted more power, they can better supervise offenders and
detention homes.
Since China still has no criminal laws or procedure laws for
minors, an independent juvenile court system would make the overall
system more integrated, said Li Jie, deputy director of the
Steering Group for the Juvenile Tribunal in Shanghai Higher
People's Court.
(China
Daily 09/11/2001)