According to the fifth national census, the number of elderly people over 60 in China has reached 65.438+300 million, accounting for 654.38+0.4 1.00% of the total population, of which the number of elderly people over 65 has reached 88 1. 1.00 million, accounting for 6.96% of the total population. According to the standard of population age structure, China has entered the ranks of aging countries, and the elderly population in China will increase at a faster rate in the future. It is predicted that by 20 15, the population over 60 will exceed 200 million, accounting for 14% of the total population. With the increasing proportion of the elderly population, the social and family environment has more and more influence on the physical, mental and self-factors of the elderly. According to statistics, a prison holds about 1.200 prisoners all the year round, with elderly criminals accounting for 1.2% of the total number of prisoners, 1.4% of the total number of prisoners in 1999 and 2. 1 in 2000. Therefore, the increase of crimes committed by the elderly should attract the attention of relevant parties. This paper talks about some superficial views on the characteristics and causes of crimes committed by the elderly and how to prevent them.
First, the concept of elderly crime
The so-called old age refers to the biological structure and physiological aging of human body, which is restricted by biological laws and surrounding environment and will inevitably age with the passage of time, which is irreversible. However, due to the differences in people's living environment, personal growth conditions and natural physical development, the criteria for judging the elderly are also different. According to people's physiological function, psychological state and function, they can be measured from physiological age, psychological age and social age respectively. 1982, at the United Nations World Assembly on Ageing, old people were defined as 60 years old. If China takes the retirement age as the boundary, men over 60 and women over 55 have basically entered the ranks of the elderly population. Article 2 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, which came into effect on June 1 996+1October1,stipulates that the elderly referred to in this Law refer to citizens over 60 years old. Setting the starting age of the elderly population in China as 60 years old is convenient for correctly measuring the impact of changes in the elderly population on social economy, which is more suitable for China's existing national conditions.
So simply speaking, crimes committed by the elderly refer to crimes committed by people over 60 years old. This is the definition of crimes committed by the elderly based on age. The concept of crimes committed by the elderly can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. The broad concept of crime committed by the elderly is a criminal act committed by the elderly; In a narrow sense, the concept of elderly crime refers to the criminal behavior caused by the aging process in the physical, psychological and social life of the elderly. The former focuses on the subject of behavior, while the latter focuses on the characteristics of behavior. In a narrow sense, crimes committed by the elderly include a very small scope, excluding crimes committed by the elderly in the non-aging process.
Second, the characteristics of the elderly crime
The difference between crimes committed by the elderly and crimes committed by minors is that crimes committed by the elderly do not increase with age, but decrease with age. However, crimes committed by the elderly also have their special criminal phenomena, characteristics and reasons, which deserve our attention.
From different angles, crimes committed by the elderly have different characteristics:
(1) Judging from the subject of crime, most of the crimes committed by the elderly are lonely elderly people with low education. With the development of society, most of the children are separated from the elderly after marriage, which makes the old people's life lonely and monotonous in their later years, and it is easy to breed unhealthy psychology, thus breeding crimes. Moreover, most of these old people are illiterate or semi-illiterate, and their education level is low.
(2) Judging from the types of crimes committed by the elderly, most men are obscenity, * *, deception, arson, theft, corruption, concealment, forgery and fraud. And female crime mainly disturbs social order.
(3) From the means of committing crimes by the elderly, there are fewer violent crimes. After entering the old age, due to the existence of different degrees of physical diseases, the elderly have obstacles to move, which determines that the elderly commit less violent crimes such as robbery and murder, and they often adopt intelligent, hidden and indirect criminal means such as instigation, deception and cover-up.
(d) Most of the targets of crimes committed by the elderly are vulnerable groups. After people enter old age, their physiological functions begin to show obvious aging changes. Therefore, some elderly people often directly target the weak, such as children, women and the disabled, who have no or weak resistance.
In addition to the above characteristics that can be clearly classified, there are some characteristics. Some elderly people have a low level of criminal education, and rural elderly people commit more crimes. In recent years, some retired veteran cadres have used their interpersonal network for many years to seek illegal interests for their families or others, which is also worthy of our attention.
Third, the special reasons for crimes committed by the elderly.
In addition to subjective and objective reasons, there are some special reasons for crimes committed by the elderly, such as juvenile crimes, young and middle-aged crimes and other crimes. The following describes and analyzes the specific reasons for crimes committed by the elderly from several aspects:
(A) after entering old age, people's physical function and psychological skills are facing an obvious downward trend. After entering the old age in terms of physical function, many organs and tissues of people have shrunk to a considerable extent, such as hearing loss and vision loss. The ability to control one's behavior is weakened and the response becomes dull. Therefore, the elderly may commit illegal and criminal acts under certain circumstances. From the psychological function, at this time, the elderly are prone to loneliness and loss. Some old people become sensitive and suspicious. Coupled with the decline of physical function and self-resistance, the old people have problems with their understanding of things, resulting in deep suspicion and victimization. They always doubt whether others have violated themselves, and often commit defensive crimes because they are suspected of being murdered. Some elderly people's emotional instability is self-centered, and their emotions have undergone important changes in their later years, resulting in the phenomenon of emotional regression, that is, the elderly are not easy to restrain when encountering setbacks, often lose their minds, and become willful and stubborn like children. Sometimes I become selfish, complaining all day, opinionated and lacking in tolerance. These psychological tendencies are caused by their physical and mental decline. They often feel weak and lack of energy, and they can't solve disputes properly. It is easy to cause irreconcilable contradictions and conflicts because of trivial matters, resulting in aggressive words and behaviors, leading to interpersonal tension and possibly aggressive illegal and criminal acts.
(2) After entering old age, it is often difficult for the elderly to adapt to social life due to special physiological and psychological changes;
1. Not suitable for retirement. For most elderly people, work is the focus of their lives, and work income is the economic source of the whole family. At work, you can fully display yourself, reflect your self-worth, get respect from others and society, and get happiness and happiness from it. For retired people, they suddenly relax from their busy work, feel that life has no center of gravity, life has become meaningless, and their personal values have not been reflected, so they become negative and decadent. At this time, they are most likely to get involved in illegal and criminal activities.
2. Inadaptability to living in poverty, for some elderly people, if there is a pension to protect their lives, the possibility of property crimes is less. But for other old people, they don't have much savings. Once they retire, they can't fully pay their living expenses. In addition, the elderly are prone to illness and need money to ensure timely treatment. For the rural elderly, due to the lack of perfect social security, their basic needs are provided by their children, and their children are prone to support disputes because of their different economic conditions and ideological and moral levels. When there is no one to support them and they have no economic income, they may engage in various property crimes to solve economic problems.
(3) Getting along with family members will also affect the criminal behavior of the elderly.
1. The relationship with children affects criminal behavior. After retirement, the salary income, status and rights of the elderly are no longer as rich as before, and the benefits brought to the family no longer exist, so the status of the elderly in the family is gradually shaken and the image of their parents is gradually weakened. For the rural elderly, due to the decline of physical function and various functions, their working ability is not as good as before, nor do they support their families as they did when they were young, and their status in the family is not as good as before. Some children with poor self-cultivation, lack of moral concepts and weak awareness of respecting the elderly are likely to treat their parents with a bad attitude when they see these situations. At the same time, the psychological function of the elderly themselves has also undergone subtle changes, and they will feel that they have worked hard for their families all their lives and made a lot of efforts. However, when they are in poor health and need children to take care of them, they are treated so coldly. Old people are definitely not in the mood and are prone to despair, uselessness and other emotions. Therefore, there is revenge. "You don't want to be good if my life is not good." Especially those lonely old people who have no friends, when they encounter setbacks in life, no one can appease them; No one listens when the heart is depressed; No one will take care of you when you are sick. Once the long-term inner repression breaks out, it will often cause serious consequences, and it is normal for criminal behavior to occur.
2. Inconsistent relationship with spouse leads to crime.
When the elderly have no job to enrich their lives after retirement, they will inevitably feel lost. There will also be maladjustment to the new life, which will make the elderly become sensitive, suspicious, emotionally unstable and self-centered. These psychological changes may affect the feelings between husband and wife. Most elderly people are easily excited and often lose their temper for no reason. They shook out the unhappiness between husband and wife in previous years, exposed each other's shortcomings, and caused dissatisfaction between both sides. Contradictions between husband and wife often turn into criminal acts.
(4) Because bad habits have not turned into crimes.
A small number of elderly people commit crimes because old habits are hard to change and they don't think about repentance. For example, Zheng, an elderly criminal who entered the palace three times, raped women by means of feudal superstition, fraud and coercion. Wang, an elderly recidivist, lured and molested the little girl next door by watching TV and giving money.
(E) Due to the imperfection of legal education
In China, especially in rural areas, the education level of the elderly is relatively low. They often act according to their own experience and local customs, are very unfamiliar with legal knowledge and have a shallow legal awareness, so they cannot abide by the law. At present, our country is increasing the publicity of law popularization, but it often ignores the education of law popularization for the elderly, especially in rural areas. Therefore, their legal awareness is relatively weak, and it is easy to break the law and embark on the road of crime.
(6) Due to the incompleteness of moral education
People often think that the elderly have rich life experience and strong ability to distinguish right from wrong, so when they are concerned about their later life, people often think that the elderly do not need ideological and moral education. Ignore the ideological and moral education for the elderly. Today's pluralistic society will inevitably affect the ideological values of its members, including the elderly. In addition, some old people already have some bad ideology, which is bound to make it easier for these old people to actively or passively encourage or organize ugly behaviors such as feudal superstition, pornography, gambling, drugs, etc., and even embark on the road of crime because of the confusion of right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness.
The above is an analysis of the causes of crimes committed by the elderly from different angles, such as their physical and mental functions, inadaptability to society, relationship with family members, legal education and moral education. However, these analyses are not perfect in theoretical development and have not yet formed a systematic and comprehensive nature. Therefore, when we analyze the causes of crimes committed by the elderly, we should conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis and research from the perspective of development.
Fourth, the main countermeasures to prevent crimes committed by the elderly
(1) Establish a material life security system that combines family pension with social pension. At present, we should vigorously develop the economy, strengthen the construction of social pension system, and implement the principle of fair burden for the state, society, families and individuals. To develop the cause of providing for the aged, we should learn from foreign successful experiences, improve the community security system, and solve the problems of community security, social welfare and social relief for the elderly. To strengthen the construction of community service facilities for the elderly, we can take various forms such as government investment and donations from all walks of life, such as strengthening the construction of hardware facilities, infrastructure, service facilities and service software for the elderly in the community. Form a perfect service system for the elderly, so that the material life, medical care, culture and entertainment of the elderly
Effective protection.
(2) Establish a medical security system for the elderly in urban and rural areas. We must adjust the existing medical policy and improve the medical insurance system. In particular, it is necessary to ensure that retirees from bankrupt enterprises and difficult enterprises can afford it. Establish and improve the medical assistance system for the elderly, and provide medical assistance to the elderly who are not included in the urban and rural basic medical security system and cannot obtain the necessary security. The National Poverty Alleviation Hospital specializes in helping the poor, especially the elderly. All localities should regularly organize medical teams to send doctors to the countryside.
Help the poor old people tide over the difficulties.
(3) Focus on helping poor people and poor elderly groups. Governments at all levels should proceed from reality, establish and improve the urban and rural minimum living security system, implement special policies, and give special care to poor elderly people. For poverty-stricken areas, the state gives appropriate financial support to enable poor elderly people in poverty-stricken areas to enjoy the minimum living guarantee. The government can set up a special fund to help the poor elderly, and a government agency for the elderly is responsible for the management and use of the fund. Governments at all levels should create conditions to gradually bring poor elderly people who have children but have no ability to support them into the scope of township five guarantees. Establish a medical security system for urban and rural counterparts, and regularly prevent and treat diseases for the elderly in poverty-stricken areas. Mobilize social forces to implement targeted special assistance and so on.
Improve the physical quality, life quality and spiritual quality of the elderly by developing education for the elderly. To develop education for the elderly, we should start with enriching the spiritual life of the elderly according to the characteristics and laws of education for the elderly, and carry out colorful education for the elderly and scientific fitness activities, so that the elderly can gain happiness and knowledge in study and fitness. We should aim at meeting the actual needs of the elderly, solve the hot and difficult problems that all the elderly are generally concerned about, and strive to enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of education. We can actively arrange for them to participate in all kinds of activities that we can, enrich their spiritual life, and let beneficial activities fill their ideological emptiness after leaving their jobs, so as to avoid the phenomenon of violating the law and discipline. It is necessary to strengthen the legal education and ideological and moral education for the elderly, attach importance to the education of the elderly while strengthening the legal education of the whole society, and strive to make the elderly learn, know and abide by the law, constantly improve their legal awareness and moral level, and strive to enhance their legal and moral concepts. In addition, we can't ignore that the family is the first line of defense against crime, and we can't ignore the care and emotional comfort for the elderly because of the busy work and life of our children. We should inherit and carry forward the virtue of respecting the elderly, respect their personality, strengthen communication with the elderly, pay attention to their spiritual life, reduce their sense of loss, and let them spend their old age happily.
(five) to safeguard the rights and interests of the elderly in an important position in judicial work. China has implemented the Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) on Old-age Security since June 1 996+1October1. Implement the law on the protection of the rights and interests of the elderly and bring the work of the elderly into the legal and institutionalized track. Safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly in accordance with the law, especially treat them with caution and properly handle criminal cases of the elderly. In the trial of crimes committed by the elderly, we should comprehensively consider the characteristics, causes, circumstances and harmful results of crimes committed by the elderly, and try to impose a lighter sentence within the statutory sentencing range. In the choice of punishment and sentencing, we must adhere to the following principles: try not to sentence those who can be sentenced according to law but have not been sentenced; For sentences that can be light and heavy, try to give priority to light sentences; For those who can be detained, the main thing is not to be detained. In the trial procedure and strategy, we should take care of the physical and mental characteristics of the elderly as much as possible and pay attention to persuasion education; Standardize the language of trial and protect the self-esteem of the elderly. Distinguish specific cases, correctly use probation and temporary execution outside prison. Crimes committed by the elderly, except recidivists and difficult-to-reform recidivists, are generally less harmful to society, and the elderly are weak, so the possibility of recidivism is less. Except for some crimes that seriously endanger national security and public safety, probation can be applied. For those who are seriously ill and meet the statutory conditions for medical treatment on parole, the people's court may decide to temporarily execute them outside prison when making a judgment. For those who do show repentance and no longer endanger society, the conditions for commutation and parole are appropriately relaxed, and as long as the basic conditions stipulated by law are met, commutation and parole can be reduced. Severely crack down on acts that seriously endanger the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly and protect the elderly victims. On the other hand, we should also crack down on crimes committed by the elderly. By cracking down, the elderly on the brink of crime can be stopped from the brink, which plays an educational and deterrent role, thus playing a role in preventing crimes committed by the elderly.
(six) do a good job in the education and reform of crimes committed by the elderly. Compared with criminals of other ages, there are relatively few elderly criminals in prisons, but with the increase of elderly criminal cases year by year, elderly criminals are on the rise. Because the elderly are frail, have poor independent living ability and have few social contacts, in this case, the elderly criminals will lose heart and lose interest in life, which makes it more difficult to reform them. Considering the special physiological and psychological characteristics of the elderly, the reform organs should adopt a more tolerant attitude and allocate as few heavy labor tasks as possible. While doing a good job in the education and reform of crimes committed by the elderly in prisons, we should also do a good job in the resettlement of crimes committed by the elderly to prevent them from committing crimes again after being released from prison or released on parole. Therefore, families, neighborhood committees, civil affairs departments and social welfare departments should promptly solve the problem of the way out for elderly criminals after their release or parole. Local pension institutions and civil affairs departments should coordinate their work, attach importance to resettlement, implement living security measures, and prevent recidivism.
The above is to explore the countermeasures and measures to prevent crimes committed by the elderly from different angles, but we should also pay attention to the following issues:
1. To talk about some preventive measures under realistic conditions, we should not blindly pursue preventive effects and ignore realistic possibilities. For example, when building various infrastructure services for the elderly, local economic conditions and affordability should be considered.
2. Crimes committed by the elderly should be comprehensively managed, giving full play to the positive role of administration, law, policy and society.
3. We should study the countermeasures of elderly crime from the perspective of development. With the development of society, the causes and characteristics of crimes committed by the elderly will also change, and our countermeasures should also change accordingly.
The aging work should be regarded as an important part of socialist work, and the whole society should pay attention to it, strive to create social conditions and environment suitable for the aging population, stimulate the elderly's willingness to serve the society, guide them to participate in various social activities, enrich their spiritual life, and enable them to spend their old age safely. In this way, the problems of the elderly can be solved satisfactorily. In addition, the author believes that under the impact of the aging population in China and the increasing number of small families in modern society, strengthening the research on crimes committed by the elderly should be listed as one of the important topics in criminology research.
Amendment 8 to the Criminal Law: the amendment to the provisions of natural persons over 75 years old;
One article is added after Article 17 of the Criminal Law as one of Article 17: "If a person who has reached the age of 75 intentionally commits a crime, he may be given a lighter or mitigated punishment; Whoever commits a crime negligently shall be given a lighter or mitigated punishment. "
Article 72 of the Criminal Law is amended as: "A criminal sentenced to criminal detention or fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years may be suspended if he meets the following conditions, and suspended if he is under the age of 18, a pregnant woman or a person who has reached the age of 75:" (1) The circumstances of the crime are relatively minor; "(2) expressing repentance;" (3) There is no danger of committing a crime again; "(4) The announcement of probation has no significant adverse effect on the community where he lives." Probation can be announced according to the situation of the crime, and criminals are prohibited from engaging in specific activities, entering specific areas, places and contacting specific personnel during the probation period of probation. If a criminal who has been suspended is sentenced to an additional punishment, the additional punishment must still be executed.