On the Nature and Extent of Criminal Behavior Committed by Minors.

criminal first instance trial. In particular, in 2005, the number of minors committing crimes accounted for the highest rate of 14.8%.

In 2004 and 2005, implementing Article 170 of the 2003 Criminal Procedure Code, the Hanoi People's Court only tried minors who committed crimes with the highest level of punishment up to the death penalty. However, due to the implementation of Resolution No. 509/2004/NQ-UBTVQH 11 dated April 29, 2004 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the assignment of trial authority according to the provisions of Clause 1, Article 170 of the Criminal Procedure Code, in which Hanoi has 8/14 districts with increased authority (trial under new authority), the remaining 6/14 districts have not had their authority increased but still apply Article 145 of the 1988 Criminal Procedure Code. For crimes committed by minors in districts that have not had their authority increased and the highest level of the penalty for that crime is over 7 years in prison, the City Court will still try them. In general, after the change in criminal procedure law as mentioned above, the number of defendants who are minors tried by the City Court has decreased compared to previous years, but the decrease is not much and corresponding to the decrease in the number of cases under the jurisdiction of the City Court, the rate of defendants who are minors remains high, on average in 2004 and 2005, the number of defendants who are minors accounted for over 12% of the total number of defendants tried.

2.2.2. On the nature and extent of the crime committed by minors.

Before the 1990s, crimes committed by minors were often simple, less serious, and did not have a major impact on social order and security, family structure, or national traditions. However, since 1998 and 1999, crimes committed by minors have often been serious.

and very serious, even especially serious crimes such as murder, robbery, rape where the victims are underage girls. If before the 90s, the crime methods of minors were often due to their impulsive nature, following their friends, lack of thinking, and limited ability to control their desires, in recent years, the criminal behavior of minors has been prepared, predicted, the crime methods are more clever, sophisticated, cunning, even hooligan, aggressive; committing crimes in gangs. Many defendants have been sentenced by the Court to higher penalties than prescribed by law. We would like to take some figures on socially dangerous crimes that minors rarely encountered before and almost never encountered in the trial work of the Court such as:

Table 2.5: Structure of crime types committed by minors

Year

1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Total number of defendants is NCTN	4022	4212	3609	3441	3139	3994	2540	4599
Killing	114	118	93	114	125	156	162	330
Robbery	638	488	507	551	579	1589	552	1061
Theft of assets product	1295	1413	1280	989	817	808	650	2012
Rape	183	270	52	47	67	50	29	78
Other crimes	1792	1923	1677	1,740	1,551	1,391	1,147	1.118

Maybe you are interested!

(Source: Institute of Trial Science - Supreme People's Court).

Thus, the above statistics show that crimes committed by minors are quite complicated.

Among the crimes committed by minors mentioned above, the type of crime with the highest rate is property theft, which is the type of crime that minors

Juveniles commit very commonly, the crime is often not sophisticated, cunning, usually when there is a loophole in property preservation, they immediately commit theft, thereby showing the opportunistic nature of theft activities of minors so that there is a direction to handle and educate them appropriately. Currently, the crime of property theft is mainly the subject of trial by the People's Court at the district level.

Next to the crime of theft is the crime of robbery. This type of crime is often committed by aggressive minors who are negatively influenced by action movies and are easily provoked to commit violent acts. Usually, the criminal activity is brazen, taking advantage of the majority to pressure or using violence and weapons to seize property.

After robbery is murder, which is a crime that accounts for a relatively high percentage of crimes committed by minors. This is a particularly serious crime committed by minors, creating bad public opinion in society. Regarding the motives and purposes of committing crimes, there are different types. Some are due to conflicts and hatred, some are due to mischief, some are due to ignorance of the law, and do not fully understand their actions, leading to murder.

Finally, among the crimes committed by minors that we mentioned above is the crime of Rape, this is a crime that accounts for a relatively large proportion of minors and is one of the serious crimes that minors commit. Most of them commit this crime due to the influence of obscene cultural products, the influence of "sex" films that are still secretly circulating on the market, along with the negative impact of dimly lit coffee shops and karaoke bars that harbor prostitutes. Rape crimes committed by minors are also worth worrying about for families and society. Due to the spread of harmful cultural products and due to the weakness in management of families, schools and social organizations, minors

Teenagers have committed acts of rape that were previously only committed by adults. This is also an issue that shows the lack of attention and education of families and society towards children, leading to them committing crimes due to lack of understanding of the law or due to disregard for the law.

2.2.3. Practice of investigation into living conditions, education and determination of whether or not there is adult instigation.

In the process of verifying documents related to the living and educational conditions of minor suspects and defendants, the prosecution agency also encountered many difficulties, namely:

Firstly, most of the juveniles before committing crimes often drop out of school, few of them work, go to school, the rest generally do not have any specific occupation. These juveniles hardly participate in social activities and contact with mass media or if they do, they do it completely on their own. They spend their free time gathering with friends, wandering around and causing drug addiction and gambling. The table below will clearly show that.

Table 2.6: Data table of prosecuted juveniles who dropped out of school and vagrants in total prosecuted juveniles.

Year

Number of minors prosecuted
Total	Dropped out of school		Hike
Total	Number	Proportion	Number	Proportion
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4) =(3)/(2)x100%	(5)	(6) =(5)/(2)x100%
2000	3908	2034	52.04%	272	6.96%
2001	3928	2103	53.54%	300	7.64%
2002	4504	2245	49.84%	312	6.92%

2003

4578	2346	51.24%	261	5.70%
2004	5138	2853	55.52%	219	4.26%
2005	6420	3011	49.85%	328	5.10%
2006	7818	3657	46.77%	389	4.97%
2007	7910	3786	47.86%	393	4.96%

(Source: Crime Statistics Bureau – Supreme People's Procuracy of Vietnam)

Second, the prosecution agency encounters many difficulties in collecting documents on the living and educational conditions of homeless juvenile defendants. Collecting documents on the family circumstances, educational level, lifestyle of the minor's parents, their concern for their children, and the economic situation of the minor's family is extremely difficult for the prosecution agency in cases where the minor has run away from home. The above table shows that the number of prosecuted juveniles who have dropped out of school accounts for a fairly high proportion, which shows that proving the educational conditions of these juveniles is a very difficult task. Normally, for juveniles who were still in school before committing the crime, the prosecution agency needs to collect their academic results, determine the juvenile's attitude towards studying through assessments by the school, teachers and their friends. However, for homeless juvenile defendants, despite many efforts to verify their residence and background, in many cases the prosecuting agency has not been able to collect such documents. This has significantly affected the quality of investigation, prosecution, and trial and has not ensured the rights and interests of defendants when they participate in the proceedings.

Table 2.7: Number of minors prosecuted with special family circumstances out of total number of minors prosecuted (2000-2007).

Year

Number of minors prosecute	Minors prosecuted have special family circumstances
Number of minors prosecute	Having a parent in prison or detention or renovation	Have family circumstances where parents are divorced	No father or mother
2000	3908	39	100	112
2001	3928	37	86	116
2002	4504	38	90	120
2003	4578	36	91	145
2004	5138	48	97	149
2005	6420	79	146	177
2006	7818	61	141	168
2007	8012	81	145	172

(Source: Crime Statistics Bureau – Supreme People's Procuracy)

Recently, the number of homeless minors in major cities and provinces across the country has increased rapidly. This increase has led to an increase in law violations. According to a report by the Ministry of Public Security (C14), in 2000 there were 21,399 children nationwide, in 2001 this number increased to 22,500 children and by 25,400 children had violated the law. This situation shows that children can do anything, cannot control their behavior, and lack of attention from family, school, and society is one of the main causes leading to juvenile crime.

In practice, determining whether or not an adult instigated is still a difficult issue. Investigation, prosecution and trial practices show that there are many cases where minors commit crimes due to their gullibility, trust, rashness and curiosity, allowing the parties to

entice and entice them into committing crimes. They even use threats, coercion, and material or mental control to force minors to become their accomplices. Among the adults who incite, incite, and entice minors to commit crimes, there is also a significant number of adults who are their parents and relatives. There are many cases where parents commit crimes and then entice their children to participate. In particular, there are cases where parents, siblings, and minors participate in different roles in the case. The table below is proof:

Table 2.8: Number of juveniles prosecuted and juvenile accomplices (2000-2007)

Year

Number of adults prosecuted	Number of minors accomplices together with adult	Rate (%)
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)=(3)/(2)
2000	3908	939	24.02 (%)
2001	3928	988	25.15 (%)
2002	4504	1314	29.17 (%)
2003	4578	1444	31.54 (%)
2004	5138	1329	25.87 (%)
2005	6420	1733	27.00 (%)
2006	7818	2144	27.42(%)
2007	8310	3122	37.56 (%)
Total	44606	13013	29.17 (%)

(Source: Crime Statistics Bureau – Supreme People's Procuracy)

According to the above table, in the 5 years (from 2003 to the end of 2007), nationwide, the number of minors committing crimes in complicity cases accounted for a fairly high proportion. Of the total 44,606 people prosecuted, up to 13,013 minors committed crimes with other adults (accounting for 29.17%). At the age of adolescence, children are very sensitive, competitive, imitative and easily seduced and enticed. Therefore, guiding and educating them not to commit crimes is the responsibility of the whole family, school and society.

2.2.4. Practical application of regulations on the right to defense of minors.

In the past, in general, the Courts have strictly implemented the provisions of the law in the trial of criminal cases with defendants who are minors. Regarding the defendant's right to defense at trial, the law always requires the Court to create conditions for the defendant's legal representative to choose a defense attorney or defend the defendant himself. In cases where the defendant or the defendant's legal representative does not choose a defense attorney, most Courts at all levels have properly implemented the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, which is to request the Bar Association to assign a law office to appoint a defense attorney for the defendant or to request the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee or a member organization of the Front to appoint a defense attorney for a member of their organization.

We all know that no one can be considered guilty and punished without a legally effective verdict of the Court. Therefore, the law stipulates very strictly the composition of the Judicial Council for the trial of juvenile defendants, and more specifically, the composition of the Judicial Council must include a People's Jury member who is a teacher or a cadre of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union. In fact, the Courts at all levels have also applied this.

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