Lower age for criminal liability won't curb bullying

The police officer is giving lessons to high school students around school violence topic in Shenyang,Liaoning province,on May 27,2016.[Photo/IC]

In recent years, violence in schools has frequently been exposed by the media, and there have been calls for the age of criminal liability to be reduced so school bullies can receive harsher penalties. This proposition requires careful consideration, People's Daily commented on Tuesday:

People's anxiety about bullying in schools is in part because of the excessive attention being paid to it. In some developed countries, the incidence of bullying is above 80 percent. China's incidence of bullying in general is still relatively low. This year, among 104,825 sampled students nationwide the incidence of bullying was 33.36 percent. Of course, the amount of bullying is still alarming.

However, lowering the age of criminal liability will not help curb violence in schools. In China, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14, which has not been set at random but is rather the result of the development and progress of the law.

More important, whether a person is mature is, in addition to the physiological standard, measured by psychological and social standards.

Although the physical development of children is now more advanced than their psychological development, bullying is a phenomenon mostly associated with growing up. For most minors, their adolescent bad behavior does not accompany them into adulthood.

From this perspective, the idea of lowering the age of criminal liability for minors is contrary to the law. The bad behavior of minors, including bullying, should receive the necessary tolerance before the law intervenes.