| Criminal rights mean the rights that are and should be enjoyed by a criminal as a special person. Although a criminal is sentenced because of guilty, he is still a natural person and a citizen of the country. His rights that aren't deprived should still be protected.It was a long historical process before the criminal rights were put forward in human society and confirmed into the law. This process is consistent with the rise and the confirmation of human rights into the law. As the capitalist production relations appeared and developed in modern times, capitalists put forward the slogan of "Human Rights" for the first time in human history and recorded the criminal rights into the law. The Western Prison Reformation Movement from the end of 18th century to the beginning of 19th century played an important part to promote the development of criminal rights. Since the 1950s of 20th century, as the movement of international human rights is put into full wing, the problem of protecting the criminal rights has caught more and more attention of international society and a series of international agreements and conventions about the criminal rights have been formulated one by one, which has great significance in promoting the protection of criminal rightsworldwide. In China, not until the carrying out of the reformation of the prison system at the end of Qing Dynasty did the protection of criminal rights sprouted. Since the PRC was founded, the protection of criminal rights has gradually been strengthened. Especially the promulgation of Prison Law of the People's Republic of China on December 29, 1994, which means not only the declaration that criminals enjoy wide legal rights, but also that the criminal rights are protected through regulating the law-enforcing activities of law enforcement of officials. Proceeding from the reform of criminal, our country always emphasizes the protection of the criminal development right and makes a large number of criminals into useful persons for socialist development. Moreover, our country pays much attention to protecting the rights of criminals after they are discharged from prison and ensures that they can enjoy the same rights stipulated in constitution and law as ordinary citizens.In all, respecting and protecting criminal rights is a fundamental principle in prison work of the new PRC, and is realized in practices. Meanwhile, It should be pointed out that we haven't done enough to protect criminal rights. First, the level of the equipments in prisons of our country and the standard of material life are rather low in general. Secondly, some illegal actions exist in the process of law enforcement, which impairs the rights of some criminals. This can be indicated in the following aspects. First, the personal right of some criminals is violated. Secondly, the phenomenon of criminal working overtime is prevailing,which has violated the criminals' right of rest. The system of the payment of criminal labor is not complete. Thirdly, there are some problems in the protection of the right of criminal material life reward. For example, prisons are too crowded. The rooms of prisons are too old. The living conditions of criminals are bad. The medical and health conditions in some prisons are poor. Some criminals can't be treated punctually and effectively when they are ill. The principal reasons for those problems are the low-developed commercial economy, the incomplete democracy and politics, the low level of economic and cultural development and the lack of the awareness of human rights in whole society. The direct reasons are the disadvantages of absolute penal servitude, the incomplete system of prison's expense security, the incomplete prison legislation, the ineffective supervision over prison law-enforcing activities and some prison policemen's lack of the awareness of law and human rights.The protection of criminal rights is first the general demand of human rights. Criminals and other ordinary persons are all members of human society, so according to the nature...
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