Community correction work： what should I do if I commit a misdemeanor and don’t accept the prison？
The picture shows Xingfu Judicial Office in Huaiyin District, Jinan City, Shandong Province holding a psychological incentive and mutual aid meeting for community corrections personnel. Information picture
【 eyes to see the world 】
30-year-old Meng Fan met a big hurdle this year. Because my uncle bullied my father several times, he dragged my uncle to the car in a rage and beat and scold him many times in a few hours, which caused my uncle minor injuries. Meng Fan was therefore convicted of illegal detention and sentenced to half a year’s imprisonment and suspended for one year.
Meng Fan lives in Xingfu Street, Huaiyin District, Jinan City, Shandong Province. Sentenced to probation means that you don’t have to go to prison to serve your sentence. On Thursday, Meng Fan came to Xingfu Judicial Office and was interviewed by judicial staff.
Meng Fan, with fair skin and glasses, sat opposite the staff. "Is the work going smoothly" and "How are you feeling recently" … … The conversation is very homely. This is one of the contents of Meng Fan’s community correction.
1. Some unfamiliar community corrections
Community correction takes place in the community — — The public space closest to everyone, but the general community residents don’t know much about it.
At the beginning of one month of reporting to the judicial office for community correction (hereinafter referred to as "correction"), the staff of the judicial office will have a talk with Meng Fan once a week; Every two months, the staff of the judicial office will also make a home visit.
Concentrated study and labor are arranged on Friday. On this day, all correction personnel in Huaiyin District will go to the district community correction center to study and work.
"The time of study and labor will change, and the first three months of correction are ‘ Strict management ’ , study and work every month ‘ Two 12 hours ’ ; If the degree of criminal harm is small and the individual performs well, it will gradually decrease to ‘ General management ’ ‘ Wide tube ’ The study and working hours are reduced to 10 hours and 8 hours. " Meng Fan said.
When the reporter came to Huaiyin District Community Correction Center, it was not a day of concentrated study. There were only two staff members in the center, and the building with functional rooms such as monitoring room, conversation room, library, psychological evaluation room and announcement room seemed a little deserted. The place where the correction personnel study is a multi-functional classroom. According to the staff, the main ways of learning are listening to lectures or watching videos, sometimes warning videos about breaking the law, sometimes learning some current political knowledge, and lectures on Chinese studies and psychology. Labor is to raise fish and grow vegetables at the base of the community correction center. Gai Ying, director of Xingfu Judicial Institute, said that the forms of study and labor vary from place to place. Before the establishment of Huaiyin District Community Correction Center, he contacted the nursing home to do volunteer service with the correction staff, but he was declined.
Meng Fan wears a positioning wristband on her wrist, which looks like an electronic watch. Gaiying showed the positions of all the correction personnel in charge of Xingfu Judicial Office on the community correction monitoring and command system. "This position is updated every 5 minutes, and the wristband has an anti-disassembly device. If it is violently dismantled or someone leaves Jinan directly without asking for leave, the system will immediately prompt."
Meng Fan said that if there is something really urgent, he can ask for leave from the judicial office. "I just can’t leave Jinan, which is really restricted. When (community correction) is over, I want to travel with my family most. " If you are absent from study or work without taking time off, you will be given a warning, and you will be imprisoned after three warnings. Gao Yuanchao, who is usually in charge of correction work in Xingfu Judicial Office, said that during his two years here, no one has resisted or cooperated.
Xingfu Justice owns a relatively small announcement room. At the announcement ceremony, after being informed of the regulations to be observed during community correction, the correctional officers will read a correction oath, the core content of which is to warn the correctional officers not to commit crimes again.
"Generally, people who have not experienced the process of detention and imprisonment are prone to have a bad attitude when conducting community correction and do not realize that they are a prisoner. Therefore, after the establishment, we focused on standardizing the ceremony of the declaration of correction, which is a wake-up call for the mentality of the correction personnel. " Gaiying said.
2. The formation of the basic system of community correction
At Xingfu Judicial Office, there are currently 21 correction personnel like Meng Fan. Since its establishment in November 2013, the Institute has received more than 200 community corrections personnel, of which 90% were suspended, 5% were sentenced to control, 3% were granted parole, and 2% were temporarily executed outside prison.
Since 2003, China has started the pilot community correction work, and the above four categories of people have been included in the framework of community correction, which means that the community correction targets are mainly those who have committed minor crimes and are less personally dangerous.
Wu Zongxian, a professor at the Institute of Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University and director of the Community Correction Research Center, participated in the initial reform of community correction. He introduced that the criminal justice system includes four stages: investigation, prosecution, trial and execution, which correspond to four responsible subjects: public security, procuratorate, court and judicial administrative organ. Before the implementation of community correction, four types of people, such as those who were declared suspended, were managed by public security, which meant that the functions of investigation and penalty execution overlapped.
"The task of the public security organs is very heavy, and the management of these four types of personnel is not in place, which has caused many problems and the court has also suffered tremendous pressure." Wu Zongxian said. Therefore, in the case that probation can be sentenced or parole can be ruled, the court often tends to impose severe sentences.
"For individuals, whether they have experienced prison life is a world of difference. A person sentenced to probation often has a minor crime and little subjective malice. Let him go to prison to serve his sentence, which is easy to cross infection, but it is not conducive to reform. " Wu Zongxian pointed out.
Community correction is not only an important international legal system, but also a modern governance method based on the needs of many parties.
Wu Zongxian introduced that since July 2003, six provinces and cities, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong, have implemented pilot projects of community correction. In 2009, it entered the comprehensive trial stage. The Criminal Law Amendment (VIII) passed in February 2011 clearly stipulates community correction. In 2019, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) reviewed the draft community correction law, and now the draft is about to usher in the third trial.
After 16 years of development, China’s community correction work has formed a basic system. However, in terms of specific methods and strict implementation, it varies from place to place.
"In Huaiyin District, because the development of each street is different, the community correction work of the judicial office is also very different." Gaiying introduced that Xingfu Street is located in the urban-rural junction, with a large registered population and a large population mobility. There are 16 judicial offices in Huaiyin District, and the staff in Xingfu Judicial Office usually account for 1/6 of the total number in the district, and even 1/4 in many cases. Among them, violent crimes and traffic crimes such as drunk driving each account for 40%.
3. An important way of correction — — psychological intervention
Zheng Qiang, born in 1996, may soon become a member of Xingfu Judicial Institute. In June 2018, in a traffic accident, Zheng Qiang hit a 67-year-old man who was riding an electric car across the road, and he died 16 days later.
Zheng Qiang was brought in for a "pre-trial investigation". This procedure means that before the judge intends to apply community correction, he entrusts the judicial office of the defendant’s permanent residence to investigate the community neighborhood Committee, relatives, friends and neighbors to judge whether the defendant is suitable for community correction.
In Gaiying’s view, the corrective personnel are prone to psychological problems. "For example, in the case of Zheng Qiang, the moment of hitting someone and the fact that the other person has passed away may be repeated in his mind." Therefore, psychological evaluation before community correction and psychological intervention after community correction are important contents in community correction.
Zheng Chuan, a policeman who has been engaged in community correction since 2004, said that the traditional evaluation method is to make a psychological measurement form, but this requires everyone who takes the test to answer questions truthfully. Because of the particularity of identity and the sensitivity of test questions, correction personnel often hide or even lie. Therefore, there are many ways to evaluate a person’s psychological state and degree of danger, besides talking, making scales, and drawing pictures.
In xingfu judicial office, in addition to psychological evaluation when entering correction, it is necessary to re-evaluate every month to adjust the rating. At present, the judicial office has a total of five staff members, and only the director, Gai Ying, is a formal political and legal establishment. Shortage of manpower, strong mobility and a lot of daily work. As for the work of community correction, in addition to sorting out the files of each community correction worker with a thickness of about 200 pages, the daily work also includes an average of 12 visits and 44 conversations every month.
"There is no cooperation with social organizations yet. On the one hand, there are fewer social organizations in Jinan, and the only ones are mixed." Gaiying said that psychological evaluation and intervention are very important, but it is not realistic to conduct a detailed evaluation of each correctional worker for two hours every month.
Gaiying applied for two machines, one is a psychological stress assessment instrument and the other is a psychological counseling self-help instrument. The former mainly gives a certain judgment by measuring human body indexes such as psychological variability, and the whole process only takes 5 minutes. The latter has some psychological knowledge built in, as well as music and games to relieve stress.
"If you don’t have a good rest recently and the pressure is relatively high, it will be reflected. Director Gai will have another one-on-one conversation. " Meng Fan thinks that the instrument "has a certain function".
4. Special correction object — — juveniles
Among the community corrections personnel, there is a special group of people — — Minors.
When Zhao Xin was 17 years old, because his friend was beaten, he retaliated out of "Jianghu loyalty" and stole the other party’s mobile phone and credit card. Zhao Xin was sentenced to one year and six months in prison and suspended for two years for robbery.
Since its establishment, Xingfu Judicial Office has received three minors, and Zhao Xin is one of them. Gaiying believes that minors have poor self-control ability and are reckless in doing things. They are often sentenced for fighting. Although they have been strictly controlled and carefully educated, their thoughts are repeated. He pointed out that "all three people have family problems, and their parents don’t understand education or even want to educate."
In the community correction center, in order to protect minors, they usually concentrate on studying and working separately from adults. "Those who are still in school, try to keep them in school to continue their studies, and those who have already worked will be sent to receive training if necessary." Gaiying believes that giving minors a stable environment plays an important role in preventing recidivism.
In recent years, the phenomenon of juvenile delinquency has aroused great concern in society. Some people think that there is too much protection for minors who have committed crimes, and strong punishment is very insufficient.
In this regard, Su Wenying, a child protection official of UNICEF in China, believes that most minors who have received community correction have committed minor crimes, and their personal danger and social harm are not great. Therefore, it is better to let them live in a non-closed environment and rely more on the positive forces of families, schools and communities for education and assistance.
Community correction has been explored for a long time in other countries. Based on the practical experience of various countries, Su Wenying believes that for minors with community correction, personalized correction programs should be formulated according to different situations of each person.
For example, some children have psychological problems and need one-on-one psychological intervention; Some of them are lack of family education and guardianship, so it is necessary to strengthen parental education or carry out family therapy; Some need to promote reconciliation with victims and take restorative justice measures; Some children are in the impulsive risk-taking stage of adolescence, but the crime is not subjective and vicious. The correction project can include some competitive adventures, outdoor sports and skills training activities.
For the lack of family education faced by minors in correctional institutions, what Xingfu Judicial Office can do at present is to contact and talk with parents more. For example, Zhao Xin’s father likes fishing, and Gaiying has fished with him several times. "I don’t like fishing very much, mainly to change his educational concept."
5. The game of ideas and differences in details require a consensus through legislation.
Consistent with the original intention of demanding effective punishment for minors who have committed crimes, people’s expectation for a prisoner who will eventually return to society should be that he will not commit crimes again.
Among the responsibilities undertaken by community correction work, effective "educational correction" is an important content to achieve this goal. "Paying equal attention to punishment and help is a conceptual change in the criminal law system and an institutional innovation." Wu Zongxian thinks.
At present, there are 700,000 registered community correction targets in China, which is close to 1/3 of the total number of criminals in China. According to statistics, during the period of community correction, the recidivism rate of community correction objects is only 0.2%.
However, the theoretical and practical departments have not yet reached a consensus on how to achieve the effective educational correction purpose and how to judge whether the purpose has been achieved.
As a front-line judicial officer, Gaiying believes that community correction should be strictly regulated as a means of penalty execution at present, "correcting one’s behavior, correcting one’s heart and correcting one’s behavior first".
Wang Shun ‘an, director of the Crime and Justice Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the four types of community correction personnel are different in nature, and their rights and obligations are not the same, so a unified model cannot be applied, and supervision and management, education correction and transitional assistance should be carried out separately.
There are also differences in some details. The qualification of law enforcement subject of grass-roots staff of community correction needs to be clarified. The person in charge of the relevant departments admitted frankly that the community correction staff did not have uniform uniforms, and their identities were vague, and "good guys" and "bad guys" could not be distinguished. However, the staff members lack the necessary law enforcement equipment and compulsory means in the face of the correction personnel with certain social risks; There are fewer people in the judicial office, and there are less than two people in the special compilation of politics and law, so it is difficult to ensure that special personnel specialize in community correction.
"At present, most countries do not have a community correction law passed by the legislature." Wu Zongxian said. The reason is that various ideas are constantly playing games.
In the 16-year exploration of community correction in China, the legislative work has been continuously promoted in view of practical problems. During the second trial of the draft community correction law this year, members the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) pointed out that the draft further improved the working principles of community correction, and added special chapters on "institutions, personnel and responsibilities" and "legal responsibilities", which made the structure more reasonable and the content more perfect. Recently, the draft community correction law is about to be reviewed for the third time, and we have reason to expect that it will become more mature.
(Meng Fan, Zheng Qiang and Zhao Xin are all pseudonyms)
(Reporter Chen Huijuan)
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Community correction system in foreign countries
Japanese community correction
Community correction in Japan comes from protection observation system and rehabilitation protection system. The relevant laws are mainly the Rehabilitation Protection Law, the detailed rules for the implementation of the Rehabilitation Protection Law and related amendment bills, and the criminal code and methods also stipulate the related matters of community correction.
Rehabilitation protection is a non-custodial punishment that allows criminals to reform in society, educate them to avoid recidivism and reintegrate them into society. Japan’s community correction system has corresponding personnel from top to bottom, in addition to specialized staff such as rehabilitation protection and revitalization department, there are also many folk volunteers.
Japan not only examines specialized staff, but also examines the reputation, time and living conditions of folk volunteers. Only those who meet the requirements with good social reputation, sufficient spare time and stable life can serve as folk volunteers to participate in the rectification work.
British community correction
Britain is one of the cradles of community correction system. As a typical case law country, there is no unified community correction code in Britain at present, and its community correction law is formed and developed in the long-term trial practice. In 2000, Britain promulgated the Criminal Court Power Act (Judgment) 2000, which made a relatively complete provision for the community correction system.
In terms of punishment, different community correction measures will be applied according to the criminal’s personal situation and community situation. In the aspect of execution, for prisoners who are subjected to community correction, the pain and negative impact caused by the execution of punishment should be minimized to avoid conflicts with criminals’ normal work, school or other education.
Community correction in Canada
The Canadian Criminal Code provides for community correction. In 1992, the Correction and Conditional Release Act was promulgated, which is the main regulation guiding adult correction in Canada at present. Canada’s community correction mainly applies to probation and parole, and its implementation methods include general supervision, home imprisonment, electronic monitoring, halfway house and so on.
Canada’s correctional system is vertical management, which has the advantage of strengthening professional leadership. At the same time, correctional institutions also cooperate with local police, courts, crime prevention and social development organizations. A clear professional division of labor is a major feature of community correction in Canada. For example, in the federal parole office, there are senior parole officers, administrative managers, project managers, general parole officers and special task directors. Parole officers are divided into prison parole officers and community parole officers. Prison parole officers help each prisoner make a parole plan and help criminals get parole. Community parole officers are responsible for the management of community parolees.
(Intern reporter Zhao Jian finishing)