Abstract:

The theory of modesty and restraint of criminal law is significant in contemporary criminal jurisprudence，which is
characteristic of minimization，economy and complementariness. In the more than 2,000 years of China’s history，the thought
of severe punishment has been dominated the legal ideology. And in a variety of legal norms，criminal law has been outshining
other law.Tang Code，the typical representative of law in feudal China，adopted criminal law system in legislative style，and
punishment was employed in aspects of marriage，debt，property，inheritance，economic administrative. Such ideology of
severe punishment has had a huge influence on contemporary judicial practice. The implementation of the“severe and quick”
punishment in 1983，1996 and 2001 are good examples of severe punishment ideology. At the institutional level，such example
can be seen in the Penal Code of 1979，which provided a clause of analogy，and seriously violated the principle of“no penalty
without a law”. Another example of the severe punishment ideology is the fact that the number of death penalty charges in
China stays at a much higher level than in western countries.The 8th Amendment to Criminal Law of People’s Republic of
China abolished death penalty in 13 kinds of nonviolent crimes such as the crime of smuggling of cultural relics. It also
provided lenient punishment to those culprits who are over 75 years，and no recidivism of juvenile delinquency and juvenile
crime records removal system. All those regulations are the results of the theory of modesty and restraint criminal law

Key words: restraining of criminal law；severe punishment ideology；the 8th Amendment to Criminal Law of People&rsquo, s Republic
of China；crime range；limits of criminal punishment