First, the changing characteristics of prison execution in China since the reform and opening up.
In the 50 years since the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the prison work has made remarkable achievements, and a prison work system with China characteristics has been established. Especially since the reform and opening up, the prison execution has made further development, and profound changes have taken place in concepts, systems and methods. I summed it up as "four advances". ?
-from emphasizing the pursuit of political level to fully realizing the penalty function. In the past, due to the need to consolidate political power, the special composition of prisoners and the influence of leftist ideology for a period of time, prisons were discussed from the perspective of dictatorship tools and state violence machines, with the aim of strengthening the nature of proletarian dictatorship and highlighting the functions of suppressing and liberating all mankind by the proletariat and reforming criminals. With the improvement of the legal system and the changes in the composition of prisoners, especially after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee brought order out of chaos, the understanding and practice of the legal status of criminals as citizens of a country have become more and more clear, and the daily management has also changed from "enemy situation" to "criminal situation" in the past. Prisons can study and treat criminals more from the perspective of general social functions, and prison activities have also changed from more meaningful political activities to social order management and specific legal practice activities. However, the class struggle in this special field of prison still exists, and the contest between reform and anti-reform is still fierce. The nature of prison as a dictatorship cannot be changed. How to combine the pursuit of political level with the performance of social management functions and grasp the degree is a problem that needs to be solved in the process of managing prisons according to law. Only by combining the two can we better serve the harmonious society. ?
-advancing from closed management to open management. Before the reform and opening up, prisons were greatly mystified, which of course had a lot to do with the political struggle and background at home and abroad at that time. After the reform and opening-up, prisons have gradually opened to the society and the world, which is not only promoted by the background of China's reform and opening-up process, but also closely related to the open exchange of prisons. Many of them were kept secret in the past, such as the number and composition of prisoners, the number, scale and internal management of prisons were mystified and kept secret, and now they have become more transparent and open in international exchanges. Moreover, with the opening process, the prison work will turn to exchange, cooperation and reference, and the prison work in China has won a better international reputation. Of course, it is inevitable that hostile forces will suspect and attack our prisons, and the struggle in the field of human rights is still one of the focuses in prisons. ?
-from a lot of experience to the progress of legalization and science. For a long time, prison management was relatively simple and extensive. With the development of political movements and demands, concrete internal management has a strong chief executive's will and empirical style in many management levels and methods. In the new period, China prison has a complete management system in law enforcement, management and many other aspects, thus moving towards the track of legalization and standardization. This process is basically accompanied by the activities of establishing special schools and modern civilized prisons, especially the introduction of prison law, and scientific concepts and measures such as classification reform, scoring assessment, psychological counseling and three-dimensional construction are increasingly integrated. ?
-From self-realization of function to socialization. Prison work has gradually established a scientific understanding, that is, the goal of prison system reform, law enforcement function strengthening and transformation is to make criminals smoothly integrate into society, from the initial emphasis on self-survival, all-round development and a large number of social logistics work, to the pursuit of output value benefits and idealized goals, to a reasonable positioning in the vision of the whole society. ?
It should be said that these changes are enormous, and some are even qualitative leaps. These advances have made basic theoretical and practical preparations for future development and laid a material foundation.
2. Opportunities and challenges for the development of prison execution?
In the new historical period, prison work should be carried forward into the future. It should be said that we have encountered unprecedented challenges.
First, the inadaptability of implementing ideas and methods. Under the new development background, the requirements of the state, society and the public for judicial administration have made us see the gap between traditional ideas and method and innovation's work. For example, the fanatical pursuit of economic benefits ignores the function of prison law enforcement, and the habit of pursuing a highly unified management method by traditional management means leads to the formation of prisoners' prison personality, thus ignoring the ultimate goal of "promoting criminals' smooth integration into society" Decades of police force and logistics management make the execution cost and work efficiency unsatisfactory. In many prisons, the reform of criminals is not put in the main business position, and there is no targeted assessment and incentive mechanism for police force. What we need to pay more attention to is that due to various factors, these traditional concepts and methods still have room for their existence. The renewal of ideas and the change of methods will be long-term, arduous and urgent, especially for the basic work at the grass-roots level. The working mode and working tradition formed in decades have a great contradictory effect on the innovation of methods and means. In the conflict between tradition and innovation, tradition sometimes prevails. ?
Second, the development of prisons is also restricted by the economy. China is still a developing country, facing great difficulties in agriculture, rural areas, farmers, poor people, minimum living security, employment and schooling. In this case, the guarantee of prison funds is always very low. This not only makes prisons tired of solving economic problems, but also causes great regional imbalance. In economically developed areas, prisons have better financial resources, better material foundation and working conditions, while in economically backward provinces, prisons face more difficulties. In prisons where the problem of eating has not been solved, the difficulties and problems to be solved in prison management and education can be imagined. Although this problem has a new way of thinking with the reform of prison system and has been greatly alleviated with the national financial investment, it will still exist as a restrictive factor for a long time, which should be clearly analyzed and grasped. ?
Third, our legal system is imperfect and even has many defects. The promulgation of the prison law is of epoch-making significance to the development of the prison cause. However, with the development of the times and various restrictions at that time, there are still many places to be improved in the prison law, and the implementation rules of the prison law have not been followed up in time, and there are no sound legal provisions in many aspects such as marriage rights, family accommodation rights and privacy rights. This has brought many difficulties and practical disputes and contradictions to the specific prison practice, and linking with community correction is the current development direction of execution. ?
Fourth, the protagonist and mainstream consciousness in foreign exchanges are not clear enough. Over the past 50 years, the prison practice has made remarkable achievements, and it has also created a prison working system that is in line with China's reality. However, in the process of opening up in recent years, we have paid full attention to some foreign systems and experiences, while our own experience and systems are relatively backward, which has caused our own characteristics to be unconfident and vague to some extent, which is why we still have many problems in inheritance and reference. At present, there are more and more international exchange activities. We lack enough openness and confidence in clearly expressing our thoughts and methods, and are too cautious in the right to speak. All these need to be scientifically summarized in theoretical preparation, system construction and achievement characteristics. ?
Fifth, the coordinated use of modern scientific and technological means is obviously lagging behind. At present, influenced by economic conditions and ideas, many prisons have not done enough in strengthening prison preventive measures and establishing an open and transparent technical platform by means of science and technology, which lags behind the current social development trend and level. At the same time, although some prisons have used some modern monitoring facilities, they have played an unprecedented role in strengthening monitoring. But at the same time, we should also see that in some prisons, not only has the police force not been reduced and saved, but there has been a phenomenon of seeing things but not people and taking up too much police force, not to mention using science and technology platform to establish a scientific and orderly management model. It is particularly important to combine the application of new scientific and technological means with the optimal allocation of police force and explore a successful model. Therefore, it is particularly worth studying to strengthen the guarantee and build a more scientific fairness and efficiency mechanism through modern science and technology. In addition, the problems of low proportion of police force allocation, unreasonable structure, unscientific professional classification and insufficient targeted incentives are becoming increasingly acute.
Sixth, we have encountered unprecedented challenges in informatization and transparency. As we all know, information construction has brought a lot of vitality to the construction of many prisons in China, and even changed the mode of prison education and management to some extent. At the same time, with the promotion of concepts and systems such as the openness of prison affairs, the transparency of prisons is constantly strengthening, which in many cases is not only manifested in the reform and progress of prisons, but also in the face of the overall pattern and situation of social development, it has encountered more and more complex challenges, typically the intervention of the media and various difficulties and dilemmas that are easy to cause. This kind of challenge not only requires us to think seriously in many aspects, but also needs to come up with countermeasures. ?
In a sense, challenges are also opportunities. If we correctly understand the contradictions and problems we are facing and grasp the overall situation, we can firmly grasp the opportunity and thus grasp the initiative. It should be noted that in dealing with these challenges, we have many advantages and favorable environment for development and reform. ?
First, the development of China's prison work in the past decades not only has a good accumulation of system and experience, but also shows a thriving trend in the overall process of prisons, which is not only the realistic basis for us to meet the challenges, but also the ideological and cognitive conditions. ?
Second, the development and progress of national civilization, legal system and the economic foundation closely related to it have continuously made progress in all fields of our country, including prison work, on the road of civilization, legal system and science, showing bright prospects. ?
Thirdly, the current prison layout adjustment, system reform and legal, scientific and socialized construction have continuously enhanced and optimized the prison construction in China in terms of resources and structure, and pushed the reform of prison system construction and management education mode to a higher level. ?
Fourthly, the team building has not only established a compulsory assessment mechanism to ensure the improvement of team quality and keep up with the social development process, but also the upcoming classification construction will further provide a good team guarantee for the reform and development of prisons. ? Fifth, international exchange provides a good environment and conditions for us to learn from the prison work experience of the international community, avoid detours and make great strides. ?
We believe that by giving full play to these advantages and making good use of these environments and conditions, our prison work will definitely have a period of rapid progress and development in the new historical period, and the execution work will definitely open up a new situation. ?
Third, the analysis of the development trend of prison execution
Faced with the above-mentioned encounters and challenges, China prison work should conform to the current situation and make timely changes and advances in the target system, methods and paths of its own construction and development. From the analysis of development trend, it has the following characteristics:
-scientific development and service awareness have been continuously enhanced. Through the comprehensive and strict execution of punishment, the justice and fairness of the law can be realized, the function of prisons to maintain social stability can be reflected, and the great goal of building a harmonious society can be fully served through innovative means. The work of remoulding people needs the core idea of Scientific Outlook on Development and people-oriented. In the process of seeking to improve the quality of transformation, we should strengthen the consciousness of scientific correction and apply the law of transforming good people to adapt to the background of social progress. ?
-The goal of transformation is becoming more and more reasonable and practical. In the past, there was an idealistic tendency in goal design, mainly demanding the ideological and moral goals of criminals. Our socialist prisons should devote themselves to the ideological and moral reform of criminals at all times, but in reality, we should base ourselves on transforming them into law-abiding citizens, so as to better serve the construction of a harmonious society. At the same time, we should pay attention to cultivating criminals' labor skills and healthy psychological quality to meet the needs of returning to society. ?
-The means of transformation are increasingly enriched and improved. Promote the transformation from a closed prison to a combination of prison and society, from a single police to a combination of police and social volunteers, and from a traditional education method to a more scientific quantitative education method, establish and form a diversified open education system, explore new ways and methods to expand parole, carry out community corrections, introduce social volunteers and experts to educate criminals, expand prison education resources, and make prisons more civilized and open. ?
-the concept of governance has been deepened. Looking back, prison work has a clear guiding ideology at every historical stage. In the new historical period, in the face of the high requirements of execution, advanced guiding ideology and scientific theory are even more indispensable. Under the premise of ruling the country according to law, how to focus on the international and domestic environment, adapt to the country's economic and social development and carry out theoretical innovation, so as to guide the implementation practice, is an important topic for our theoretical workers and leaders at all levels. At present, the concepts of legal system, fairness and justice, protection of criminals' rights and interests, and criminals' integration into society have been generally formed in prison work throughout the country, and inducing integration has become an urgent task at present. ?
Four, highlight the key points, and comprehensively improve the level of prison work
To meet the challenges of the new situation and meet the new needs of prison development, we must solve the following contradictions and problems:
First, we must unswervingly promote the reform of the prison system. The reform of prison system is an ice-breaking move, which provides a historical opportunity for prisons to embark on the track of scientific development in the new historical period. Its difficulty and complexity can be imagined. After two batches of pilot projects, the pain of reform and the cost that should be paid have already appeared. I think this is necessary and should be borne. The urgent task is to speed up unswervingly, proceed from reality, adhere to classified guidance, solve outstanding problems, solve problems existing in reform with development ideas, purify prison functions as soon as possible, and truly put penalty execution and criminal reform into the main business of prison work, which is the basic condition for improving the level of prison execution. ?
Second, we should adhere to the characteristics of China and update the management concept. In the process of learning from foreign prison systems, we should adhere to the essential attributes of prisons, inherit the traditional experiences and practices that conform to China's national conditions for decades, focus on the innovation of current reform methods and means, be good at summing up and analyzing our own experiences and lessons, form a clear concept of sublation, and dialectically absorb and learn from foreign advanced experiences. It is unscientific to copy without considering China's national conditions, or to evaluate and measure China's prison work simply on the basis of western experience and practices. It is very urgent to gradually form its own evaluation and standard system. According to the great goal of Scientific Outlook on Development and building a harmonious society put forward by the central government, we should update the prison concept in time, enrich the connotation of "legalization, scientificity and socialization", establish new ideas, new viewpoints and new ways, reconstruct the behavior mode and prison culture with practical supporting system measures, and realize the real change of the concept. ?
Third, we must strengthen the professionalization of the police. The great changes in prisons in each period are accompanied by the reform and development of team building. Practice has proved that there are great obstacles and difficulties in adapting the number and structure of existing teams to the current situation. Since the Eighth Labor Congress, great progress has been made in revolutionizing, regularizing and modernizing the prison police force, but the structure, requirements and proportion have not been recognized and solved, which has become a major contradiction. In the new historical period, we should study and analyze this, and formulate the police force allocation and implementation plan under the new situation. ?
Fourth, speed up the matching and improvement of laws. Judging from the present situation of penalty execution, the power of penalty execution in China is obviously dispersed. The executive departments have their own responsibilities and lack the necessary coordination and communication. As the main body of the current criminal execution law, the prison law can only be well implemented in the prison system, but it cannot solve the problems and conflicts with other relevant penalty execution organs. The legal system of penalty execution law should be connected and matched by vertically different levels of laws, regulations, rules and normative documents, forming a criminal execution law, a law on the protection of released prisoners and a prison law, a supplementary penalty execution law, a community correction law, a juvenile correction management law (or regulations) and relevant regulations of the State Council and the Ministry of Justice. To ensure that prison work is effectively managed according to law, strictly enforced and administered according to law. According to this requirement, there are still many debts, which restrict and affect the progress of prison reform. ?
Fifth, we should pay attention to the trend and application of informatization. It is an important consciousness that leaders at all levels should make full use of scientific and technological information means to serve prison execution, so as to improve fairness and efficiency to a great extent. The significance of attaching importance to informatization construction is not to install a few computers, simple monitoring equipment and local area network that only reflects part of information, but to realize the revolution of management concept and mode through the platform and means of contemporary informatization construction, to create a platform for transparency of prison affairs, innovation of reform means, promotion of educational model renewal, and to realize the legalization of prisons. ?
Sixth, we should attach importance to basic work. The focus of prison work is at the grassroots level, and it is more urgent to strengthen the basic work at the grassroots level. There are many problems in the allocation of police force, the quality of police, law enforcement awareness, professional accomplishment and psychological state in prison areas, which need the attention of leaders at all levels and consolidate the basic work at the grassroots level in order to talk about development and progress.