Middle school students listen to a report from a teenage inmate as part of a school's campaign to prevent juvenile delinquency in Xinjian county, Jiangxi Province, August 31, 2004. Photo: CFP

Earlier this month, the public was left in a state of shock over video footage of a 12-year-old girl attacking a toddler in an elevator. According to the footage shown on TV, the adolescent was alone in the elevator with the boy and for no apparent reason, threw the toddler to the ground, kicked him and threw him out of the elevator when the door opened. The boy suffered a skull fracture and pulmonary hemorrhage.

This was by no means an isolated case. According to the 2012 yearbook of law, there were 282,249 perpetrators of crime under the age of 25, accounting for 26 percent of the total number in 2011. Among them, 67,280 were minors.

Zong Chunshan, director of the Beijing Youth Legal and Psychological Consultation Service Center, believes that youth crimes reflect the times we live in because young people are sensitive to the changes taking place in the world. "All the characteristics of the time, such as social crises, political transformation and the gap between rural and urban areas, all contribute to the rise in youth crimes," Zong told Phoenix Weekly.

Growing number

Official documents show there was an increase in crime committed by people under the age of 25 in the early 1980s, after the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the number of criminals under the age of 25 made up 70 to 80 percent of all criminal cases. Since then, while the rate has continued to drop, the number of minors committing crimes has been on the rise. In 2003, 45 percent of criminal cases were committed by people under 25.

Li Meijin, a professor at the Chinese People's Public Security University, said that the weakening role of family in children's growth has been an important contributing factor to the rising number of youth crimes. She calls it a tragic price China has paid for the decades of rapid economic development.

Based on sample statistics from the latest population census in 2010, it is estimated that there are over 61 million children who are left behind in rural areas as their parents go and seek work in the cities, which is 37.7 percent of all rural children.

These children are left to the care of their elderly grandparents, and some studies estimated that close to 20 percent of these children would drop out of school by the age of 14. They are not only at risk of committing crimes but also of becoming victims of crimes such as sexual abuse, as media reports in recent years have shown.

If parents cannot be there for their children during the formation of their personalities, the children may grow up having difficulty trusting other people and the environment, or they might develop problematic personality traits, which may lead to improper or even criminal behavior, according to Li's studies.

Without supervision from their parents and grandparents, many children frequent Internet cafes and some become addicted to video games. It is reported that the Internet is a contributor in 60 to 70 percent of the inmates at juvenile detention centers.

Media reports abound of minors robbing or killing people simply for money to play video games, and of others who are unable to distinguish between the virtual world and reality. The relationship between exposure to violence in TV and video games and juvenile crimes has also been studied by Chinese and foreign researchers.

For instance, in May, two teenagers in Henan Province robbed a taxi driver and beat him to death with bricks because they wanted money to play video games.

Juvenile offences are also becoming more brutal and more similar to adult crimes. In June, five teenagers killed a homeless person in Shaanxi Province, reportedly because they wanted to practice before carrying out a robbery. More teenagers are also found to be involved in dealing drugs, according to Zong.

Family education

A survey led by the Ministry of Justice in 18 juvenile detention centers around the country showed that over a quarter of minor delinquents have divorced parents, which means that about three-quarters come from "complete families."

The reason for their behavior lies in their family upbringing, according to Professor Li. In some families, especially rich ones, parents only provide for their children's material needs while paying little attention to emotional and character cultivation, while in other cases the methods parents use are problematic, she wrote in a paper on juvenile delinquency back in 2005.

Two policy changes in the 1980s - the family planning policy which limits couples to having only one child, and the return of the gaokao, or college entrance exam - go hand in hand. Parents, as well as grandparents, dote on their only child, creating "little emperors" and "little princesses" on the one hand, while putting all their hopes on the child to go to college and find a good job on the other. The pressure only increases as the competition gets fiercer.

Behind every misdeed, there is a source of stress, either difficulty in school, pressure from the parents or abuse from classmates, said Pi Yijun, a professor at China University of Politics and Law, according to Phoenix Weekly.

"If society, instead of blaming the kids, could look behind their inappropriate behavior, find the stressors and remove them, maybe the teenagers could become normal very soon," Pi was quoted as saying.

Families, schools and society still see exam results as the ultimate yardstick. "Society adopts this single value system to eliminate those kids who may have other talents," said Pi. "Therefore these kids can't find their place, some drop out of school and some even commit crimes."

That's not to say that only "bad students" become criminals. In April 2012, it was reported that a 12-year-old boy in Hunan Province killed his aunt and his cousins, aged 9 and 4. The boy had previously won awards for being a good student in school. Reports of students in top universities committing crimes are also not unheard of.

The general moral decline in society is another reason, as teenagers might internalize or imitate improper or immoral actions of adults, said Pi.

Legal consequences

China passed a law on preventing juvenile crimes in 1999, which was amended last year. But legal experts are calling for further revisions to help prevent juvenile crimes.

Juvenile detention centers and labor camps do not seem to be of any help in correcting the juvenile delinquents. "Some juvenile detention centers ask the inmates to recite classic texts such as Di Zi Gui [a Confucian classic on children's morals and values]. That's no use at all," said Pi. "They should be taught the law, not morals."

Pi believes that punishments for juvenile delinquents in China are heavier than in other countries. In the mainland, these teenagers are more likely to be imprisoned as opposed to being given probation. They are either jailed in juvenile detention centers or sent to labor camps, which makes it more difficult for them to return to society.

By July 2011, there were over 2,300 juvenile courts for trying juvenile cases. Chinese law also emphasizes that educating and rehabilitating juvenile delinquents should be put before punishment. But as there isn't an independent criminal law for juvenile offenders in the mainland, sentences for juveniles are based on the criminal law for adults.

Pi has been advocating for a special law for juvenile crimes, in accordance with international practices. He believes that juvenile crimes and adult crimes are not just different in degree, but also in category.

Experts emphasize the responsibilities of families and schools. Even though the law on prevention of juvenile crimes does include articles on the custodian's responsibilities, it lacks specific, enforceable measures to punish those who do not fulfill their duties, said Niu Kai, a member of an institute that researches juvenile crimes, according to Legal Daily.

Special schools could also be used to help correct the juvenile delinquents' behavior, he suggested.

Zong has been focusing more on psychological counseling of juvenile delinquents. Many juvenile delinquents show little remorse about their crimes and tend to blame others. "Even though we should give lighter sentences to juvenile offenders, we should be very strict when it comes to their attitude in confessing the crime, because it relates to how they attribute their crimes," said Zong.

If the teenagers attribute their crimes to the wrong reasons, it may cause personality problems and lead them to repeated offences, he added.
"No matter what crimes a minor commits, the person most responsible should be the adult society," Zong told Phoenix Weekly.

Global Times-Phoenix Weekly