Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) yesterday visited Taoyuan Women’s Prison in Taoyuan’s Longtan District (龍潭) and a minimum-security jail in Bade District (八德) for a firsthand look at inmates’ living conditions and to assess how best to implement changes at the facilities operated by the Ministry of Justice’s Agency of Corrections.
Among the most urgent tasks is addressing overcrowding in prisons, Chiu said.
“Right now we are holding about 62,700 inmates in correctional facilities nationwide, which is 12 percent more than the overall capacity of 56,000,” he said.
One of Chiu’s policy initiatives aims to expand a work-release program — which has been thoroughly studied by the agency — that allows inmates near their release or pending parole for good behavior to exit custody in the day for schooling, employment or training, and return to prison at night.
Chiu is seeking to relax the rules for the program, which would allow previously excluded groups, such as nonviolent inmates and individuals convicted of recreational drug use offenses, to become eligible on the condition of good behavior.
“It would allow inmates to acquire school credit, job skills or learn a trade by apprenticeship so they can adapt to the world outside and more smoothly reintegrate into society,” Chiu said.
Chiu also expressed concern about conditions at prisons.
“Wardens said cells are packed with inmates due to the overcapacity situation, and most facilities have poor air circulation. With the onset of summer, the insides of prisons can become very hot, which can lead to sweaty and uncomfortable conditions for inmates,” he said.
As the government has in recent years been promoting an energy-saving and carbon emission reduction program, Chiu said he would explain the overcrowding situation at prisons and have them made exempt from the initiative.
Separately yesterday, activists said Chiu’s proposed prison reform could help inmates more rapidly integrate into society after release.
“They are going to come back into society eventually,” Judicial Reform Foundation director Kao Jung-chih (高榮志) said. “It is better for them to be allowed to ease back in a bit early, rather than suddenly after they are released, because everyone needs an adjustment period.”
Kao also called for further action to prevent convicts from being stigmatized, along with sentencing reform for drug offenders to reduce prison overcrowding.
Drug offenders comprise more than 40 percent of prison populations, “stuffing prisons to the point of making them ineffective,” he said.
Ewam Lin (林文蔚), a prison reform promoter who also serves as the warden of an Yilan County prison, said Chiu’s proposals showed more sense than his predecessors’ because of his focus on helping prisoners reconnect with society, but ensuring the reforms do not evolve into yet another “model prisoner” program would be a challenge.
“Every Minister of Justice has his own set of views about how to reform prisoners, but these often end up being reduced to formalities,” he said, citing past ministers’ efforts to encourage inmates to quit smoking and promote morally edifying literature.
“Books donated by religious organizations piled up and they were everywhere, but what eventually happened was prisoners would bind and pin sets of four books to use as stools,” Lin said of reform efforts under former minister of justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南), adding that the task of rehabilitating prisoners now falls mainly on volunteers who lack professional training in counseling.
“The strong point [of Chiu’s proposal] is that it could help get inmates linked back into society quickly, but a potential problem is that it might be hard to find businesses willing to cooperate, and most inmates would not be eligible,” Lin said, adding that opportunity to participate should not be limited to prisons’ model prisoners.
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