TYPES OF INCARCERATION AND FORCED LABOR IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Tao-tai Hsia, Chief and Wendy I. Zeldin, Legal Research Analyst

Far Eastern Law Division Law Library of Congress

July 1990 LL 90-64

NOTE

The piece that follows relates to the issue of forced labor in the People's Republic of China, a topic that has been of some interest to several members of Congress. To the best of our knowledge, certain items of information presented in this article have not appeared elsewhere, which is why we chose to prepare a condensed translation of it.

TYPES OF INCARCERATION AND FORCED LABOR IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Wu Zuoren [pseudonym], "Tens of Thousands Incarcerated in Extra-Judicial Prisons," Zheng ming 89-92 (July 1990).

Prisons on the mainland can be divided into three big groups: prisons, quasi-prisons, and extra-judicial prisons. There are more than 10 kinds, including labor reform houses (laogai suo), custody houses (kanshou suo), detention houses (juliu suo), labor reeducation houses (laojiao suo), juvenile reeducation houses (shaojiao suo), and shelters (shourong suo). The majority of them are set up illegally and in contravention of the Constitution and have never been bound by law. These institutions impose at will the dictatorship of the proletariat over the people.

Aside from special prisons and detention camps for military personnel, war criminals, enemy

agents, and prisoners, generally speaking mainland prisons can be divided into three categories --

prisons, quasi-prisons, and extra-judicial prisons. There are more than 10 kinds, including labor

reform houses, custodial houses, detention houses, labor reeducation houses, juvenile reeducation

houses, and shelters. Among them, the majority were established in contravention of the

Constitution and are illegal; they have never been bound by law and have always been outside the

realm of law. Therefore, they can be called extra-judicial prisons. This article attempts to discuss

Chinese prisons in general and extra-judicial prisons in particular. This preliminary expose

hopefully will catch the attention of those involved in the democratic movement both in China and

abroad, international human rights organizations, and judicial circles, so that they will be concerned

with the human rights of tens of thousands of Chinese citizens who have been illegally incarcerated

by the Chinese Communists.

The Difference Between Prisons and Labor Reform Houses

The first kind of prisons are those that have been formally established. There are two forms

of these, prisons and labor reform camps. Some are formally named as prisons, such as the

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Liaoning Fushun Prison, the Beijing Qincheng Prison, the Shanghai Tilanqiao Prison, and the

Guangzhou Huanghua Road Prison. Each one of these prisons has the capacity to hold ten to fifty

thousand convicts They are generally known either as provincial prisons or as municipal prisons.

Most of the prisoners are those who have already been sentenced. These prisons are sometimes

deemed as transfer stations for prisoners who are to be sent to other prisons or labor reform

camps. The second category is labor reform camps. At first, it was because the prisons were too

crowded and there was no more room to hold additional prisoners that prisons of a different nature

from the traditional prisons were build. These are labor prisons and they are given another name,

such as labor reform farms, labor factories, new life factories, or new life mines. The Chinese

authorities derived the idea for them from Hitler and Stalin and combined it with the traditional

Chinese concept of carving out certain lands for prisons. These labor prisons are scattered in large

numbers throughout all provinces, municipalities under the direct control of the central government,

and autonomous regions. They could be called sinicized Fascist concentration camps.

Take, for instance, the city of Shanghai. It not only has the largest municipal prison on the

mainland, but also has several dozens of labor factories, including steel pipe, instrument, publishing,

textile, and machinery [factories] as well as the Qingpu Labor Reform Farm, whose present name

is the Qingdong Labor Reeducation Farm. More than 200,000 convicts served their terms there.

In addition, in northern Jiangsu province there is the Great Lumber Crop Labor Reform Farm.

Later, this farm was divided into two, one of which is called the Labor Reeducation Farm, the

other the Young Intellectual Farm. In southern Anhui there were a number of large-scale labor

reform farms, such as the Baimao Mountain and Jingti Lake farms. These farms hold one million

convicts. In the remote areas, such as Qinghai and Xinjiang, there were also established farms

and factories for labor reform, such as the Xining Machine Shop Factory. In the 1950s and during

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the years 1964-1983, more than 100,000 people from Shanghai were successively sent to these

remote areas for reform to serve long terms of imprisonment.

Except for a small number who are genuinely criminals, the majority of so-called convicts

are law-abiding citizens. Some of them made mistakes in their political careers or committed minor

violations of law that did not always amount to commission of a crime. Some of the convicts made

certain proposals to their superiors. Some of them got into trouble because they did not want to

pay money to the police upon threat of blackmail. Some of these convicts held different political

views from the Party or had certain "ideological problems." Some were incarcerated because of

mistaken identity, some were accused of non-existent crimes (the author, in preparing petitions for

these convicts, learned of such miscarriages of justice). Certain innocent people were sentenced

by mistake and even received very heavy sentences. Some of them were even shot. In Shanghai

city alone, on average, 50,000 citizens received criminal punishment. The population of Shanghai

constitutes only 1/100 of the total population and it is claimed by the authorities to be a "civilized

city," with the lowest crime rate. Using this as a basis for making an estimate, one can glean how

many people in all of China during the past four decades have been imprisoned.

Custody Houses and Detention Houses Each Have Their Own Characteristics

The second type of prison also has two forms, that is, the custody house and the detention

house. Because convicts detained in these houses have not received sentences, the author calls

them quasi-prisons. The custody house holds people who have been arrested or defendants whose

cases have been adjudicated in a court of first instance but who are awaiting trial by an appellate

court. These houses serve as transitional prisons (after the conclusion of the trial by the court of

second instance, the defendant will be sent to a formal prison). Take Shanghai, for instance.

There are five custody houses at the municipal level, 12 custody houses at the district level, 10

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custody houses at the county level. In addition, there is one each of water, railroad, and civil

aviation custody houses. Altogether, there are 30 such custody houses. Except for those at the

municipal level, which can hold three to four thousand people, the custody houses can only

accommodate about a thousand inmates. On the mainland, there are 200-some large- and medium-

size cities and 3,400 counties in different areas, all of which have custody houses. Thus, in the

whole nation, there are about 5,000 custody houses.

The second kind of quasi-prison is the detention house. Where there are custody houses,

there must also be detention houses, but places that have detention houses do not necessarily have

to have custody houses. Large industrial or mining enterprises, such as Baogang (Baoshan Steel)

Petroleum Chemical, only have detention houses and do not have custody houses. Therefore, in

numbers there are more detention houses than custody houses. Therefore the total number of

detention houses must be over 5,000. The scale of detention houses is much larger than that of

custody houses. The citizens incarcerated in detention houses are also more numerous.

Detention can be divided into three forms: 1) detention in accordance with law, 2)

detention for examination, and 3) administrative detention. In the whole country, every year on

average the number of citizens under detention is estimated to be seven and a half to eight million

man-times.

Lawful Detention in Different Forms

So-called "lawful detention" is referred to in brief as faju. It is generally known as the "big

ticket," because the ticket for detention is of the largest size. Detention is limited to 10 days, but

almost 100% of the detentions, without exception, on the 11th day are changed to "arrest." The

persons under lawful detention constitute approximately one-fourth of the total number of people

under detention. So-called detention for examination, generally known as detention examination,

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is also commonly known as the "small ticket." Normally, it carries a three-month term. At the end

of the term, the person will either be arrested, be sent to do labor, or be released. However, the

majority of them will have their terms extended. The provisions in the Criminal Code regarding

the time limit are usually disregarded. Generally speaking, about one-third of those who are under

detention examination will be escalated to another level, to the category of the arrested. The

lawfully detained constitute about one-half of the people under detention. One-third of the people

have not gone through the regular judicial process through the courts. The police bypass regular

judicial procedure and prescribe sentence directly to these innocent citizens, who will be sent to

labor reeducation houses for imprisonment. The time they spend in a detention house will not be

counted towards the term in the labor reeducation house; the latter term starts from the day they

enter such houses. Only about a third of the citizens will be lucky enough to be released from the

prisons. Even in these instances, usually no open conclusions of the cases are published (which

indicates that obviously these people were wrongly detained). Because some of these cases may

be in the category of so-called inside accusations, the persons released could be rearrested at any

time.

Administrative Detention

People placed under administrative detention are usually litigants in civil cases or drivers

involved in car accidents. Administrative detention normally should be limited to 15 days. In

certain cases, however, more than 15 days is prescribed or the case may be upgraded [in

seriousness]. For civil cases, since mediation is usually the primary means for settlement, the

citizens under detention consist of less than one-fifth of all people under detention. Furthermore,

"detention examination" persons who are later released constitute about 30 percent. Seventy

percent of those under detention constitute more than five million people. Among them, a large

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number are prisoners of conscience (there are a great number of "political prisoners" and

"ideological prisoners" in China, but the Communist Chinese have always denied it). For instance,

even the prominent democratic movement leader Wei Jingsheng was given the hat of regular

criminal punishment. Such political prisoners will be sent to formal prisons and continue to be the

victims of the Communist Party.

Extra-Judicial Prisons Are in Conflict With the Constitution and the Criminal Code

There are a multitude of forms and names of the third kind of prison, "extra-judicial

prisons." There are labor reeducation institutions, juvenile reeducation houses, shelters, separation

rooms, forwarding stations, work study schools, closed study classes, and so on and so forth. These

are usually set up illegally by the factions that are in power and the police. These extra-judicial

prisons are primarily used for coping with innocent citizens and naive young people. Among them,

there are in particular the labor reeducation institutions (including the juvenile reeducation

institutions) and "shelters." The former are labor reform institutions in a different form, which are

just like formal prisons. The latter are a copy of the detention houses, which are no different from

quasi-prisons. For so-called "extra-judicial prisons," there is not only no legal basis, there is also

no judicial procedure, and so they blatantly violate the Constitution and the Criminal Code. The

police can at will unconstitutionally engage in illegal activities to violate human rights and make

compulsory arrests and detentions of innocent people. It deprives citizens of their minimum right,

that is, the right of personal freedom. There is no way to explain the functions of such extra-

judicial prisons in the form of law, except as a means of exercising one-party dictatorship. During

the past 40 years, especially in the past decade of "judicial reform," the number of extra-judicial

prisons has actually increased and they form a large network in China.

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Labor Reeducation Institutions -- Prisons for Innocent People Who Are Undergoing Dictatorship

The inmates of labor reeducation institutions usually come from detention houses, shelters,

or the places where they work or reside, these work units or residential areas having sent them

there. In the first 20 years of the People's Republic of China, the inmates were mostly adults who

held different views from those of the Chinese Communists; for instance, in 1947 and 1948, part

of the half a million "rightist elements" and 1,040,000 "bad elements," aside from those who were

given prison terms (within the CCP, certain people were considered as worker and peasant rightists,

but to people outside they were known as bad elements). In the last 20 years, most of the inmates

have been young people considered by the authorities to have engaged in riots. On the average,

each year there are about two million inmates. Although the authorities know that the inmates

are actually innocent and have not even been given the formality of a court trial, they still want

these dissidents to lose their personal freedom and to be deprived of their basic citizens' rights

listed in the Constitution and they want to use it as a threat, much as it was effectively used by

the Fascist government (however, Hitler only used it for people of a different race, while the

Chinese Communists use it to punish their compatriots). Therefore, they found a way to enact a

so-called administrative regulation that is above the Constitution, so that, on the pretext that it is

an administrative disciplinary action, they do not have to observe the law. As a result, a great

number of innocent people are imprisoned to undergo long-term labor reeducation. The

authorities even shamefully state that labor reeducation is actually a manifestation of the

Communist Party's "love" and make hell sound like paradise.

The Majority of Labor Reeducation Institution Personnel Are Innocent Citizens

Labor reeducation institutions and labor reform institutions are all prisons and the police

regulations governing the management and supervision of such institutions are identical. The

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inmates in the former have usually been found not guilty first and they are intentionally

incarcerated on other pretexts. The latter usually go through the pro forma court decision.

Although these two kinds of institutions are different in form, in fact they are only different in

name, with a difference of a single character, the former being reeducation, the other reform.

Very often, these two kinds of institutions are combined. Sometimes, the name is changed from

labor reform farm to labor reeducation farm, or to labor reform headquarters farm with an attached

labor reeducation branch farm. Frequently, groups of labor reeducation inmates are converted to

labor reform convicts, so that the two are combined into one. Regardless of whether they are

labor reeducation inmates or labor reform convicts, they are all incarcerated without personal

freedom and their treatment is also identical. The authorities usually call the labor reeducation

inmates and labor reform convicts the two lao the two labor reformees. From this, one can see

that they are actually in the same category.

If one made a careful comparison, one would find that labor reeducation is even worse than

labor reform. 1) For labor reform, there is a term of imprisonment. By contrast, at first, labor

reeducation did not have a time limit at all. In the 1950s, a multitude of innocent citizens were

sent to labor reeducation institutions. A large number of people spent 20 to 30 years in such

reeducation institutions and occasionally there were such strange incidents as those in labor

reeducation institutions petitioning the authorities to change their status to labor reform convicts.

Later, although there was a regulation to make the maximum of labor reeducation three years,

quite frequently this limit was just ignored (family members who were forced to pay bribes to the

institution police were the exceptions). 2) For those sent to labor reform institutions, there is still

some possibility that the case will be overturned and the convict will be rehabilitated. Such

opportunities will not be given to labor reeducation inmates. After the Third Plenum of the

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Eleventh Chinese Communist Party Congress, Deng Xiaoping and others, in order to seize power

from whatever faction was led by Hua Guofeng and also in order to overturn the "61 rebels case,"

made it possible to let such aged leaders as Peng Zhen and Bo Yibo reenter the political stage and

launch a rehabilitation movement in order to secure the support of the people. These moves to

overturn cases first extended to cases that took place during the Cultural Revolution period and

were then further extended to cover 1957. After review, cases of labor reform convicts were found

to have been wrongly decided and the convicts were rehabilitated. However, very few of those who

were inmates of labor reeducation institutions had this benefit of having their cases overturned.

It is because they were not guilty in the first place, no sentence was given to them, and the police

at that time (even today) tried to bypass the judicial organs to handle such cases. Since there

were no court records, of course there was no way for the courts to review such cases. In cases

in which the reeducation institution inmate had been sent by his work unit, if the work unit had

a change of the personnel in charge, the unit would use the reason that it "did not know" to

respond to inquiries regarding the labor reeducation case being reviewed. The police would refuse

[to help], saying that "since there was no criminal punishment, and the people have already suffered

anyway and some have even died, the ones who survived should be thankful to the Party and the

government; why do they want rehabilitation?" They even threaten these people, saying, "If you

don't behave, be careful, you might be re-arrested." In 1979 and 1980, there were more than

100,000 people from different areas of China who went to Beijing to voice their complaints. The

authorities at that time had the view that "this would create a bad image abroad," and so they

issued an order to arrest them and compel them to return to their original area to receive

rectification. Thus, the tens of millions of innocent people who underwent labor reeducation still

have not been able to receive justice.

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The Special Prisons for Young People and Children

Reeducation institutions for young people are special labor reeducation institutions whose

inmates are all young people and children. The police, in order to prevent problem children from

engaging in activities to destabilize society, openly ignore the law and, using the pretext of taking

preventive measures, put these youth in prison. In the past, many children spent their childhood

in prison. They had psychological disorders and learned how to commit crimes. Some of them

even spent their whole lives in prison. Now, there are a large number of children sent to such

special reeducation institutions to be the successors of the earlier classes. This has enabled the

youth reeducation institutions to continue to thrive. In the recent decade, work study schools

have been established along with the policy of reform and opening up. Such work study schools

are for innocent children. They are very much like the youth rehabilitation institutions and are

also under the police. The students do not have personal freedom; in fact, they receive long-term

incarceration. So, regardless whether it is a youth reeducation institution or a work study school,

young citizens normally are shackled and receive corporal punishment. Quite often, these students

will be disciplined by denial of sufficient food, be made to work overtime, and be given fewer hours

to sleep. Such young people suffer both mentally and physically. These hundreds of thousands

of young people are quite pitiful. They do not have the standing to file a petition. If they attempt

to do that and it is found out by the police, the police will say, "You are so young and yet so

daring. You even dreamed of accusing the Bureau of Public Security. Did you take medicine to

make you fearless, or were you incited by some adults? You have not reached the legal age; what

right do you have to file a suit?" After such an incident, these young people will sometimes be

given sweet talk or sometimes a threat and they are even more harmed. Although the children's

so-called legal guardians, the parents, feel bad, they cannot do anything. There is no way for them

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to protect their own children because what they face is the corrupt, but nonetheless temporarily

powerful, dictatorship. These guardians of the children have to worry about their own safety. How

would they dare to accuse the Chinese Communists of atrocities? It would be like using an egg

to knock a stone. The author appeals to the world to save these children from the maltreatment

of the tyrants.

Fascist Concentration Separation Rooms, Shelters, Are Illegal Prisons the Police Set Up Themselves To Incarcerate Innocent Citizens

The shelters on the Chinese mainland are absolutely different from humanitarian "refugee

shelters" of democratic countries. In fact, they are diametrically opposite. They are the world's

most inhuman "detention houses to shelter people for examination." Such large-scale fascist

"concentration separation rooms" emerged in 1981, when Deng Xiaoping was in power. Actually,

they succeed the tyrannical ways of the Cultural Revolution and even strengthen them. In

Shanghai, each district, in addition to having one custody house and detention house, also has two

or three "shelters." Such shelters usually occupy a whole middle or elementary school, sometimes

a whole factory or workshop. It is known that in such large cities as Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang,

Nanjing, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Xian, Chengdu, Chongqing, Changsha, and Guangzhou there are

more shelters than detention houses. In every city and county in China, there is a shelter. In the

whole country, there are about 6,000 such shelters. Outsiders might pose the question, since China

has so many custody houses and detention houses, which can hold more than ten million people,

why does it need shelters? But the trick is this: with the former, one still has the pro forma "doing

things according to law," while with the latter, one can do anything without paying attention to the

law. No wonder the Chinese Communists favor the latter. It is because -- since the shelter itself

has no legal basis and "shelter for examination" is a short-term incarceration (limited to half a year),

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and since the purpose of sheltering for examination is to try to collect so-called evidence and

therefore there is no need to obtain evidence before the fact -- there is no need to distinguish

what is crime and what is non-crime. The police bureaus and substations, the militia and the

united peace preservation units all can arrest people at will and no one will be held legally

responsible for their actions. Therefore, in many areas they have expanded and established more

such shelters. Those who have gone through the shelters are a very large number of people. It

is estimated that in the whole country, on average, each year, those who have been sent to shelters

for examination are 10 million man-times. A great many of them are forced to confess and forced

to accuse others. Sometimes they are tricked into making certain statements so that a case can

be built to promote them either to a detention house or to a labor reeducation institution. Thus,

in the 10 years after the Cultural Revolution, numerous miscarriages of justice again have resulted

from these shelters for examination.

Shelters Are the Product of the Four Upholds

The Ministry of Public Security illegally ordered the setting up of shelters all over China.

The background for such a development is Deng's four upholds. During the 10 years of the

Cultural Revolution, almost without exception, in each unit there were set up either "separation

rooms," commonly known as cow pens, or closed study classes, that is, "collective separation rooms,"

and these illegally incarcerated several millions of innocent citizens. One hundred million people

underwent all kinds of examination and suffered different degrees of harm. Among them, several

million were shot, committed suicide, or died as a result of homicide or fights. Those who were

harmed because of their relations with the victims also include a great number of people. In

history, this period is known as the 10 years of great disaster. Deng Xiaoping reemerged after the

Cultural Revolution and announced, probably without much sincerity, that from then on no

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campaigns would be launched and "class struggle as the key" would be relinquished. Under him,

the Constitution was revised and the Criminal Code was enacted. However, that was only on the

surface; behind the scenes, the dictatorship was even strengthened and arrangements were made

to enforce the policy of relaxing towards the outside, tightening on the inside. Soon after, the

notorious four upholds were announced. The Ministry of Public Security, following Deng's orders,

at a time when negating the experience of the Cultural Revolution was affirmed, combined

"individual separation" and "collective separation" and therefore the new term, shelter, came into

existence. They secretly enacted the so-called Regulations on Shelters. They have never made

these regulations public in the papers nor even sent them pro forma to the National People's

Congress for discussion and adoption. Under the banner of administrative "avoidance of legal

supervision," they arrest people at will and continue to impose total dictatorship over the broad

masses.

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SUMMARY -- CLASSIFICATION OF PRISONS ON THE MAINLAND

1. Formal Prisons

a) Prisons

Primarily incarcerate those who have already received a criminal sentence. These prisons are sometimes used as transfer stations for other prisons, such as labor reform institutions.

b) Reform Camps and Institutions, e.g., Labor Reform Farms or Factories

Because the formal prisons were already full, the authorities needed new installations to hold inmates. These places are usually given such names as New Life Farm or New Life Factory. In fact, they changed "sitting prisons" to "labor prisons."

2. Quasi-Prisons

a) Custody Houses

Incarcerate people who have been arrested and also hold people who have already been tried and sentenced by a court of first instance and who are waiting to be tried by an appellate court. So, they serve as prisons of a transitional nature.

b) Detention Houses

There are three types of detention:

1) Detention in accordance with law;

2) Detention for examination;

3) Administrative detention.

The majority of detainees are "prisoners of conscience."

3. Extra-Judicial Prisons

a) Labor Reeducation Institutions

Established to hold people originally from detention houses or shelters and so-called "destructive elements" sent by their work units or residential districts. In the past, these destructive elements were called rightist elements or bad elements. Labor

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reeducation is an administrative disciplinary action that is above the Constitution. There is no term for serving a sentence and there is no judicial procedure.

b) Labor Reform Institutions

Similar to labor reeducation institutions. The only difference is that those assigned to labor reform have a pro forma court trial and a prescribed prison term.

c) Youth Reeducation Institutions

Inmates are usually young people under 16 years of age. In addition, a large number of young offenders are put in work study schools under supervision.

d) Shelters

Privately set up by the police, without any legal basis. The term for inmates is usually half a year. The purpose of holding people in such shelters is to collect manufactured evidence so that the dictatorial organs can arrest people at will.

7Z,Z Summary translation by Tao-tai Hsia, Chief and Wendy I. Zeldin, Legal Research Analyst Far Eastern Law Division Law Library of Congress July 1990