A Study On Community Correction System In Our Country

The system of punishment has been evolved since Middle Ages, influenced byeconomy, politics and changes in society. Since modern times, punishment againstliberty has taken the place of death penalty, leading the centre position in the world.The traditional punishment against liberty is mainly embodied with the form ofimprisonment penalty of which the basic content is depriving criminals of freedom ofperson and the main purpose is to encourage criminals to go back to society, but themeans adopted in imprisonment penalty is to separate criminals from normal societyso as to realize the goal of returning to society, forming contradiction between themeans and the goal. In the increasingly open society, the cost of imprisonmentpenalty rises with each passing day with disappointed transforming result. To relievethe problems above, since1970s, under the guidance of execution socialization,western countries have begun exploring new types of execution of punishment whichshould be efficient, humanistic and civilized for dealing with criminals andcommunity correction was born under the background. Experienced semicentennialdevelopment, the system of community correction in western countries is gettingclose to perfect, gradually becoming the first choice to correct criminals. The numberof criminals accepting community correction has exceeded that served a sentence inprison, which improved the good social benefits of community correction.Imprisonment penalty is still the main style for penalties in our country currently,compared with the concept of Selectivity Imprison in execution of punishment and thepractice of community correction in a wide range of western countries, our countryhas lagged behind not only in the concept but also the real system of execution ofpunishment. With the development of economic globalization, the strength and depthof our country’s reforming and opening are also accelerating, and increasing numberof Criminal Law scholars have realized that taking example of successful experienceby foreign community correction and making best use of social resources and societalforces thrown into criminals’ correction are crucial and necessary. In July2003, Notice on The Implementation of Community Correction for Make Experiments waspublished after sufficient estimation of Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’sProcuratorate, Ministry of Public Security and judiciary and Beijing, Shanghai,Tianjin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong altogether six provinces were pointed to beexperimental units to carry out community correction. After the practice of threeyears, the first phase for experimental units’ job has got desired effect, the advantagesof community correction emerging step by step. On the base of the achievement inthe first phase, in order to drive the improvement of community correction in ourcountry’s experimental units, experimental units for the second phase have extendedto Hebei, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan,Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou and Inner Mongolia twelve provinces. Till2012experimental units have made outstanding achievements, and deposited valuableexperience in order to contribute to social harmony and stability. Minister of justice,Wu Aiying, emphasized,“Community correction accords with requirements for socialand economic development in current China and the realistic requirements of themasses for social harmony and stability, which is a legal system suitable for ournational conditions. Putting community correction into trial use completely is toimprove economy steadily and rapidly, which is the requirement for maintain socialharmony and stability, implementation of the criminal policy of temper justice withmercy, enhancing the reforming and education quality of criminals as well as therequirement for boosting judicial system and reforming in working system.”In March2012, Measures for the Implementation Community Correction wasissued by Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry ofPublic Security and judiciary to offer powerful evidence for correcting subjective,correcting targets, correcting content, correcting means, correcting tasks, correctingreceiving procedure, punitive measure corrected targets, rights and obligations oftargets corrected, removing correction and other aspects for establishing andperfecting sound non-imprisonment penalty of Chinese characteristics.Community correction has been developed abroad for more than one hundredyears, which is an almost perfect system, but our community correction has justgrown for ten years since it was carried out by experimental units throughout the whole nation. It is almost impossible that using ten years to establish a soundersystem than the system formed with a century by developed countries for, thereforethe implementation of community correction should be carried out withoutoverhastiness, we should carry out community correction to establish communitycorrection system with Chinese characteristics slowly but surely, keeping our feet onthe ground, establishing in our national conditions, insisting beginning practically,using foreign advanced experience for reference simultaneously. Although we beganestablishing the system of community correction much later than other developedcountries, we can research the history and current conditions of community correctionin developed countries so that we can foresee the problems may occur in our practicefor community correction and prepare for solutions in advance, which can help usavoid tortuous path and many preventable problems. The introduction of communitycorrection can unquestionably enable our criminal policy with temper justice withmercy to have bigger space. There is a long way for us to give full play to communitycorrection in China as well as much knowledge. In brief, we shoulder heavyresponsibilities to develop the system of community correction in China.