China's Penal Reform Removes Prisons' Profit Motive

SCMP ^ | August 13, 2003 | Josephine Ma in Beijing

[FreepForever]

Caption: Making them state-funded may curb graft and improve inmates' labour conditions

The mainland is experimenting with reform of its controversial penal system by severing prisons from their business arms.

The aim is to curb corruption and improve prisoners' living conditions.

Prisons chosen for the experiment, which starts next month, will be state-funded, freeing them of the need to run profit-driven businesses in which inmates often work long hours in dangerous conditions - frequently without pay.

Prisons in Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Shaanxi provinces and the Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities will begin the experiment on September 1.

They will no longer receive income from their factories and farms. Instead, their operating costs will be met in full by the central and provincial governments.

Government funding now covers only part of the costs of running prisons, with their business arms covering the rest.

Under the reform, the business units affiliated to prisons will be grouped under new umbrella companies controlled by the provincial prison authorities. While these companies will be free of the responsibility of financing the prisons, they will still have to provide manual work for prisoners.

"Prison companies are important elements to correct prisoners' [behaviour]," Minister of Justice Zhang Fusen was quoted by the Legal Daily yesterday as saying at a conference last week.

"Their major mission is to provide job vacancies and services for the correction of prisoners. They must not pursue pure economic profits and make big money while departing from their chief purpose - correction," the minister said. China's prison law stipulates that all healthy prisoners must perform manual work.

Prison authority officials said prison officers were often distracted from the management of their institutions because they were preoccupied with running businesses such as shoe-making, manufacturing car number plates, cement production, farms and even quarries.

Some of these companies generated huge profit for the prison authorities while others were stricken with heavy debts because of mismanagement.

But in general they provide an important source of funding, contributing several billion yuan to the prison system last year.

State and provincial governments will have to inject more than a billion yuan (HK$942 million) this year to support the pilot projects, and a prison official said it would cost an extra 4 billion yuan a year if the reform was extended to the entire country. The state now provides more than half of prisons' funding.

Prisons in China have long attracted criticism from overseas groups and governments for their poor record on human rights. Prisoners usually work in poor conditions and must bear long hours for minimal wages, or none at all.

While labour camps - which drew the fiercest criticism - were abolished in the late 1990s, many were turned into prisons.

Officials said the reform would improve inmates' working conditions. "After the reform, inmates will no longer be forced to undertake dangerous tasks. For example, factories involving contact with lethal material or quarries will have to be shut," one said.

"The primary aim for these companies is to correct prisoners through manual work and give them vocational training before they return to society."

An official source said the reform was triggered not by international pressure but by the uncovering of serious corruption in the prison system in recent years, which had alarmed state leaders and prompted "drastic measures". The cases had never been reported by state media, he added.

Two previous attempts to sever business from prisons in the 1990s failed because they could not function without funds from their business arms.

Under the reform, revenue generated from prison labour will be set aside to improve inmates' working conditions and make the new province-wide business units more competitive, a prison official said. They will also enjoy tax concessions and could be awarded government contracts.

Human rights groups yesterday said it would take time to see if the reform would benefit prisoners.

A spokesman for Amnesty International said it could prove a positive step if implemented correctly. But he said independent supervision of prison managers was needed to curb abuses of prisoners.

"The bottom line is how the prisoners will be treated and will their working conditions improve?" the spokesman said.

Nicholas Becquelin, research director of Human Rights in China, said: "A reform package is not enough. It has to be followed by concrete implementation."

[FreepForever]

Don't hold your breath, HighRoadToChina. This is just another form of "privatized" labor camp.

[FreepForever]

PING

Special PING for HighRoadToChina.

[.cnI redruM]

China is beginning to feel pressured to join the civilized world as it simultaneosly joins that world's economy and markets. Lok for tensions w/in China to increase as a result.

[The Pheonix]

ping

thanks

[HighRoadToChina]

Thanks FreepForever!

[HighRoadToChina]

If you off my Communist China ping list or would like to be added to my list, please FRemail me.

[HighRoadToChina]

"They must not pursue pure economic profits and make big money while departing from their chief purpose - correction," the minister said."

It's kind of hard to pursue profits when one is making $0 per hour.

What a bald face lier this minister is!

[The Pheonix]

Historically, the feudal Imperial mindset of the Ruling dynasties was to dish out very harsh punishment to criminals, to maintain a very strong "LAW and ORDER", in order to preserve the Dynasty. Not forgetting it was not easy to rule such a vast country like China, before the invention of the telephone, telegraph, fax, email, airplane, hence the IRON-FIST was the way

Now, with China more exposed to the outside world, HOPEFULLY, China will modernize nd progress on its legal and judgical system

[potlatch]

Hope something can be done to help these people. Take care, Freep Forever.

[PhilDragoo]

How many of these "criminals" are labor organizers, Christian, Falun Gong, democracy advocates, in general, critics of the glorious regime?

"Correction"--correction to what? Blind obedience to another soviet system of rewards for the guards, gruel for the plebes.

This great leap forward is underwhelming.

[harpseal]

Ping for the use of slaves in China.

Long hours in dangerous conditions for no pay. That sure sounds like slavery to me.

on or off let me know.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[alrea]

just opening up markets to criminals criminalizes both the buyer and the seller. those that demand the goods are as rotten as those that supply the goods.

and free trade exists only when markets are free.

china has much to do before it is a free country.

[lelio]

China is beginning to feel pressured to join the civilized world

The US is slowly coming around to that too with the recent House Judiciary Committee action to strip the requirement that all federal agencies must look to Federal Prision Industries (FPI) to supply their products and services.
FPI's made up of 21k inmates and had $680M in sales. They're not just making license plates but rather items like furniture, directly competing with private industry.

[Quix]

That's a big challenge--when and how to help such people!

Prayer is no doubt the best bet.

How to put legs to the prayers is another challenge.

[potlatch]

Prayer is no doubt the best bet.

It is. I was going to say that THAT is about all that we can do. Hope you are doing as well as can be expected with your Mother.

[Quix]

Thanks tons for your kind thoughts and prayers.

Mother seemed to have some strange neurological complaint feeling 'stung' as though by insects on various parts of her skin though there was clearly no external cause.

Sometimes it's hard to know how much of a problem is related to Alzheimer's and how much to her lifelong craziness and demands for attention.

Have to depend on God and that He 'giveth more grace.'

But encouragements like yours help keep characters like me in this situation going.

Blessings to you and all your close relationships that you walk in His provision, His Peace, Joy, Love, Truth and Intimacy--in His Spirit and Will.

LUB,

[FreepForever]

Thanks everybody for your comments. I have a feeling that this is China’s image polishing in preparation for their Olympic. I can’t see any fundamental change in their attitude towards their notorious human rights records. PhilDragoo is right. Even the word “criminal” has a different definition in China. There are many “prisons of conscience” who got jailed just for speaking the truth.

I do not object to light labors in prisons like making uniforms for government hospitals, book binding for public libraries, etc. The question is: China’s prisoners are brutalized and not paid (they are not even sufficiently fed) and that the prison’s authority are making huge 100% profits from selling these commercial merchandise. This is blatant slavery. All buyers of these merchandise are essentially supporting this system.

Police brutality is another problem in China’s legal and judicial system. About 3 months ago in China, the police arrested a drug addict mother and just lock the door behind them. A few days later, her 3 years old daughter was found dead in the house due to starvation and dehydration. And, the authority still insisted that the procedure is correct.

It is necessary that China must accept an international recognized standard of human rights. It is time for the free world to warn China that they cannot get the best of both worlds. They cannot get all the benefits from free trades and, at the same time, totally ignore this.

[attagirl]

and in the US of A prisons are beginning to be contracted for factory work--competing with the beleagured American worker

[attagirl]

It is necessary that China must accept an international recognized standard of human rights. It is time for the free world to warn China that they cannot get the best of both worlds. They cannot get all the benefits from free trades and, at the same time, totally ignore this.

I agree with your assessment that this "reform" is an effort to clean up the image for the Olympics.

Unfortunately, money talks. And I don't call what transpires between us and china free trade. It is a sell-out and a betrayal of our workers and our country. Tax advantages go to companies which have their factories overseas.

All those factories there can be retooled to make armaments. We have less and less factories to retool. But will our armaments soon be Made in China as a matter of routine?