On Constructing And Perfecting The System Of Community Corrections

Community Corrections is a penalty execution mode that the western countriesfirstly adopt. The idea comes from the execution socialization thought of modernschool in the late of19th century, embodying the concept of penalty humanitarianism.Execution socialization replaces “punishment” with “correction”, divides thecorrection into “corrective imprisonment” and “community corrections”, stresses theimportance of community corrections, highlights the purpose of educating andcorrecting criminals, and receives good results in practice, so it has become the worldtrend of penalty reform. In the past, China did not use the name of “communitycorrections”, but the penal system included control, probation, parole and othercontents of community corrections. China started the pilot work of communitycorrections in2003, achieved good results, and summed up some good practices andexperiences. However, compared with developed countries, Chinese communitycorrection system still have many shortcomings.The first part of this article explains the concept and applicable objects ofcommunity corrections, and then illustrates the theoretical basis from three aspects——“Penalty Humanitarianism”,“The Criminal Justice Policy of Combining Leniencywith Rigidity” and “Restorative Justice”. The second part analyzes the status quo ofChinese community correction legislation and enforcement through statistics and caseresearch, and points out the problems. The third part describes in detail how to build and improve Chinese community correction system from two angles:“theestablishment of a rational community correction decision mechanism” and “theestablishment of a scientific community correction enforcement mechanism”, andthen puts forward corresponding legislative proposals.