Community Justice

Minor offenders in China receive rehabilitation through community service and education By Wang hairong

for a teenage girl pseudonymed Tian Zi,life took a turn on February 18. On that day, Beijing’s Xicheng District People’s Procuratorate announced its decision not to prosecute her and wipe her criminal record.

Tian, accused of disorderly conduct, had confessed to picking quarrels and provoking trouble.She earned the pardon because of her good performance during the six-month community correction she received at the Renzhu Social Work Office in Beijing.

On January 1, the second amendment to China’s Criminal Procedure Law went into force.Under the law, minor offenders meeting certain criteria can receive community corrections instead of incarceration.

Articles 271 and 272 of the law stipulate that minors who have committed crimes of infringing upon the rights of other persons and the democratic rights of citizens, encroaching on property and disrupting the order of social administration,as well as those who may be sentenced to a prison term of less than one year, can be granted conditional non-prosecution, provided that he or she shows repentance.

Minor offenders granted conditional nonprosecution are given a probation period between six months and one year, during which they are required to obey laws and regulations, report their activities to designated agencies, and accept correction and education arranged by designated agencies.

Upon the end of the probation period, those having not violated terms of probation will be officially pardoned from prosecution.

A new start

Renzhu, officially founded in June 2010, is a non-profit organization commissioned by the Xicheng District People’s Procuratorate to administer community correction for minor offenders in the district.

So far, four minor offenders have fulfilled their community correction terms under the agency and received official pardons, An Na, founder of the agency, told Beijing Review.

The agency hires professional social workers to help problematic youth. Meng Xianying, a young girl herself, is a professional social worker designated to help Tian. Meng graduated from the Social Work Department of Shandong Normal University and joined Renzhu one year ago. She has received on-the-job training delivered by prosecutors and scholars and is a certified social worker.

Tian got into trouble with the law when she was 17 years old. On a spring day in 2011, when she and her friend were waiting for someone outside the gate of a vocational high school, several male students passing by leered at her. Tian was offended and scolded the boys. Then a fight broke out between these boys and Tian and her friend.Tian cut a male student’s ear with a fruit knife she carried with her. She was taken into custody.

Tian’s case was brought to the Xicheng District People’s Procuratorate. At that time, conditional non-prosecution was a pilot program in five of Beijing’s urban districts, including Xicheng. The pilot program was launched in April 2012 after the second amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law was adopted by the National People’s Congress in March 2012.

Tian was granted conditional non-prosecution,and was ordered to receive community correction,including performing at least 10 hours of community service each month for six consecutive months.

In August 2012, Tian reported to Renzhu to start her community service. Actually, Renzhu’s social worker Meng got involved with Tian’s case earlier than that.

In cases involving juvenile delinquents, it is customary for procuratorates to send social workers to investigate the defendants’ personal experience,family background and motives for crime. The Xicheng District People’s Procuratorate tasked Meng to write the social investigation report on Tian.

Meng learned that Tian grew up in a broken home. After her parents divorced, they both remarried. Spoiled by her mother, Tian has an impulsive personality. She likes to wear bold dresses such as see-through blouses and visit night clubs with buddies, but Tian’s teachers and classmates said that her conduct in school was not bad.

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 fi nished 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. ■