A Study On The Transferring System Of Sentenced Persons

Economic globalization has become the main trend in the world. This trend is promoting the flow of population on the global scale on one hand, and is also leading to the growth of transnational crimes on the other hand. The increase in transnational crimes and punishments has naturally led to a rise in the number of each jurisdiction’s residents serving sentences in another jurisdiction. There are lots of problems associated with incarcerating foreigners, such as language barriers and different dietary habits, which are considered unreasonable on both humanitarian and rehabilitative grounds.Transfer of sentenced persons is one of the important forms of international criminal justice cooperation. It has gradually formed a complete system through the development in Europe and other developed countries. There are two important documents regulating the transfer of sentenced persons:The Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons drafted by the Council of Europe in1983, and The Model Agreement on the Transfer of Foreign Prisoners adopted by the United Nations in1985. Both documents set out the principles, major conditions and the procedure for prisoner transfer.It is relatively new for our country to transfer sentenced persons. Hong Kong and the Mainland have respectively signed bilateral prisoner transfer agreements with other jurisdictions. However, there is still no such agreement between Hong Kong and the Mainland. At the same time, with the deepening of reforming and opening up, the number of foreign prisoners in China and vice versa will increase. Therefore, how to accelerate cooperation with other jurisdictions in prisoner transfer is worth thinking.The thesis therefore engages in a sophisticated discussion on the following issues:Ⅰ. the phenomena of transnational crimes and the problems with incarcerating foreigners; Ⅱ. a study of Europe and other developed countries on how to settle the matter with incarcerating foreigners; Ⅲ. a brief introduction to the basic content of the international convention on transfer of sentenced persons; Ⅳ. a discussion about how to promote the prisoner transfer cooperation between China and other jurisdictions, including Hong Kong and Macau. The thesis hopes our country to learn from foreign experiences and expand cooperation in prisoner transfer.