Wed, Jul 19, 2000 page8

• Prison reform begins with staffing

  • By Ho Ching-jung 何青蓉
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  On July 10, Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) said wardens of nine prisons were suspected of forging documents to purchase luxury cars at reduced prices. Chen said "One must shave oneself before shaving others ... and the Ministry of Justice won't protect its own in its anti-corruption efforts." As I read the news, I felt that Chen had once again misdirected his efforts, and that the already low morale of wardens could only deteriorate.

  Just how low can the morale of prison staff sink? Take the case of Huang Chu-wang (黃主旺), who escaped from Taichung Prison. I have been in close contact with prison staff for years. Many complained after the Taichung escape that they were deeply depressed because they had become the targets of public contempt. They felt that they were already treated like "inmates who had committed no crime but still received life sentences ..." Now, they felt, the incident had effectively turned them into the most heinous of criminals.

  The general public considers prisons to be dark and inhuman places. Ironically, darkness and inhumanity might well be said to be features of the way the government treats staff at correctional institutions. In order to provide 24-hour security, management personnel rotate on 24-hour shifts (with only a three-hour break during each shift); one day on, the next off, and so on.

  This bizarre schedule isolates staff from the outside world. All wardens need to report to the prison office each time they go out, even when they are off duty. Many of them simply sleep in their offices every night. How can this job possibly be humane?

  On top of this, our prisons face a staffing shortage. According to research by Lin Chien-yang (林健楊) and Yang Shih-lung (楊士隆), the capacity of prisons in June 1997 was 29,160 persons. However, the actual number of inmates was 45,214, or 16,954 more than there was supposed to be. The ratio of prison staff to inmates was 1:17 and the ratio of prison correctional instructors to inmates was as low as 1:301. Such conditions not only seriously affected the prisoners' rights, but also put heavy pressure on staff. Morale has plummeted and staff turnover has surged. (Turnover has been estimated as 39.81 percent between 1993 and the end of June 1998)

  Government policies, which often change with personnel changes, also have their effects. Former justice minister Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), focused on rehabilitation, while his successor Liao Cheng-hao (廖正豪) stressed retribution. Faced with such vagaries, prison staff have introduced their own ironic mantra, that "while discipline is the prime task, rehabilitation is the number one priority." Realistically, since staff are so overburdened with duties, we should be thankful if nothing bad happens to the inmates. One can hardly expect staff to actively conduct rehabilitative work. And yet 70 percent of former inmates who pass the college entrance examination later drop out of their course, ill-adjusted, as they are, to the real world.

  Whether wardens have purchased cars with forged documents is an issue that must be decided on the basis of evidence. But the effectiveness of correctional work must be examined as a matter of urgency. The following factors undermine the system most egregiously and must be addressed.

  1. Due to manpower shortages, prisoners do not get the care they need, which increases the incidence of violence and mental illness.

  2. Due to the absence of long-term staff training and education, the quality of staff is not improving; and

  3. The pressure of work leads to low morale and high staff turnover, which aggravate all the other problems.

  The combination of these factors has created a snowball effect. If structural issues such as the recruitment and retention of quality of staff are not improved, merely locking criminals up will achieve nothing. Ultimately, we will pay the price in enormous increases in government expenditure for the construction of correctional facilities and in the social consequences of unrehabilitated offenders and repeat offenders being granted parole.

  As society changes rapidly, so does the way people commit crimes. If prison staff are incapable of grasping the social changes and if the Minister of Justice focuses strictly on the fight against corruption, the problems will never be rooted out entirely. As a senior staff member said, given that courses run by the justice ministry tend to be over-subscribed, if it hadn't been for the Ministry of Education's project, he probably would not have had any opportunity to participate in a training course.

  In order to improve the success rate of correctional facilities, therefore, it is imperative that Minister Chen adopts a truly creative approach, and tries to provide more training opportunities for the prison staff.

  Ho Ching-jung is the Director of the Graduate Institute of Adult Education in National Kaohsiung Normal University.

  Translated by Eddy Chang
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