前不久,我去听一位政治老师讲《法律常识》课。当讲到“我国刑罚的目的”时,她总结性地说了这么一句:“目的在于……最终达到消灭罪犯。” 我不是教这门课的,但总觉此语欠妥。连忙拿过邻座的课本查对,果然“罪犯”系“犯罪”之误。 课后,我向那位老师谈及此事,她睑一红,似乎意识到是个问题,但嘴里却说:“嗬,我们又不是教语文的,谁去那样子咬文嚼字!” 旁边一位爱开玩笑的老师也说:“嘿嘿,‘罪犯’消灭了,还会有‘犯罪’吗?半斤八两,八两半斤,横竖一样,你叫什么真儿呀!” 当时我很想认真争辩一番,但恐沾“好为人师”之嫌,只好“回来”再发议论了。 “犯罪”和“罪犯”,虽系把两个相同的字颠倒一下,表达的却是两个不同的概念:前者指触犯刑法、应受刑罚处罚的行为;后者指有犯罪行为的人。我国刑罚的目的,显然是旨在消灭犯罪行为,而不是消灭犯罪行为的人(虽然并不排除对极少数罪大恶极非杀不可的罪犯判处死刑)。再说,即使真的消灭了现有的“罪犯”,也不能绝对保证不会发生新的“犯罪”。如何正确理解二者的区别和关系,这是个事关国法人命的大问题,看起来,还是 Not long ago, I went to hear a political teacher talk about “legal common sense”. When it comes to “the purpose of punishment in our country,” she summed up the following sentence: “The aim is to ... eventually achieve the elimination of criminals.” I did not teach this course, but I always felt that this language was not proper. Quickly took the textbook next to check, and indeed “criminals” Department of “crime” of the error. After class, I talked about the matter to the teacher. She felt a red eyelid, but seemed to realize that it was a problem, but she said in her mouth: “Well, we are not teaching the language any more. Joking teacher also said: ”Hey, the criminals eliminated, there will be ’crime’? Half a catty, eighty-two catties, anyway, what is your name! ’I was going to seriously argue about it, However, fear of “good as a teacher” suspicion, had to “come back” argument again. Although “crime” and “criminal” invert two identical words, they express two different concepts: the former refers to those who violate the criminal law and are subject to penalties; and the latter refers to those who commit criminal acts. It is clear that the purpose of our criminal penalties is to eliminate criminal acts rather than to eliminate criminal acts (although it is not ruled out that the death penalty should be ruled out for the very few criminals who are indiscriminately killed). Besides, even if the existing criminals are really eliminated, there is absolutely no guarantee that no new “crime” will occur. How to correctly understand the differences and relations between the two is a big issue that concerns the life and death of the country. It still looks like