A_World_Apart

The correctional system and institutions in the United States are a world apart from the correctional system and institutions in China. This paper will compare, between China and The United States, many different aspects of the correctional systems within the two countries. Then a personal opinion of the correctional system in China as compared to that of the United States, deciding which is more effective and if the United States should adapt to or make changes to reflect Chinas correctional system. Correctional Systems and Institutions When it comes to reform through labor, the Republic of China has the largest prison system in the world, having over 1250 labor camps, prisons, and detention centers throughout China (Pareles, 2006). The one thing that helps make them one of the biggest prison systems in the world is the fact that there are more than two million criminals. By the end of 1988, the Chinese prisoners produced over 1.5 billion dollars in goods. Management In China, the Ministry of Justice over sees every one of the prisons that are spread across the vast country (Law Info of China, n.d.). There is also the Bureau of Prison Administration which also over sees all the prisons across the country but they are under the Ministry of Justice. When one ventures out into the provinces of China the justice systems in those providences are responsible for overseeing the jails and prisons. In the United States things work somewhat the same way. The federal law is the one Americans must fallow at all times. On the other hand each state has the right to make their own laws as long as the laws do not interfere with federal laws. Population and Privatization In October of 2004 China’s prison population was around 1.5 million people and of those 19,000 were juveniles (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200410/26/eng20041026_161549.html). It is said that China will execute 22 people on average a day this is more than any other country around the world. China has also thought of other ways to lower their prison population. They have actually been shipping there prisoners to work on building projects that they are overseeing in other countries. When China does this all they are doing is making the prisoners the other countries problem so they are not actually solving anything. The United States still has the most prisoners of any country. Out of 100,000 people there are 751 that are in jail in the United States and in China there are 119 prisoners out of 100,000 people (http://Chinacomment.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/Chinas-prison-population/). When China became the People’s Republic they transformed their prisons into socialist prisons. This means that they were looked at as human beings not as trash they could put in a building and hope it would go away. Security Level In the very beginning China had no security levels that separated the prisons. The way they have been doing this for five decades is they separate them by the type of sentence they have this means there are two groups long term and short term. This all changed in the year 2000 when they became a member of the ICPA because they are in the process of changing their prisons over to low security, medium security, and high security. China has started looking at what all the other countries around the world and have been implementing these things slowly. In the United States they have been using these types of security levels for a long time now. The one reason these classifications of prisons work so well is it lets the correctional officers know what kind of inmates they are dealing with. Prison Life Prison life in China has gotten better over the years but there is still a lot of things that people do not get to see. In the very beginning people were beaten and tortured on a daily basis for no apparent reason. It has slowly gotten better but they still have a lot of work to do. Prisoners are waked up every two hours by a loud speaker so they can make sure no one has committed suicide. If one was sentenced to prison in China they would have to do some type of hard labor. The prisoners day would start by getting up at 6:30am and cleaning the cell and them self. After that breakfast is served at 7:30 and consists of bread and some soup. Lunch was then served around 11.30am and it is no better than the breakfast. Then everyone is told by a loud speaker that it is bed time at 10pm. Viewpoint on rehabilitation and programs, if any One type of parole system View on probation and community corrections An important reformation-type amendment that significantly changed the rights of the prisoners, similar to the Eighth Amendment or Section 1983 reform Discuss your opinion of the foreign country’s correctional system as compared to that of the United States. Decide the more effective correctional system, the foreign country’s system or the United States’ system. Explain your rationale. Explain your thoughts on whether any aspects of the United States’ correctional system should be adopted or perhaps changed to reflect aspects of the foreign country’s correctional system. References: Pareles, M. P. (2006, Winter). Hard times, hard labor. Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, 6(1), 33-41. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal61/China3.pdf Law Info China. (n.d.). Legal System of China. Retrieved from http://www.lawinfoChina.com/legal/Display_4.asp