A Study Of Beijing Prison In The Late Qing Dynasty And The Republic Of China(1907-1937)

Beijing Prison is the first new prison subordinate to the central government in modern China.It was established in the late Qing Dynasty.Its design concept is advanced and its architectural planning is reasonable.It represents the highest level of the new prison construction in the late Qing Dynasty.Although the Qing government had the characteristics of passivity,lag and strong political utilitarianism in the preparatory process of Beijing Prison construction,the prison had been completed without many facilities being completed,and there were various problems in its construction,but the prison played an important role in promoting the prison transformation in modern China.The management system of "three departments and two offices" and personnel management system constructed during the period of Beijing Prison preparation have gradually tended to be reasonable and perfect through the development and evolution of Beiyang government and Nanjing government,which has great significance in the history of Beijing prison and even Chinese prison.Through a brief survey of the establishment,appointment and recruitment of prison officers,salaries,rewards and punishments,and the status of prison officers in different periods of Beijing Prison,this paper shows that to develop a reasonable mechanism for selecting qualified prison administrators and cultivate their qualities is an important prerequisite to adapted to modern prison education function.Influenced by the concept of modern educational penalty,culture is in the central position of modern prison functions.As a typical representative of new prisons,Beijing Prison attached great importance to the education and instruction of criminals.The prison has formulated detailed rules and put into practice on the object,content,form and time of educational and instruction in order to achieve the desired educational effect.However,due to the contradiction of educational ideas and the limitation of external conditions,educational and instruction has not produced the desired effect or even changed.Prison Criminal production is an important system of modern educational penalty,which has dual functions of economy and society.In the early days of the establishment of Beijing Prison,prison's work developed rapidly and its economic and social functions were initially brought into play.From January 1923 to the end of 1928,both functions declined.From then on to 1937,before the Anti-Japanese War,the prison's work scale was expanded,but its function gradually changed into a tool for the Nanjing government to extract the labor value of criminals.In a word,through the longitudinal investigation of the establishment and development of Beijing Prison,the horizontal study of the prison management organization and personnel,education and instruction,Criminal production,criminals' status and the analysis of the actual operation of various prison systems in Beijing prison during the Republic of China,it shows that Beijing Prison has had an important impact on the transformation and development of China's prison system during the Republic of China.At the same time,it also reveals the influence that a prison can not be completely independent of history and society in the process of modernization transformation,so there are many problems in the specific operation of the system,and there are contradictions and gaps between the system and practice,ideal and reality.