On Classification Of Prisons

It seems to the author that the so-called classification of prisons is, in a broad sense, a classification of the prisons' types based on certain standards. A nation usually classifies its detained prisoners in accordance with their reality as well as the standards involving vigilance degrees, opening degrees, imprisonment's length, criminals' sex and age, etc. The different types of prisons vary with those being taken into custody, placement of the criminals, measures of supervising and educational remolding as well as the prisons' facilities, environment and conditions, which values embody the following aspects: one of the important developing trends of the prisons' reforms for classification of prisons; one of the effective ways of strengthening supervision's safety; one of the effective methods of scientifically remolding the criminals and heightening the remolding quality concerned; being beneficial to the most favored allocation of supervision resources; being beneficial to the promotion of the rising up from the people's policemen's professional quality.Since the establishment of the modernized prisons for executing free punishment, the classification of the alien prisons has been gradually evolved from initially meeting the needs of sole confinement in accordance with sex, age and imprisonment's length to the detention, based on the criminals' risks, into the prisons with differentiated vigilance (opening) degrees and the increase of placement models in non-imprisonment. Comparatively speaking, our country's classification of prisons had mostly belonged to the non-limited mixing imprisonment before Jing Dynasty. In nearly half a century, which commenced from the end of Jing Dynasty till the establishment of New China, it had been merely classified according to sex and age. Since the establishment of New China, it also has only adopted the ways of imprisonment in accordance with the imprisonment's length and relevant heavy and/or light crimes respectively, which is still at the more or less primitive stage. Similarly, the prison architecture, one of the important contents for classification of prisons, has also been developed step by step from the torturing sites such as watery cells, cellars, etc., towards the architectural design's directions bearing the characteristics of being convenient to watch and ward, day-lighting and good ventilation, which symbol the civilization and progress of the prisons' system.With the comparison between the local and alien prisons, we should draw lessons, in a positive way, on the profitable experiences of classification of alien prisons and combine them with the Chinese national conditions in an attempt to take some measures as follows:1. To set up the open institutions in order to keep up with developing trend of the international execution system;2. To set up the prisons of various vigilance degrees for the purpose of guaranteeing the supervision safety; 3. To set up the centers of acceptance and classification so that scientific basis is to the provided for classification of prisons;4. To set up medical prisons to guarantee the basic human rights of the criminals;5. To standardize the scope of the prisons in order to solve the problem of the overload of putting under detention in prison.With regard to our national conditions and the constructing and developing trends of the alien prisons, we may imagine increasing the administrative levels of the classification in the local existing prisons, i.e., to divide the prisons into five groups of high-level enclosure, medium-level enclosure, low-level enclosure, semi-enclosure and opening. In the meantime, the split-flow centers and medical prisons of the criminals should also be established. The concrete principles concerned are as cited-below: the principle of being equivalent to offence and penalty; the principle of progressive placement; the principle of emphatically controlling; the principle of dynamic adjustment; the principle of being advantageous to the returning of the crimin...