Juridical-Economic Analysis of the Lowering of the Age of Criminal Responsibility
The criminal law has an economic logic of"imitating the market operation mech-anism",which examines factors such as costs and benefits to ensure the rational allocation of criminal resources.By lowering the age of criminal responsibility,Amendment(Ⅺ)to the Crimi-nal Law intends to reshape the structure of crime costs and benefits for minors who have reached the age of 12 but not reached the age of 14.After legal and economic analysis,this deliberate low-ering of the age of criminal responsibility is the most reasonable option.Specifically speaking,at the individual level,the decrease of the age of criminal responsibility reshapes the structure of the benefits of crime,and juveniles are not affected by legal cognitive barrier.Thus,driving by penal incentives,they are able to reflect.At the social level,crime tags detract from the benefits that juveniles can derive from the orthodox society,and the system of the extermination of crimi-nal records is incomplete for juveniles.This reduces the opportunity costs of crime.However,as a limited response to national moral intuition,lowering the age of criminal responsibility main-tains the valuable moral reputation of criminal law,which is an important long-term benefit.At the national level,compared with the cost of specialized correctional education and the penalties required for policing behavior,a prudent downward adjustment is already a rational cost-minimi-zing measure.At the same time,in order to avoid the sticky effect,as for the doctrinal analysis of the article 17(3)of criminal law,we should reasonably value the"aggravating circumstances",a comprehensive element,and adhere to a superficial rather than a substantive review in the re-porting procedure.Finally,the age of criminal responsibility is not constant.It will fluctuate up and down according to the structure of benefits shaped by the individual,society and the state.
Age of Criminal ResponsibilityLegal EconomicsSticky Effect
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