ABSTRACT
In the criminal law, there are 413 offences in total. Among them, 97 offences carry the penalty of life imprisonment. Generally there are two conditions: for offences for which the death penalty could be imposed, life imprisonment could be taken as one option. This is in order to reduce the application of the death penalty. Another condition is, for some offences, life imprisonment is provided as the maximum punishment. There is debate going on currently in China. People who oppose life imprisonment think that, firstly, life imprisonment deprives offenders of their freedom for their whole life and isolates them from society. In comparison with the death penalty, they suffer permanently, so it is as cruel as the death penalty. Secondly, if rehabilitation or correction served as one of the main goals of punishment, life imprisonment
obviously has made the criminals lose their confidence to go back into society and the purpose of punishment could not be served. Thirdly, it seems unfair because if life imprisonment takes the rest of life as the term, obviously the duration could be very different. 1 Finally, it is an uneconomical punishment. A larger population of prisoners serving life sentences would significantly increase state prison budgets. People who favour life imprisonment put forward different arguments. Firstly, life imprisonment has an essential distinction from the death penalty. The right to life is the fundamental right, the right of freedom is based on the right to life, so it is hard to say that life imprisonment is more cruel than the death penalty. Life imprisonment retains the life of offenders. Thus, in miscarriage of justice cases, it could protect the lives of the innocent. China retains the death penalty. The imposition of life imprisonment could hopefully reduce the application of the death penalty. Secondly, life imprisonment in China is different from some other countries where the prisoner could never get parole. Under the Chinese criminal law, after prisoners serve a certain period of time, provided they would not reoffend and have a record of good behaviour, they would get commutation of punishment or parole. That means that prisoners have some hope of future release. Although there is debate on life imprisonment in general, however, the leading opinion on life imprisonment is that it should be improved first. Academics hold the opinion that the range of offences where life imprisonment may be imposed is too large. As mentioned above, almost one fourth of offences carry the penalty oflife imprisonment. It is really necessary to limit the range to only the most serious crimes, defined not only in terms of the offences themselves, but also in terms of the seriousness of the case as a whole.
