"Must Take Responsibility for Heinous Crime"... Sentences Received by Chinese Middle School Students Who Killed a Classmate

Suspect Who Beat Classmate to Death and Buried Body in Secret
Main Perpetrator Sentenced to Maximum Life Imprisonment... Accomplice Receives 12 Years in Prison

Two 13-year-old middle school students in China, charged with brutally murdering a classmate, were sentenced to life imprisonment and 12 years in prison, respectively.

On the 30th, Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the Intermediate People's Court of Handan City, Hebei Province, sentenced Zhang (13), who was charged with murdering (intentional homicide) his classmate Wang (13), to life imprisonment. In China, the death penalty is prohibited for minors, making life imprisonment the heaviest sentence. The court sentenced Li (13), also charged with the same crime, to 12 years in prison, while another defendant, Ma (13), was ordered to undergo special correctional education.

Zhang and two others were tried on charges of severely beating Wang to death in March, to the extent that his facial features were unrecognizable, and then secretly burying him in a plastic greenhouse. During the investigation, it was revealed that they had premeditated the crime by digging a pit in advance, and after fleeing the crime scene, they divided Wang's money among themselves. It was also reported that Zhang and the others had regularly bullied Wang by demanding money from him.

The place where Janggun and others secretly buried the royal army after killing them. Chinese social networking service (SNS), Yonhap News.

The court pointed out, "Zhang and Li premeditated the murder and buried the body, and their methods were particularly cruel with malicious circumstances." It added, "They were between 12 and 14 years old at the time of the crime and are therefore criminally responsible under the law."

This case is the first to apply the revised Chinese criminal law, which lowered the age of criminal responsibility. In 2019, a 13-year-old boy in Dalian killed a 10-year-old girl and disposed of her body but was given reeducation and correction instead of criminal punishment due to his age. This incident led China to lower the criminal responsibility age for certain heinous crimes such as intentional homicide and intentional injury from 14 to 12 years old in 2021. However, minors are still exempt from the death penalty.

The court found Zhang to be the principal offender, as he proposed the murder, prepared for the crime in advance, and directly caused the victim's death. Li was seen as actively conspiring and participating in the murder but with less culpability than Zhang. Ma witnessed the murder and helped dispose of the victim's phone card but did not commit any specific violent acts, so he was ordered to receive special correctional education instead of criminal punishment.

This case also caused social uproar because both the victim and the perpetrators were children of migrant workers (farmers who moved to cities seeking jobs). In China, as of 2020, there were approximately 67 million children left in the care of grandparents or relatives while their rural parents worked in cities.

Meanwhile, school violence is becoming an increasingly serious social problem in South Korea as well. From January to August this year, more than 13,000 youths were apprehended by the police for school violence. According to data received by Rep. Jeong Chun-saeng of the Innovation Party from the National Police Agency in September, 13,157 youths aged 14 to 18 were arrested for school violence from January to August.

The number of youths arrested for school violence has steadily increased each year. The number of arrested youths was 11,331 in 2020, ▲11,968 in 2021, ▲14,436 in 2022, and ▲15,437 in 2023. Regarding crime types, assault and injury (6,218 cases) accounted for 47.3%, followed by sexual violence at 25.1% (3,303 cases), others (threats, insults, defamation, coercion, etc.) at 19.9% (2,614 cases), and extortion at 7.76% (1,022 cases).

In South Korea, those aged 14 and above are not considered criminal minors. However, the age of school violence perpetrators is gradually getting younger. The National Police Agency reported that among those arrested for school violence crimes last year, 1,703 were elementary school students, accounting for 11.0% of the total. This is the first time since related statistics began that the percentage exceeded 10%. The proportion of elementary school offenders was 5% (572) in 2020, 7.2% (858) in 2021, and 9.7% (1,399) in 2022, showing a continuous increase. Among all school-age arrestees, middle school students were the largest group with 5,005 (32.4%).