The Improvement Of Community Correction System Of China

China started late on community correction. It went back to decades ago when Shanghai which complied with the requirements of the Department of Justice carried out community correction in the year of 2002. Beijing started the work of community correction one year later. Then many provinces in China began the work of community correction. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong are the first 6 to practice community correction. Then another 12 places took part in the pilot project in 2005. This project was carried out all around China in 2009. However, the system of community correction was not confirmed by the law until 2011 when PRC Criminal Law Amendment Act (8) came out. Community correction gives criminals more time to adapt the society that is changing with each passing day. Criminals under community correction will be in a humane environment which is helpful for their integration into sociality. They will not learn bad habits or sinning ways from other criminals in prison, which is beneficial to the harmony and health of the society. Community correction saves a lot of money compared with prison sentences, which meets the requirements of the scientific development concept. These are the reasons why we should apply community correction. We have many regulations about community correction that guide the practice of community correction. Many provinces have made their own regulations in these years. Community correction has been applied in more than 95% areas of China and the number of criminals who are corrected in communities are increasing 13,200 every month in China up to the end of January,2013.However, there are still many problems affecting the performance of community correction. The related lawmaking is still far from perfect. We do not have one unified law that can direct the practice of community correction all around China. In addition, we only have administrative regulations about the concretely operations of community correction which violates China’s Legislative Law. The adoption of community correction is still much lower than the adoption of prison sentences in spite of the good developing situation. We do not have a professional team to carry out the work of community correction. There are only a few law enforcement officials related to community correction, what is worse, they are still not capable of the work for less professional knowledge and skills. In addition, many of them lack of right recognition of this work. For example, some officials may have wrong ideas about the relationship between them and the criminals corrected in communities. The nature of community correction requires that many other people as well as the law enforcement officials take part in the practice, such as professional social worker with related knowledge and skills, volunteers and relatives of those criminals in communities and so on. Moreover, there is little done during the correction process which stresses supervision rather than education and assistance. Different criminals need different projects, but they always get similar projects.Therefore, there is still much to be done resulting from the reality of community correction. It is hard to improve the system of community correction, but it is necessary and still possible. First of all, legislative perfection is a must. We should make a law which can unify the practice of community correction all over China. Many provinces have made their own regulations which is creative but they still need a uniformed guidance. Many scholars agree with the idea of perfecting the law about community correction. They just think differently about the process and how to perfect the law. The differences are based on the different recognition of the nature and the degree of development of community correction. Secondly, the adoption rate of community must be increased. Fishing expedition, social approval degree are important for increasing the adoption rate. Adopting fishing expedition in more cases will provide evidences for applying community correction which is helpful when the judge decides whether to apply community correction. High degree of social approval is a premise and social foundation of the system of community correction. Only when people agree with community correction, can the practice of community correction continue. In addition, people will support community correction as social workers or volunteers. More supporting, more adoption. Thirdly, team construction is necessary for improve the system of community correction. Things must be done by people as is the practice of community correction. A professional team is beneficial to reaching the goals of correction in communities. We need more professional officer, social worker with knowledge of the related subjects, volunteers who are willing and capable of assistants and other people. Then, projects of correction should be increased. Different projects for different criminals is good for their integration into the society. Many other things can be done during the process as long as it is within the bounds of law and helpful for the correction of criminals in communities. Lastly, we should give consideration to both adults and teenagers who are corrected in communities. The above-mentioned measures can be applied to all the criminals corrected in community. But when it comes to teenagers, we should be more thoughtful. Teenagers have different mental and physical characteristics compared with adults. Teenagers are immature, easy to be affected and changed. They shoulder few responsibilities to the family. What they can do is different from adults. Teenagers are only in the beginning of life, have little ideas about the society. What is more important, school life is the major part for most teenagers and they need to be educated in school and get along with their classmates and teachers instead of working in the society as most adult criminals done when they are corrected in communities. Now therefore, it is necessary to design different projects for teenagers which give consideration to both the universal theory of community correction and the specificity of teenagers and pays more attention to the latter.