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Article History

Received: 12 January 2025

Accepted: 3 December 2025

First Online: 22 December 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: The research is in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and has obtained ethics approval from the Academic Committee of Law School of Southwest University of Political Science and Law (Approval Number: 2024WXH069) on September 10, 2024. All the research was performed in accordance with American Society of Criminology Code of Ethics and other relevant guidelines. Ethical approval was granted to perform quantitative and qualitive research on VSP convicted of violent crimes, ensuring anonymization and rigorous analysis of the collected data.

: Written informed consent was obtained prior to the commencement of any research activities. On December 5, 2024, the research team visited the juvenile correctional facility to conduct the study. It was confirmed prior to their involvement that all 30 participants were adults (aged 18 years or older) at the time of data collection and therefore legally capable of providing their own informed consent. The important information, including the study's objectives, research methods, the content of the questionnaires and interviews, how the collected data would be utilized for manuscript preparation and subsequent academic publication, and that participation was voluntary, was clearly stated in written form at the beginning of both the questionnaire and the interview guide provided to each participant. The scope of the consent covered participation in the survey and interview, the use of their anonymized data for research analysis, and the publication of these research findings. All participants were fully informed and assured that their anonymity would be maintained throughout the study. All data collected would be anonymized to protect personal privacy during data processing, analysis, and in any subsequent publications; no personally identifiable information would be disclosed. All 30 adult participants acknowledged their understanding of the study's details and voluntarily provided their written consent to participate, to have their data used for the purposes of this research, and for the findings to be published. It was also made clear to the participants that their involvement in this research posed no foreseeable risks to them. As all participants were adults who provided their own informed consent, consent from legal guardians was not applicable or required.