ABSTRACT
The preventive shift raises concerns about the challenges posed by “prevention” to the dominance of “just desserts” as the central rationale in penal theory. In the West, the concept of crime prevention is not clear. Under the umbrella of “crime prevention” there is a set of theories and practices ranging from criminal law statute transformations and new policing approaches, to the emergence of atypical penalties such as preventive orders and civil commitments. In China, enacting the Criminal Law Amendment Act as the major method of revising criminal law was designed to meet the needs of a rapidly developing society while maintaining the stability and predictability of the law. It is also one of the signs of progress in China’s criminal justice system. The currently used criminal law in China is the 1997 Criminal Law, which replaced the 1979 Chinese Criminal Law to meet the needs of rapid social and economic developments.
