Penal system in the People's Republic of China
Encyclopedia
Hard labor still was the most common form of punishment in China in the 1980s. The penal system stressed reform rather than retribution, and it was expected that productive labor would reduce the penal institutions' cost to society. Even death sentences could be stayed by two-year reprieve. If a prisoner was judged to have reformed during that period, his or her sentence could be commuted to life or a fixed term at labor.
The Statute on Punishment for Counterrevolutionary Activity approved under the Common Program in 1951 listed a wide range of counter-revolutionary offenses, punishable in most cases by the death penalty or life imprisonment
. In subsequent years, especially during the Cultural Revolution
, any activity that the party or government at any level considered a challenge to its authority could be termed counterrevolutionary. The 1980 law narrowed the scope of counter-revolutionary activity considerably and defined it as "any act jeopardizing the People's Republic of China, aimed at overthrowing the political power of the dictatorship of the proletariat
and the socialist state." Under this category it included such specific offenses as espionage
, insurrection, conspiracy
to overthrow the government, instigating a member of the armed forces
to turn traitor, or carrying out sabotage
directed against the government.
Other offenses, in the order listed in the 1980 law, were transgressions of public security
, defined as any acts which endanger people or public property; illegal possession of arms and ammunition; offenses against the socialist economic order, including smuggling
and speculation
; offenses against both the personal rights and the democratic rights of citizens, which range from homicide
, rape
, and kidnapping
to libel; and offenses of encroachment on property
, including robbery
, theft
, embezzlement
, and fraud
. There were also offenses against the public order, including obstruction of official business; mob disturbances; manufacture, sale, or transport of illegal drugs or pornography
; vandalizing or illegally exporting cultural relic
s; offenses against marriage and the family, which include interference with the freedom of marriage
and abandoning or maltreating children or aged or infirm relatives; and malfeasance
, which specifically relates to state functionaries and includes such offenses as accepting bribes, divulging state secret
s, dereliction of duty, and maltreatment of persons under detention or surveillance.
Under the 1980 law, these offenses were punishable when criminal liability could be ascribed. Criminal liability was attributed to intentional offenses and those acts of negligence
specifically provided for by the law. There were principal and supplementary penalties. Principal penalties were public surveillance, detention, fixed-term imprisonment, life imprisonment, and death. Supplementary penalties were fines, deprivation of political rights, and confiscation of property. Supplementary penalties could be imposed exclusive of principal penalties. Foreigners could be deported with or without other penalties.
in the 1980s for certain serious crimes. The 1980 law required that death sentences be approved by the Supreme People's Court. This requirement was temporarily modified in 1981 to allow the higher people's courts of provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities to approve death sentences for murder
, robbery
, rape
, bomb
-throwing, arson
, and sabotage
. In 1983 this modification was made permanent. The death sentence was not imposed on anyone under eighteen years of age at the time of the crime nor "on a woman found to be pregnant during the trial." Criminals sentenced to death could be granted a stay of execution for two years, during which they might demonstrate their repentance
and reform
. In this case the sentence could be reduced. Mao Zedong
was credited with having originated this idea, which some observers found cruel although it obviated many executions.
In 2004, Zhang Shiqiang, who was convicted of double murder and rape, became one of the first convicts to be killed in China's new collection of mobile execution chambers, commonly referred to as "death vans." This was part of the Chinese government's new plan to phase out firing squads for lethal injections.
China executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined in 2005, Amnesty International estimated there were at least 1,770 executions in China that year, and most of them were still by firing squad.
In 2006, the Chinese government reversed the previous modified death penalty requirement that was made permanent in 1983. The law was enacted on January 1, 2007, and required all death sentences be approved by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), effectively depriving the provincial people's courts of exercising the final say on the death sentence, allowing death penalties handed out by provincial courts to be reviewed and ratified by the SPC.
. The former could be any fixed number of years, while the latter lasted three or four years. In fact, those with either kind of sentence ended up at the same camps, which were usually state farms or mines but occasionally were factory prisons in the city.
The November 1979 supplementary regulations on "re-education through labor" created labor training administration committees consisting of members of the local government, public security bureau, and labor department. The police, government, or a work unit could recommend that an individual be assigned to such reeducation, and, if the labor training administration committee agreed, hard labor was imposed without further due process
. The police reportedly made heavy use of the procedure, especially with urban youths, and probably used it to move unemployed, youthful, potential troublemakers out of the cities.
Prisoners were told that their sentences could be reduced if they showed signs of repentance and rendered meritorious service. Any number of reductions could be earned totaling up to one-half the original sentence, but at least ten years of a life sentence had to be served. Probation
or parole
involved surveillance
by the public security bureau or a grass-roots organization to which the convict periodically reported.
have been under thirty-five years of age. Criminal law
makes special provisions for juvenile offenders. Offenders between fourteen and sixteen years of age are to be held criminally liable only if they commit homicide, robbery, arson, or "other offenses which gravely jeopardize public order," and offenders between sixteen and eighteen years of age "shall be given a lighter or mitigated penalty." In most cases juvenile offenders charged with minor infractions are dealt with by neighborhood committees or other administrative means. In serious cases juvenile offenders usually are sent to one of the numerous reformatories reopened in most cities under the Ministry of Education
beginning in 1978.
had been reestablished, and standard criminal, procedural, civil, and economic codes had been developed.
Law school
s, closed since the late 1950s, had been reopened, and new ones had been established to meet the growing need for lawyers and judges.
Law enforcement organizations had been reorganized, civilianized, and made answerable to the courts and the procuratorates. But it would be unrealistic to assume that the old system of rule by party fiat could be changed in a short period of time. Opposition to the changes was pervasive at every level of the party and the government. Even its strongest supporters insisted that the legal system must be developed in accordance with the four cardinal principles—upholding socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Given these limitations, it was clear that although much progress had been made in replacing the Mao era's arbitrary rule with a solid legal system, much still remained to be done.
Punishable offenses
The Criminal Law that took effect on January 1, 1980, removed criminal punishment from the discretion of officials, whose arbitrary decisions were based on perceptions of the current party line, and established it on a legal basis. The specific provisions of that law listed eight categories of offenses.The Statute on Punishment for Counterrevolutionary Activity approved under the Common Program in 1951 listed a wide range of counter-revolutionary offenses, punishable in most cases by the death penalty or life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
. In subsequent years, especially during the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...
, any activity that the party or government at any level considered a challenge to its authority could be termed counterrevolutionary. The 1980 law narrowed the scope of counter-revolutionary activity considerably and defined it as "any act jeopardizing the People's Republic of China, aimed at overthrowing the political power of the dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
and the socialist state." Under this category it included such specific offenses as espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
, insurrection, conspiracy
Conspiracy (political)
In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
to overthrow the government, instigating a member of the armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...
to turn traitor, or carrying out sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
directed against the government.
Other offenses, in the order listed in the 1980 law, were transgressions of public security
Public security
To meet the increasing challenges in the public security area, responsible public institutions and organisations can tap into their own intelligence to successfully address possible threats in advance...
, defined as any acts which endanger people or public property; illegal possession of arms and ammunition; offenses against the socialist economic order, including smuggling
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
and speculation
Speculation
In finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
; offenses against both the personal rights and the democratic rights of citizens, which range from homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, and kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
to libel; and offenses of encroachment on property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
, including robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
, theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
, embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
, and fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
. There were also offenses against the public order, including obstruction of official business; mob disturbances; manufacture, sale, or transport of illegal drugs or pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
; vandalizing or illegally exporting cultural relic
Relic
In religion, a relic is a part of the body of a saint or a venerated person, or else another type of ancient religious object, carefully preserved for purposes of veneration or as a tangible memorial...
s; offenses against marriage and the family, which include interference with the freedom of marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
and abandoning or maltreating children or aged or infirm relatives; and malfeasance
Malfeasance
The expressions misfeasance and nonfeasance, and occasionally malfeasance, are used in English law with reference to the discharge of public obligations existing by common law, custom or statute.-Definition and relevant rules of law:...
, which specifically relates to state functionaries and includes such offenses as accepting bribes, divulging state secret
State Secret
State Secret is a 1950 British drama film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Jack Hawkins, Glynis Johns and Herbert Lom. It was released in the United States under the title The Great Manhunt.-Cast:...
s, dereliction of duty, and maltreatment of persons under detention or surveillance.
Under the 1980 law, these offenses were punishable when criminal liability could be ascribed. Criminal liability was attributed to intentional offenses and those acts of negligence
Negligence
Negligence is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm.According to Jay M...
specifically provided for by the law. There were principal and supplementary penalties. Principal penalties were public surveillance, detention, fixed-term imprisonment, life imprisonment, and death. Supplementary penalties were fines, deprivation of political rights, and confiscation of property. Supplementary penalties could be imposed exclusive of principal penalties. Foreigners could be deported with or without other penalties.
Death penalty
China retained the death penaltyCapital punishment in the People's Republic of China
Capital punishment in the People's Republic of China is currently administered for a variety of crimes, but the vast majority of executions are for cases of either aggravated murder or large scale drug trafficking...
in the 1980s for certain serious crimes. The 1980 law required that death sentences be approved by the Supreme People's Court. This requirement was temporarily modified in 1981 to allow the higher people's courts of provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities to approve death sentences for murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, bomb
Bomb
A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
-throwing, arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
, and sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
. In 1983 this modification was made permanent. The death sentence was not imposed on anyone under eighteen years of age at the time of the crime nor "on a woman found to be pregnant during the trial." Criminals sentenced to death could be granted a stay of execution for two years, during which they might demonstrate their repentance
Repentance
Repentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...
and reform
Reform
Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....
. In this case the sentence could be reduced. Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
was credited with having originated this idea, which some observers found cruel although it obviated many executions.
In 2004, Zhang Shiqiang, who was convicted of double murder and rape, became one of the first convicts to be killed in China's new collection of mobile execution chambers, commonly referred to as "death vans." This was part of the Chinese government's new plan to phase out firing squads for lethal injections.
China executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined in 2005, Amnesty International estimated there were at least 1,770 executions in China that year, and most of them were still by firing squad.
In 2006, the Chinese government reversed the previous modified death penalty requirement that was made permanent in 1983. The law was enacted on January 1, 2007, and required all death sentences be approved by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), effectively depriving the provincial people's courts of exercising the final say on the death sentence, allowing death penalties handed out by provincial courts to be reviewed and ratified by the SPC.
Penal labor
The overwhelming majority of prisoners were sentenced to penal labor. There were two categories of penal labor: the criminal penalty—"reform through labor"—imposed by the court and the administrative penalty—"re-education through labor"—imposed outside the court systemCourt system of the People's Republic of China
The Chinese court system is based on civil law, modeled after the legal systems of Germany and France.-System:According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 and the Organic Law of the People's Courts that went into effect on January 1, 1980, the Chinese courts are divided...
. The former could be any fixed number of years, while the latter lasted three or four years. In fact, those with either kind of sentence ended up at the same camps, which were usually state farms or mines but occasionally were factory prisons in the city.
The November 1979 supplementary regulations on "re-education through labor" created labor training administration committees consisting of members of the local government, public security bureau, and labor department. The police, government, or a work unit could recommend that an individual be assigned to such reeducation, and, if the labor training administration committee agreed, hard labor was imposed without further due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
. The police reportedly made heavy use of the procedure, especially with urban youths, and probably used it to move unemployed, youthful, potential troublemakers out of the cities.
Monitoring
In the early 1980s, the people's procuratorates supervised the prisons, ensuring compliance with the law. Prisoners worked eight hours a day, six days a week, and had their food and clothing provided by the prison. They studied politics, law, state policies, and current events two hours daily, half of that in group discussion. They were forbidden to read anything not provided by the prison, to speak dialects not understood by the guards, or to keep cash, gold, jewelry, or other goods useful in an escape. Mail was censored, and generally only one visitor was allowed each month.Prisoners were told that their sentences could be reduced if they showed signs of repentance and rendered meritorious service. Any number of reductions could be earned totaling up to one-half the original sentence, but at least ten years of a life sentence had to be served. Probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
or parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
involved surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
by the public security bureau or a grass-roots organization to which the convict periodically reported.
Youth crime
Crime by youth offenders has been a matter of grave concern to the post-Mao leadership. In common with most societies, nearly all those charged with violent crimeViolent crime
A violent crime or crime of violence is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, as well as crimes in which violence is the means to an end, such as robbery. Violent...
have been under thirty-five years of age. Criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...
makes special provisions for juvenile offenders. Offenders between fourteen and sixteen years of age are to be held criminally liable only if they commit homicide, robbery, arson, or "other offenses which gravely jeopardize public order," and offenders between sixteen and eighteen years of age "shall be given a lighter or mitigated penalty." In most cases juvenile offenders charged with minor infractions are dealt with by neighborhood committees or other administrative means. In serious cases juvenile offenders usually are sent to one of the numerous reformatories reopened in most cities under the Ministry of Education
Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China , formerly Ministry of Education, Central People's Government from 1949 to 1954, State Education Commission from 1985 to 1998, is headquartered in Beijing. It is the agency of the State Council which regulates all aspects of the...
beginning in 1978.
Crime rate
In 1987 the crime rate remained low by international standards, and Chinese cities were among the safest in the world. The court systemCourt system of the People's Republic of China
The Chinese court system is based on civil law, modeled after the legal systems of Germany and France.-System:According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 and the Organic Law of the People's Courts that went into effect on January 1, 1980, the Chinese courts are divided...
had been reestablished, and standard criminal, procedural, civil, and economic codes had been developed.
Law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
s, closed since the late 1950s, had been reopened, and new ones had been established to meet the growing need for lawyers and judges.
Law enforcement organizations had been reorganized, civilianized, and made answerable to the courts and the procuratorates. But it would be unrealistic to assume that the old system of rule by party fiat could be changed in a short period of time. Opposition to the changes was pervasive at every level of the party and the government. Even its strongest supporters insisted that the legal system must be developed in accordance with the four cardinal principles—upholding socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. Given these limitations, it was clear that although much progress had been made in replacing the Mao era's arbitrary rule with a solid legal system, much still remained to be done.
See also
- Law of the People's Republic of ChinaLaw of the People's Republic of ChinaLaw of the People's Republic of China is the legal regime of the People's Republic of China, with the separate legal traditions and systems of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau....
- Legal history of China
- Law enforcement in the People's Republic of ChinaLaw enforcement in the People's Republic of ChinaLaw enforcement in the People's Republic of China consists of an extensive public security system and a variety of enforcement procedures are used to maintain order in the country...
- Court system of the People's Republic of ChinaCourt system of the People's Republic of ChinaThe Chinese court system is based on civil law, modeled after the legal systems of Germany and France.-System:According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 and the Organic Law of the People's Courts that went into effect on January 1, 1980, the Chinese courts are divided...
- LaogaiLaogaiLaogai , the abbreviation for Láodòng Gǎizào , which means "reform through labor," is a slogan of the Chinese criminal justice system and has been used to refer to the use of prison labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China . It is estimated that in the last fifty years more than...