Each summer when the scores of the Joint College Entrance Examination are released, touching stories about convicted prison inmates successfully turned college freshmen always receive a lot of play in the media. It gives the Ministry of Justice a chance to boast about its success in prisoner rehabilitation, gives newspapers an easy human interest story to follow and allows the public to complacently congratulate themselves for living in such an enlighted society -- at least until this year.
This year one of the inmates who took the exam and passed -- with a score high enough to qualify him for a place in the nation's top school, National Taiwan University -- was revealed to be a notorious serial rapist, whose favorite targets had been university students. The news that a man who had raped over 30 women and was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 1996 could be a university freshman this fall triggered heated discussions about the propriety and danger of placing him on parole and on campus.
One cannot help but doubt the shortsightedness of the ministry's publicity campaign. High scores in the entrance exam by itself should not be equated with successful rehabilitation. After all, rehabilitation does not end with entrance to a college or university -- and possession of higher education is no guarantee that someone won't commit a crime. The ability to fully integrate with the society and carry on normal interpersonal relationship are much more important. By turning these inmates into walking billboards for its rehabilitation program, the ministry has basically deprived these men of any real chance for integration and interpersonal relationships in the short run.
The parole of infamous sex offenders or murderers is a problem for many countries. Britain is grappling with the release of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who murdered two-year old James Bulger in 1993 when they were each 10 years old and are now old enough to be freed from juvenile detention. Both have received death threats. Convicted and released sex offenders have been forced out of their homes in several instances in the US and Britain by neighbors unwilling to have them in the neighborhood.
Giving some parolees new identities is one option -- a path Britain will follow for Venables and Thompson. It has worked, surprising well in some cases. The true identity of best-selling mystery writer Anne Perry didn't come to light until the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures revived interest in the 1954 murder of a New Zealand woman by her daughter and the daughter's best friend, Perry. Perhaps the justice ministry should follow a similar standard and keep the identity of inmates turned students in strict anonymity in order to give these people a better shot at true rehabilitation, rather than ask the media not to print their full names.
Another issue raised in the debate over the present case is the threat the inmate may still pose to society. After all, one theory for criminal punishment has been the exclusion of the wrongdoers from the society to avoid further injuries. And despite comments printed in some media reports that rape is no longer considered a crime but a psychological disorder, it remains very much a crime. Given the number of rapes in the case under discussion, one would think the chance of recidivism is high. Therefore, the ministry must give top priority to psychological evaluations of those convicted of serious, violent crime before their release, as well as mandatory and close monitoring and counseling afterwards. This is the only way to ensure that inmates get a chance at a new life, while minimizing dangers and risk to the society at large.
If strict anonymity and close monitoring can be carried out, then inmates who qualify for parole or release should certainly be allow to attend college if they have passed the entrance exams. Genuine rehabilitation benefits a society; keeping many people locked away forever doesn't.
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