China's legal awareness campaigns reach more minors

BEIJING -- Legal awareness campaigns in China covered a larger proportion of minors from January to June 2020, showed statistics released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) on July 20.

During the first half of the year, 25,130 lectures were delivered to improve legal awareness among minors, a year-on-year increase of 151.5 percent. More than 20.97 million people attended these lectures, registering a 384.4-percent surge from the same period in 2019, statistics from the SPP showed.

The surge in attendees can be attributed to the wider use of the Internet in campaigns targeting minors amid the COVID-19 epidemic, said Dong Guiwen, an official with the SPP.

Procuratorates across the country also adhered to the principle of combining punishment with leniency when handling criminal cases involving minors, according to Dong.

A total of 4,352 underage suspects in criminal cases were granted leniency without being arrested over the period, accounting for 32.6 percent of the total underage suspects, said Dong, noting the proportion was 11.7 percentage points higher than the average of criminal suspects exempted from arrests.

Prosecutors also decided to drop lawsuits against 6,348 minors, 30.8 percent of the total underage suspects involved in criminal cases, according to the SPP.