According to the Ministry of Justice, China had a total of 350 re-education-through-labor centers with 160,000 detainees at the end of 2008, who were mostly convicted of petty theft, fraud, gambling, fighting, prostitution, soliciting and illegal drug use. The ministry's website also shows that the sentence for most detainees was one year, while only a small minority were sentenced for three years. Most correctional centers also offer vocational training where detainees can learn tailoring, carpentry, home appliance repair, cooking, automotives and hair styling. Proceeds from detainees' work in the correctional centers are used to pay them as well as to improve their living and studying conditions.

Yu published A Critical Review of China's Re-education-Through-Labor System, based on 100 petitioners' cases in 2009.

During his research, he discovered that some local governments "ruthlessly put petitioners against them under detention or re-education through labor while petitioners' problems are not timely or properly handled," Yu told China Youth Daily.

Since he was elected a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, Chen Zhonglin, Dean of the Law School of Chongqing University, has been submitting motions demanding reforms on the re-education-through-labor system during every NPC annual session since 2003.

Chen said that a 1980 regulation promulgated by the State Council had enlarged the application scope of re-education through labor and went against its original goals of correcting people's behavior through education and offering job opportunities.

According to The Beijing News, by the end of 2007, a total of 420 NPC deputies had filed motions to reform the re-education-through-labor system.

In December 2007, 69 law professors and attorneys demanded a constitutional review of the re-education-through-labor system in a letter to the NPC Standing Committee. According to Southern Weekly published in Guangzhou, southern Guangdong Province, the letter cites four reasons why this system should be abandoned: It runs against the protection of personal freedom by the Constitution; its regulations contradict superordinate laws, such as the Legislation Law and the Administrative Penalty Law; it is against the principles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which China is a signatory, and its existence undermines the balance of powers between police authorities, prosecutors and judicial organs.

Alternatives

In February 2005, the NPC Standing Committee announced that it would have a first reading on the Law on Correcting Illegal Behaviors by the end of that year. The new law was widely believed to create an alternative to the re-education-through-labor system. However, this plan was not implemented.

Chen, who participated in the discussions on the drafting of the new law, told The Beijing News that while lawmakers agreed on cutting down on the scope of the application of re-education through labor, they could not reach consensus on who can sentence people to re-education through labor—judicial organs or police authorities. The disagreement led to a prolonged legislative process.

Police authorities actually act as their own judge by sentencing people to re-education through labor under the current regulations. The sentences should be made through procedures independent from police authorities in the future, Chen said.

Wang Gongyi, Director of the Justice Research Institute under the Ministry of Justice, participated in the drafting of the new law in 2005. He said that the new law would make it easier for people sent to correctional facilities to repeal their sentences and the maximum sentence would be one-and-a-half years. Correctional facilities would become half-open where people with problematic behaviors move freely within the compounds and would be allowed to go home at night and during weekends.

Liu Renwen, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has studied China's re-education-through-labor system for many years. He suggests enlarging the application scope of the Criminal Law to cover penal criminal offenses. "We should put administrative penalties, re-education through labor and punishment in the Criminal Law all under one criminal code, as all the coercive measures entailing restrictions on citizens' personal freedoms are essentially criminal punishment," Liu told Southern Weekly.

In August, 10 attorneys from around China wrote a joint letter to ministries of justice and public security and suggested technical revisions be made to the ratification procedures of the re-education-through-labor system before it is abandoned or totally reformed by new laws. According to 21st Century Business Herald, a Guangdong-based newspaper, the attorneys advocated ensuring attorneys' participation in the inquiry process, ensuring availability of related documents and a waiver of this penalty for people above 60 years old.

In 2010, the Law on Correcting Illegal Behaviors was put on the annual legislative agenda of the NPC Standing Committee, which was the latest information about the drafting of this long-awaited law. However, Chen from the Law School of Chongqing University believes that Tang's case and the overwhelming public compassion toward the mother would accelerate the drafting of the law as the legislatures often rearrange the priorities of its work according to social needs.

China National Radio reported on August 27 that a pilot reform on the re-education-through-labor system is being carried out in four cities, which emphasizes the facilities' tasks of behavior correction through education and preparing detainees for a new life outside.

Email us at: lili@bjreview.com