Re-education through labor (RTL; ), abbreviated laojiao (), was a system of administrative detention in the People's Republic of China. Active from 1957 to 2013, the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as petty theft, prostitution, and trafficking of illegal drugs, as well as political dissidents, petitioners, and Falun Gong followers. It was separated from the much larger laogai system of prison labor camps.
Sentences under re-education through labor were typically for one to three years, with the possibility of an additional one-year extension. They were issued as a form of administrative punishment by police, rather than the judicial system. While they were incarcerated, detainees were frequently subjected to a form of political education. Estimates of the number of RTL detainees on any given year range from 190,000 to two million. In 2013, approximately 350 RTL camps were in operation.
On 28 December 2013, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress abolished the re-education through labor system and detainees were released. However, human rights groups have claimed that other forms of extrajudicial detention have taken its place, with some former RTL camps being renamed drug rehabilitation centers.Amnesty International, "CHINA: “CHANGING THE SOUP BUT NOT THE MEDICINE?” : ABOLISHING RE-EDUCATION THROUGH LABOUR IN CHINA" (Dec 2013), p 35
In 2014, re-education facilities were constructed in Xinjiang and they were used to target a wider context than people who were accused of committing minor crimes and political dissidence. By 2017, these had become the massive Xinjiang internment camps holding 1–3 million people, utilizing forced labor, now recognized as re-education camps by many nations and intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, EU, and human rights groups.
Re-education through labor and the Chinese penal system The People's Republic of China employs several forms of correction for people who have been arrested, of which re-education through labor was one. The Laogai Research Foundation classifies re-education through labor as a sub-component under the umbrella of the laogai ("reform through labor") criminal justice system, which generally refers to prisons, prison farms, and labor camps for convicted criminals. Re-education through labor, on the other hand, refers to detentions for persons who are not considered criminals or have only committed minor offenses. (). Persons detained under re-education through labor were detained in facilities which are separate from the general prison system; furthermore, detainees in these re-education facilities receive a small salary, which laogai detainees do not, and in theory have shorter work hours. The laogai system is much larger than the re-education through labor system, with the Laogai Research Foundation identifying 1,045 laogai camps in 2006 (compared to 346 re-education centers). Both systems, however, involve penal labor and often do not allow trials or judicial hearings. The term "reform through labor" or laogai was officially replaced with "prison" in 1994, and the term "re-education center" or láojiàosuǒ (劳教所) was replaced with "correctional center" in 2007.
Other components of the prison system include detention centers for individuals awaiting sentence or execution,Laogai Handbook (2006), p. 20. and juvenile detention camps for individuals under a minimum age (which has varied through the years, and may currently be under 14).Laogai Handbook (2006), p. 22. The system formerly included components such as custody and repatriation for individuals without a residence permit; "forced job placement," which has not been widely practiced since the 1990s;Laogai Handbook (2006), p. 16. and "shelter and investigation," a system of detentions for individuals under legal investigation, which was abolished in 1996. The Laogai Research Foundation also classifies psychiatric facilities, or ankang, as a form of detention for political dissidents,Laogai Handbook (2006), p. 23. although it is not officially recognized as part of the laogai penal system.
History Institutions similar to re-education through labor facilities, but called "new life schools" or "loafers' camps", existed in the early 1950s, although they did not become official until the anti-rightist campaigns in 1957 and 1958. A report by Human Rights in China (HRIC) states that re-education through labor was first used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1955 to punish counter-revolutionaries, and in 1957 was officially adopted into law to be implemented by the Ministry of Public Security. The law allowed police to sentence both minor offenders and "counter-revolutionaries" or "anti-socialist elements" to incarceration in labor camps without the right to a judicial hearing or trial, and did not allow judicial review to take place until after the punishment was being enforced. In the beginning there were no limits to the length for which detainees could be sentenced, and it was not until 1979 that a maximum sentence of four years (three years' sentence plus one-year extension) was set. In 1983, the management and implementation of the re-education through labor system was passed from the Ministry of Public Security to the Ministry of Justice.
When Falun Gong was banned in mainland China in 1999, re-education through labor became a common punishment for practitioners. Some human rights groups claim that as many as 10,000 Falun Gong members were detained in between 1999 and 2002, with as many as 5,000 detained in 2001.
More recent estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong adherents are imprisoned in China,Leeshai Lemish, 'Leeshai Lemish: The Games are over, the persecution continues', National Post, 7 October 2008. with some sources estimating up to half of the official reeducation through labor camp population is Falun Gong practitioners.U.S. Department of State, '2009 Human Rights Report: China (Including Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau), 11 March 2010. In some labor camps, Falun Gong practitioners make up the majority population.
There have been numerous calls for the system to be reformed or replaced. As early as 1997, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) called for China to allow judicial control over detentions; in 2000, the UN Committee Against Torture recommended that all forms of administrative detention, including re-education through labor, be abolished; in 2004, the WGAD called for the establishment of rights to due process and counsel for individuals detained; and in 2005, the Special Rapporteur on Torture called for the outright abolition of re-education through labor. The prominent deaths of two inmates in spring 2003 prompted many calls within China for reform of the system, but reform did not happen immediately, though The China Daily reported that there was "general consensus" that reform was needed. In March 2007, however, the Chinese government did announce that it would abolish the re-education through labor system and replace it with a more lenient set of laws. According to the proposal, the maximum sentence would be lowered from four years to 18 months; re-education centers would be renamed "correction centers" and have their fences and gates removed. A month later, Chongqing municipality passed a law allowing lawyers to offer legal counsel in re-education through labor cases. Translated from Chinese, original source was
Many human rights groups, however, doubted the efficacy of the proposed reforms, saying that the new laws would only help minor criminals and not help political prisoners, and the reforms would not actually abolish the re-education through labor system. The Laogai Research Foundation stated that lowering the maximum length of detention and changing the names of the detention facilities would not constitute a "fundamental change". Nine months after the declaration that the laws would be rewritten, the re-education through labor system had not been abolished; in December 2007, a group of academics drafted an open letter to the government calling for an end to the system. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there were reports that some individuals who applied for permits to protest were detained without trial; of these, some were sentenced to re-education through labor. In the United Nations Human Rights Council's September 2008 Universal Periodic Review of the People's Republic of China, re-education through labor was listed as an "urgent human rights concern," Alternate link (PDF). and as of February 2009, a large number of re-education through labor camps were still in operation.
Statistics Reports on re-education through labor have found it difficult to estimate the number of people in re-education centers, and nationwide statistics were often unavailable in the past. What data have become available often vary widely. + Number of RTL detentions per year and overallSource Year Number of detaineesin given year Number of detaineessince foundingPRC government 2009 190,000 2003 230,000Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (2004); Section 1d: "Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile." China Labour Bulletin 2007 300,000 Laogai Research Foundation 2006, 2008 500,000–2 millionLaogai Handbook (2006), p. 18. Unspecified non-governmental organizations 2003 310,000 Human Rights in China (organization) 2001 200,000 (in 1990s) Human Rights Watch 1998 230,000 (in 1997) Xinhua official news agency 2001 3.5 million China Daily 2007 6 million Of these detainees, 5 to 10 percent are estimated to be political prisoners, and as many as 40 percent are estimated to be drug offenders—in 1998, nearly one-third of the known re-education camps were specifically built for the purpose of holding drug offenders.
The China Daily estimated that there were a total of 310 re-education centers in China in 2007. The 2008 edition of the Laogai Research Foundation's biennial report listed exactly 319 "confirmed" re-education centers in China, and 74 "unconfirmed" ones, but it also estimated that the actual number of such centers might be much higher.Laogai Handbook (2008), p. 3. the provinces with the most centers being Guangdong (31), Heilongjiang (21), and Henan (21).Laogai Handbook (2006), p. 3. In a February 2009 meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Chinese government stated that there are 320 centers. The provinces with the largest numbers of re-education centers include Guangdong, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Henan.Seymour (2005), p. 150. At the end of 2008, there were 350 labor camps and 160,000 prisoners were being held in them.
Detentions
Conviction and detention