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Criminal care(附图)
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/07/25 10:03  上海英文星报

  ZHAO Ji (not his real name), who was sentenced to a 19-year-long imprisonment for embezzlement and corruption, used to think volunteers helping prisoners were to some extent a mere formality. Yet this idea was totally changed when he met Wang Hongzhi, a volunteer, in 1998.

  "We have kept in touch for five years," said Zhao, 56. "Maintaining contact for such a long time is not easy, and I indeed learned a lot from our communication."

  The city now boasts a total of 1,200 such volunteers, only a small fraction of the number behind bars, yet local justice authorities place more stress on quality than quantity.

  "The quantity of volunteers is not the most important factor, but a volunteer's moral character is essential," said Zhang Jingxing, an officer in charge of the programme with the Shanghai Prison Bureau. "The goal is very clear - that we in the justice departments should join hands with ordinary residents to contribute to the stability of society."

  Launched in 1995, the programme adopted a pattern of pairing prisoners with volunteers. It first recruited volunteers from the Shanghai Federation of Trade Union, the Youth League, the Women's Federation and some other social bodies.

  "Before 1995, there were also such activities but there were not so many individuals involved," Zhang said.

  He explained how, in the 1980's, the heads of various enterprises merely paid occasional visits to prisons, perhaps bringing some daily necessities with them.

  "This achieved certain effects to be sure, yet it came to seem outdated after further social development," he said. "To make the work more specific and to reveal more humanity, the one-to-one pattern came into being, with around 150 volunteers, in 1995."

  Spirit of equality

  At first, the prisoners joining the programme were those who had less than two-years of their jail terms left to serve. According to Zhang, with freedom approaching, such prisoners are especially prone to worries, and many may also be perplexed about the world outside after long periods of isolation.

  "Each prisoner has his own story, many have complicated backgrounds, and imprisonment also regularly leads to marital and family problems," said Ye Jianrong, an officer from a local prison in Nanhui District.

  "Such problems need to be solved by a variety of efforts, and volunteers have a useful role to play in helping prisoners to adopt a positive outlook."

  With the development of the scheme, each district and each community in the city have established special staff to take charge of the work, with more community workers and some enterprises joining the programme. Meanwhile, a larger number of prisoners, especially those with special difficulties, were given the opportunity to have volunteers as "friends".

  Zhao's friend Wang is from the Shanghai Library, which joined the programme in 1998, with around 20 members.

  "At that time, I just thought we should do something to make a contribution to society," Wang said. "It was a very simple idea."

  In the eyes of 60-year-old Wang, a volunteer should relate to the prisoner in a spirit of equality.

  "It was very important," Wang said. "Crime has left a heavy shadow in prisoner's mind. In prison, the role of an officer and a prisoner is something like an educator and educatee, or like an administrator and a person administrated. It is not equal."

  What impressed Zhao most of all was Wang's amicability.

  "He had no air of superiority at all. He appeared not as an educator but as a friend," Zhang recalled. "I had previous contact with other volunteers, yet they all quit for different reasons. But Wang was different."

  Wang appreciated Zhao's educational background as a university graduate, and the fact he had long been manager of a company.

  "He clearly understood he had done wrong. He was co-operative in prison. Also, we were of the same generation with some similar experiences," Wang said. "Thus, what I did for him was help him to relax, and let him know something about the outside world."

  In their letters, the two chose various topics each time for discussion, which gradually helped Zhao to escape from his depression. Now, Zhao has taken up calligraphy in prison, and his works have even won first prize in a contest among all prisons in the city.

  "In fact, a volunteer is just like a comb, working to make every thing smooth in a prisoner's mind," Wang said.

  Aid network

  With an orientation towards humanity, local justice authorities last year further proposed six "musts" on the administration of prisoners and those with criminal records.

  The rules stipulate that a person's residence must be registered after he or she has been discharged from prison, somebody from the family or community must meet him or her when released, administrative departments must try to solve these people's problems and also know about their basic records and worries, administrative departments must be on high alert concerning those with long criminal records, and, lastly, a prisoner's family or community must pay visits to him or her.

  "These rules were not only closely connected with what different levels of governments must do, they were also linked to volunteers scattered through the city," said Shi Xiufeng, from the Justice Department of a local community in Yangpu District.

  "As long as we do a little more, the possibility of recidivism will be reduced."

  To Shi, the work of her fellow volunteers is something like a war against the power of evil.

  "We must do something one step earlier before the evil arises," she said.

  "For example, if a prisoner has no relatives at all, then we volunteers will meet him at the gate of the prison when he is discharged. If we do not meet him, his former gangsters may meet him, that would be definitely awful."

  In her eyes, the work of the volunteers consists of small but thorough things.

  "Yet, these things are of great importance to help knit a caring network together, helping people with criminal records to adapt to society."




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