Social approaches, not death penalty, needed to reduce crimes: experts

Capital punishment cannot solve social problems or reduce the crime rate, experts said amid the uproar over the execution of a suspect who murdered his village chief over a land dispute.

The execution of Jia Jinglong, a villager from North China’s Hebei Province who murdered the local chief in revenge for the forced demolition of his house, has ignited criticism of the Chinese judicial system and led to calls for the abolition of the death penalty in China.

Another government official was killed by a villager in Yulin, South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Re- gion on Saturday. Hu Mingzhong, who had a dispute with two other villagers over a ditch, killed a visiting official with a cleaver, the Beijing Times reported.

Mao Lixin, a criminal lawyer with the Beijing- based Shangquan Law Firm, told the Global Times that “the death penalty cannot help reduce the crime rate and deter criminals. On the contrary, it will make the government look like an adversary of its own people.”

He explained that executions often create resentment among the families of those given the death penalty, which increases anger toward the government and could eventually lead to tensions between the government and the society as a whole.

Mao said the use of capital punishment symbolizes “government inertia,” explaining that the death penalty has been regarded as an alternative way to deal with social problems, but crime control should actually be led by sociological methods.

Social issues including forcible demolition still remain unresolved after the execution of Jia, and the punishment has aroused protests, Mao said.

China does not need to compete with other nations in terms of abolishing the death penalty and should carry on reform of the law at its own pace, Sun Jiahong, a law professor from Peking University, was quoted by sohu. com as saying.

A total of 158 countries and regions have abolished capital punishment.

The Supreme People’s Court ruled that what Jia did was extremely cruel, the consequences were extremely serious, the danger posed to others was profoundly significant and the crime was ominous, so the court approved the death penalty following several rounds of appeals, according to the Xinhua News Agency.