The Mechanism, Practice Patterns, and Improvement Pathways of Administrative Self-Restraint in the Administrative-Penal Positive Articulation Mechanism

Abstract

Despite long-term policy promotion of administrative-penal positive articulation in China, persistent issues like substituting administrative penalties for criminal punishments and failure to transfer cases remain, highlighting the insufficiency of existing external control mechanisms. Administrative self-restraint, as an endogenous control model where administrative entities constrain themselves, acts on articulation through three dimensions: organizationally, via horizontal and vertical decentralization of power to clarify responsibilities; internally, through supervision covering the entire process of procedures, information, and evidence; and normatively, by using checklist-based, directive, and procedural internal rules to narrow discretionary space. In practice, while it enhances articulation efficiency, evidence transfer success rates, and standardization, problems such as insufficient self-restraint motivation, limited supervision effectiveness, and lagging internal rules persist. To address these, optimizing organizational structures, building a synergistic mechanism between administrative self-restraint and external supervision, and dynamically optimizing internal rules are necessary to perfect administrative-penal positive articulation.