Parents pay off victims to avoid criminal cases
Beijing courts have heard some 200 criminal cases related to school violence in the past five years, with 14 percent of cases involving malicious insults such as slaps on the face, burning someone with cigarettes, or stripping people naked for photos.
Experts said they believe the instances of school violence may be under-reported.
A statement from the High People's Court of Beijing on Tuesday said that crimes involving assaults, picking quarrels and provoking trouble, as well as fighting in public constitute 78 percent of the school violence cases.
The statement said 62 percent of the cases were committed by juveniles and a majority of the perpetrators were male. The victims were almost all school students.
Sun Li, deputy director of the High People's Court of Beijing, said many attacks occurred before or after school, or during lunch hour or military training sessions.
Sun pointed out that many juvenile delinquents are not aware violence constitutes a crime, and 68 percent of the defendants admitted they did not know anything about laws covering violence in schools.
Some repeat offenders said their parents paid off the victims' families to keep them quiet, which led many to believe they could always get away with their offenses. Sun warned that many victims often become bullies. Data from Beijing high court shows that 10 percent of the perpetrators had been victims themselves and after being bullied, sought revenge by attacking others.
Courts in many other places across China also released reports about juvenile delinquency and school violence on Tuesday, a day before international Children's Day.
Shandong Provincial High People's Court reported Tuesday that criminal cases involving minors had fallen slightly in the past five years, but violent behavior and even murders accounted for a larger proportion.
Tianjin's high court also said Tuesday that school violence has increased, mostly involving youth gangs, with junior high school students the most frequent offenders.
Unreported crimes
Beijing high court said that these instances of school violence only constituted 0.19 percent of all criminal cases in the past five years.
"I tend to believe many school violence cases went unreported, but it's hard to draw a conclusion as we don't exactly know how many are happening or what data to compare it to," Tong Xiaojun, dean of the Research Institute of Children and Adolescents at China Youth University for Political Sciences, said Tuesday.
In 2015, a survey by the China Youth & Children Research Center showed that 32.5 percent of the 5,864 primary and middle school students from 10 provincial-level regions were bullied occasionally. Some 6.1 percent said they were constantly bullied by older students, the Beijing-based Legal Daily reported.
A number of videos of youngsters bullying or beating up their peers have been uploaded online in recent years. Many times girls were shown slapping, kicking or undressing another girl.
"Many Chinese schools refuse to admit or face up to the existence of violence as it would harm their reputation. Even some parents confuse violent crimes with childish fighting or some insignificant prank, which they respond to with silence," said Tong.
Defined responsibilities
Sun called for a new law on school security, which should clearly define the legal responsibilities of government, schools and families.
China only has one law that protects minors, passed in 1991.
"The Law of the Protection of the Juveniles can't apply to many situations. The terminology isn't specific. It needs to be revised," Tong noted.
Tong said that a more effective way to prevent school violence is to establish preventive mechanisms by involving more social workers on campus.
The Supreme People's Court said in an article published on its website Tuesday that rules and laws concerning school violence are "seriously lagging," and the court will join with education and public security authorities to improve the situation.
