FOR most people, community correction is an unfamiliar idea, perhaps encountered in foreign or Hong Kong movies. Yet more than 5,000 criminals are involved in it in Shanghai.

"In the United States or Europe, the ratio of convicts who receive community correction to those who receive jail sentences is three to one, while in China, only 15 per cent of convicts are given community correction," said Jin Wuguan, who is a member of the psychological specialist consulting team for community correction. Presently, according to the data provided by Zhou Zhangbai, chief officer of Shanghai Xinhang Community Services, the total number of convicts who are receiving community correction in Shanghai already exceeds 5,000.

How it began

Shanghai is one of the first cities in the country to introduce the community correction system. It is a programme by which some offenders are monitored in the community instead of in jail. On August 2002, the Shanghai Justice Bureau announced the first three experimental areas for community correction - the Xietu Lu neighbourhood of the Xuhui District, the Caoyang residential area of the Putuo District and the Baoshan Lu neighbourhood of the Zhabei District. The first group of experimental areas for community correction was successful enough that on May 9, 2004, the Ministry of Justice enacted a temporary regulation for justice offices to carry on community correction tasks. In accordance with the regulation, now effective in 19 districts and counties of Shanghai, 218 neighbourhoods have introduced community correction.

Who can have it

Because there is no specific article in Chinese criminal law to deal with the meaning and application of community correction, according to the explanation of contemporary regulations enacted by the Ministry of Justice, community correction is applicable for only five kinds of offenders, as defined by current criminal law. They are people who are under surveillance, on probation, paroled, serving sentence outside the prison under surveillance or deprived of political rights.

Only criminals who belong to any of these five categories will have the chance to be punished by community correction. After a person has been sentenced under any of these categories according to the criminal law, the court has the power to decide whether he or she will be transferred to community correction.

Participants are supposed to regularly engage in voluntary work for communities and meet for both psychological counselling and legal education. After a set period of time, justice officers will examine these people's behaviour according to these convicts' own presentations and records kept on them by social workers.

How it is done

Xinhang Community Services is a non-profit and non-government organization which provides services for communities, especially for people in community correction.

"The Shanghai Justice Bureau does not directly offer community correction services, such as helping convicts find jobs, observing their daily lives or helping them get along well with other residents in the community. We are paid by the bureau to provide these kinds of services," said Zhou.

Xinhang Community Services was founded on February 18, 2004 and is the only government-authorized organization to provide community correction in Shanghai. It has 218 offices in all 19 districts and counties of Shanghai. It employed about 430 people.

"We have strict standards for employing our staff. They are required to have a college diploma at least, and their majors in universities must be related to law or psychology. After they are enrolled as our social workers, they will receive one month of special training for community work. After that, they go to the different offices of the Justice Bureau in every district to receive more practical training for another month."Observing and monitoring people in community correction are not the only tasks for Xinhang's social workers. The major part of their work is helping convicts return to "normal life". "Our social workers will help them find jobs so that they can become self-supporting. We also help protect them from discrimination by other residents. If their families have any problems, we are also involved to help them," Said Zhou.

The psychological consulting team has set up psychological education classes for participants and offers psychological consulting.

Last year, a special psychological consulting office was set up for convicts in the Luwan District.

At first, more than 100 convicts are given group counselling. They are then divided into smaller groups and eventually go on to personal counselling.

"Unlike legal specialists, I try to learn about the psychological motivation of criminals," said Jin, chief of the Youth Psychological Consulting Centre at Ruijin Hospital. "I use three approaches to help them - encouraging them to understand the meaning of life, the relationship between them and society and the relationship between personal feeling and responsibility. Together, I refer to these approaches as cultural psychological therapy because I think most criminality is caused by the impact of the drastically changing social culture," he said.

He said that in the Luwan District, more than 90 of the first 100 convicts he counselled showed improved behaviour and psychological health.

Possible drawbacks

Although Jin has been encouraged by the trends of community correction, some fundamental issues still remain.

Because there are no definite rules to decide specifically who should be referred for community correction, some legal specialists worry that a new type of corruption could appear. Early in 2003, Han Yusheng, head of the criminal law research group at the Renmin University of China expressed his concerns in an article released by China Newsweek. "There is no relevant law that regulates court sentences in respect to community correction. This may encourage legal corruption," he wrote.

The lack of relevant law is confusing for social workers trying to help convicts. "Unlike other social workers, our workers always have to keep watch on the convicts' daily behaviour. When they are examined as to whether they reach the standards set by the Justice Bureau, we provide relevant evidence. But we are not justice officers, our workers are often confused as to whether they have exceeded their authority. On the other hand, some convicts refuse our help because we are only a non-government organization. I hope in the future this situation will be changed," said Zhang.

In March, the Justice Bureau of Xuhui District established a risk-evaluation system for those in community correction in residential areas of Xuhui.

"We can't say more about the system yet, because too many problems will be involved and it's rather complicated. It needs more research," an officer of the bureau said.

"We can expect that there will be more people involved in community correction in the future. For psychologists, the tasks will become rather tough because so many people will need help," Jin added.