Procurators and social workers designed a rehabilitation plan for Tian together, based on investigation and psychological test results.

At Renzhu, Tian participated in various community services, including volunteering at the middle school she used to attend. She also saw movies educating people about the dire consequences of law breaking. She regretted her misconduct, and also changed her dress style. She is going to study in an art college this fall, An said.

Community correction

Community correction was first piloted in China in 2003 in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and was implemented nationwide in 2009. The program was included in the Eighth Amendment to China's Criminal Law adopted in 2011.

Offenders are required to report their activities to judicial departments and submit written reports regularly. They are also required to perform community service. The courts may revoke the waiver of prosecution if offenders violate the terms of their probation.

According to the Office of Community Correction of the Ministry of Justice, as of the end of 2012, a total of 1.33 million people had been sent to receive community correction, of whom, 573,000 were serving their community correction terms, and the rest had already finished their terms.

Criminologists have found that social support from family, friends and other social sources are important for rehabilitating criminals, especially juvenile delinquents, said Chen Liyi, a procurator from the Xingning District People's Procuratorate, Nanning City in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"Incarceration segregates offenders from society, and those released from prison may have difficulty adapting to society," said Chen.

Difficulty in reintegrating into the community may bring about new criminal motives to offenders, said Liu Kezhi, chief of the Community Correction Center of Beijing's Fengtai District.

Liu told the Xinhua News Agency that to his knowledge, the number of recidivists once reached 20 in one year in Fengtai, Beijing, yet after the community correction program went on trial in the district, the number dropped to eight in 2005 and two in 2009.

"Moreover, juvenile delinquents undergoing rehabilitation in community correction programs will not be contaminated by prison subculture," Li said, admitting that in prisons, inmates may become more anti-social and learn criminal skills from each other.

"Traditionally, we simply punish children who made mistakes and force them to change their behavior, whereas children themselves may not really understand how wrong they are," Dai Yaohong, a teacher at the Teacher Training College in Shanghai's Yangpu District, told Shanghai-based Xinmin Weekly magazine.

"To a large degree, juveniles commit crimes because of their mental immaturity, so we should put more emphasis on correcting their wrong perceptions and providing psychological counseling," said Xu Guangxing, a psychological professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

A detailed regulation on community correction for minors was jointly issued on January 2012 by the Supreme Court, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice. It went into force on March 1, 2012.

The regulation states that community correction for minors should be administered in ways that suit their age, and physical and psychological development, and assistance should be provided to help them return to school or find employment.

It also stipulates that community correction for minors should be carried out separately from adult offenders, and minors' identities and records should be kept confidential.

As more and more offenders are rehabilitated in communities, primary-level offices of justice feel their capacities being overstretched. Yangcheng Evening News recently reported that the Office of Justice of Longfeng Sub-District in Haizhu District, Guangzhou in southern Guangdong Province, is severely understaffed. Only one of its three employees is responsible for administering community correction for 30 offenders, and the rest are busy with other duties.

Social workers have been brought in. Currently, a total of 102,000 social workers and 573,000 volunteers in China are working in the field of community correction, according to the Office of Community Correction of the Ministry of Justice.

Nonetheless, the existing number of social workers is still far from enough. For instance, Lianhua County in Jiangxi Province currently has 119 convicts receiving community correction, while currently the county has only four social workers. The county government said that at least 30 social workers are needed.

Chen suggested that more social workers specializing in community correction should be trained and rehabilitation plans should be tailored to juvenile delinquents.

Email us at: wanghairong@bjreview.com