Teen killers spur discussion on youth crime

NANNING - A high school student who was sentenced to life in prison for killing a 9-year-old girl has sparked discussions on juvenile delinquency in China.

The defendant, surnamed Lyu, kidnapped the victim in December 2012, molested her, and beat her to death, according to a statement released by the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Xinzhou in North China's Shanxi province on Saturday.

The court said the crimes committed were so hideous that no mitigation was offered.

The case was just one more in a series of similar cases committed by minors.

Back in February of this year, the son of a famous Chinese singer was detained in Beijing along with four others for their alleged involvement in a gang rape.

Beijing police refused to disclose the name of the suspected minor, but police insiders who requested anonymity said he is the son of Li Shuangjiang, dean of the music department of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts.

It was not the first time that the younger Li has been in trouble.

The 17-year-old and another teenager attacked a couple who allegedly blocked their driveway near the entrance of a residential community in Beijing two years ago. He was later sent to a government correctional facility for one year.

In April, a 12-year-old boy killed a 76-year-old woman in Guiping City in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The boy, who is currently in custody, confessed to police that he never wanted to kill the woman, and that he only wanted to steal money from her.

Many have expressed concern on the Internet about the psychological conditions of China's underage population, wondering what transformed these little "flowers of the motherland" into "carnivorous plants" in a country striving for a harmonious society.

These cases are not rare, said Xia Xueluan, professor with the Department of Sociology at Peking University, adding that juvenile crimes in China, which have decreased in recent years, are still large in number.

From 2002 to 2011, the rate of recidivism of China's juvenile offenders remained at 1 percent to 2 percent, according to a white paper on judicial reform published in October of last year, which also reported drops in juvenile delinquency cases and the proportion of juvenile offenders among the total criminal population.

However, China's juvenile offender number is still high, standing at around 67,000 in 2011, according to the white paper.

"The national average rate of juvenile delinquency may have fallen, but in many parts of the country, youth crimes are still on the rise," Xia said.