laojiao.jpg (Photo : www.guancha.cn)
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) voted to abolish the administrative punishment system known as laojiao or re-education through labor (RETL). The measure had been submitted to the NPC for deliberation by the State Council last November.
First implemented in 1957 and later amended in 1979, RETL was conceived as an administrative alternative to the more severe criminal court system. The original idea was that under RETL, a person charged with minor offenses such as petty theft would be better able to rehabilitate himself while benefiting the community if he were put to work in a factory or on a farm instead of simply being sent away to jail.
There was no centralized decision-making body tasked with regulating RETL and as a consequence, authority to impose RETL was given to individual public security offices. The result was a patchwork of RETL systems which lacked consistent procedures to determine such issues as punishments or how to regulate which offensive acts required RETL and which did not. Public security offices could detain people for up to four years without a hearing and place them in facilities outside the jurisdiction of the general prison system.
China’s Ministry of Justice estimates that over 150,000 people have received RETL between 1957 and 2008.
While admitting that RETL had previously been an important tool in the nation’s efforts to fulfill its responsibilities to ensure a safe and stable society, the NPC nevertheless determined that it has outlived its usefulness. Indeed, according to the NPC, China’s current criminal justice system and legal regime are more than up to the task of securing society while punishing offenders without having to resort to RETL any longer.
