China's newly developed psychological system is set to evaluate juvenile offenders' social backgrounds to know the reason why they are committing crimes. (Photo : www.telegraph.co.uk)
The Supreme Prosecutor Office, China's highest prosecution authority, announced its newly designed psychological profile system created by Beijing Normal University, along with a drug rehabilitation center in Sichuan Province.
The new psychological profile was first tested on May 12 to over 400 juvenile law breakers in Shanghai, China's largest city.
According to Shanghai Daily, 142 teenagers who are proven to have committed inconsequential crimes and demonstrated not to repeat violating the constitution were filed out of charges by the prosecutors.
The rate is 54 percent higher compared to the 77 juvenile cases that were eliminated in 2014.
China's 17 other provinces will also make use of the new psychological profile, which replaced the previous American-made system that did not meet China's standard.
Fan Rongqing, an official at the prosecutors’ office, told Shanghai Daily that the foreign-made juvenile psychological assessment has caused conflict as "culture and language differences may ignore quintessential Chinese characteristics."
“A question, even translated into Chinese, might be understood in different ways by Chinese because of a different way of thinking,” the official said.
Fan added that some juvenile offenders who live in foreign countries find it hard to understand some of the questions asked in the examination.
The newly developed psychological system is set to evaluate a juvenile offender's social background to know the reason why he or she is committing crimes.
China has a recorded over 33,000 youth who have been sentenced of committing crime in the past 30 years.
The year 2007 had the highest recorded juvenile related cases, but the number was reduced to 1,045 in 2013 when China strengthened its campaign on preventing crimes.
