Yuxin Zhang

The design concept of my project is "Punishment of Juvenile Offenders Is a Placebo Effect". 

The placebo effect, also known as the Non-specific Effect, refers to the phenomenon in which the patient "believes" that the treatment is effective and relieves the patient's symptoms despite receiving an ineffective treatment.

The current juvenile law tends to use education to reform juvenile offenders. But the premise of effective education is that juvenile offenders feel guilty from the heart. Can they feel guilty? Sometimes punishment is just a form of psychological comfort for both the juvenile offender and the victim. Like the placebo effect. There is no real effect, it can only play an unknown role psychologically.

For victims and their families, the punishment of juvenile offenders is more of a symbolic psychological comfort. Victims often fail to feel fair.

The other is that they feel that they have been punished, and this unequal punishment can reduce the guilt of juvenile offenders and their families towards the victim. This sense of guilt is actually used to relieve themselves. This placebo effect can make juvenile offenders and their families falsely feel that their mistakes have been punished accordingly.