China Report Issue 48 May 2017

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(US$29 to 44) in the day. On average, he earns more than 10,000
yuan (US$1,450) a month – enough to get by, even in Beijing.
Talking about the six months at SHHC, Wang said what impressed
him most was the pervasive loneliness. He told our reporter that when
in prison, he shared a room with more than 10 inmates, but at SHHC
he lived alone. “In prison, you do not need to worry about anything,
but when I got out, I had to pay for food and transportation and live
independently,” he said.
Wang recently considered starting a family but found it is quite dif-
ficult. “Every time I tried to date a girl, I was asked directly whether
I have an flat or a car, which made me very awkward, let alone being
an ex-prisoner,” he said.
Meng Weiguo, psychological counsellor at SHHC, said social prej-
udice has a harsh psychological impact on ex-prisoners, who also stick
those labels on themselves. The SHHC staff try to help them get rid
of their inferiority complex. “If you find it hard to change the mind of
others, you have to change your own mind,” he said.
Zhang Yu was given a suspended sentence, and a one-year com-
munity rectification at a halfway house in Huairou District in Beijing.
He told ChinaReport that he was really depressed when he heard the
sentence, and that he had an existing tendency of depression – often
getting him strange looks from neighbours. But after one-to-one psy-
chological counselling, he feels much better nowadays.
Every month, Meng conducts psychological counselling at SHHC
as a part-time instructor and he said it is hard to provide a long-term
psychological counselling service for inmates who need help. Li Bo
told our reporter that it is a challenge for SHHC to integrate the sepa-
rated social resources to create a professional and systematic social sup-
port system. She said that the psychological instructors at SHHC are
from seven to eight institutions who are complementary to each other.
“But it is even difficult for us to summon together all these teachers in
the year end for a meeting,” she said. “We need long-term mechanisms
to provide technological and financial support,” added Meng.
The situation in the capital’s Huairou District is quite different
to that in Chaoyang. There are far fewer people serving community
terms because of its suburban location and low population density. A
community instructor there told ChinaReport on condition of ano-
nymity that community rectification is provided to minor criminal
offenders to avoid “cross-infection” in prison – small-time offenders
learning criminal skills and attitudes from more serious criminals.
“Over the years, small class teaching has been promoted to ensure


interactivity and effectively prevent cross-infection,” he said.
He told our reporter that the community rectification system also
has some systematic problems. According to the Measures for the
Implementation of Community Rectification jointly released by the
Supreme Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, ministries of
public security and justice, judicial administrative organs are in charge
of the community rectification management but they are restricted
in their ability to execute punishments. Cooperation with the legal
departments and public security organs is not well coordinated.
For example, one inmate escaped to dodge a creditor and the lo-
cal judicial organ asked public security to help chase him down. The
public security organ, however, denied the request because according
to the rules, the case of the escaped community termer fell short of the
requirement for “Chasing Fugitives Online” and the fugitive could
not be added to the fugitive data bank.
Annual meetings are held to tackle the issue, but always with the
same outcome – continue coordinating like before. The local judicial
organs have to keep a close eye on the inmates including regular visits
to study their living conditions and their daily lives – but there’s a lack
of measures to ensure this actually happens.

A room for community inmates at Sunshine Halfway House

Photo by zhen hongge
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