As violent juvenile crime rocks the headlines, China debates: How young is too young to lock up?
On the evening of October 29, 2020, after dinner and alcohol at a restaurant in the small city of Xingping, Shaanxi province, six teenagers got into a fight with a 15-year-old peer who had allegedly blocked them as contacts on messaging app WeChat. Knocked unconscious, the boy was hidden in a hotel by the gang, wary of drawing attention to their fight. But by morning he was dead.
The brutality of the teenagers’ violence was only exacerbated by their apparent eagerness to cover it up. The panicked culprits buried their victim in a field outside a nearby village, then took his SIM card and posted a photo on the boy’s social media captioned “Off to work!” to give the impression he was still alive. Police found the body nonetheless, and by the following week had taken the six suspects into custody.
The suspects’ ages ranged from 14 to 17, meaning that none of them will face the same punishment an adult would for the same crime. They could, however, face juvenile charges under China’s Criminal Law, which was revised in December 2020 to reduce the age of criminal responsibility for serious crimes (like homicide) from 14 to 12 after a string of shocking juvenile cases hit the Chinese headlines over the past five years.
In May of last year, a 15-year-old from Shandong province strangled her lawyer mother to death, allegedly because she was too strict. In November 2018, six teens aged 14 to 17 from Shaanxi were arrested for forcing a 15-year-old girl into prostitution, then killing her and burying the body. In 2019, a 10-year-old girl was killed by a 13-year-old boy; and in 2015, three students in Hunan gagged and beat their teacher to death in her own home.
This apparent crisis of youth morality and discipline has even influenced popular culture. Last summer, the wildly popular TV series The Bad Kids enraptured audiences with its plot of three children from broken homes who get mixed up in murder, blackmail, and extortion.
According to a report by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate released in June 2020, China prosecuted 61,295 children under 18 in 2019, compared with 58,307 the year before. Between 2014 and 2019 the most common juvenile crimes were burglary and robbery, fighting in public, and “picking quarrels.” Although violent crime has fallen overall in the period, there have been more prosecutions for rape and sexual assault among minors. The vast majority of youth offenders—perhaps over 95 percent—are boys.
Minor Offense is a story from our issue, “Dawn of the Debt.” To read the entire issue, become a subscriber and receive the full magazine.
Sam Davies is the managing editor at The World of Chinese. He writes mainly about Chinese society, especially life outside the biggest cities. His pieces touching on diverse topics from the future of China’s ski industry to efforts to prevent juvenile crime.
