Prison reform programs, ranging from making soy sauce to creating works of art or doing woodwork, have often garnered positive feedback from society and are constantly breaking annual income records at their respective prisons.
According to the Agency of Corrections, the total income from produce sales for all prisons across the nation exceeded NT$460 million (US$15 million) last year, exceeding the total income of 2012 by 13 percent.
The Taipei Prison, known for its dried tofu products, grossed NT$36 million last year from its various products, with its “customized products” getting the most attention.
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
According to Taipei Prison Secretary Chiu Ming-wei (邱明偉), the inmates used manual labor to custom-make products as requested by civilians, adding that the prison often received requests to have family photographs reproduced in sand drawings.
The prison included sand drawings as part of its reform-program products in 2012.
There is no limit on the type of products which can be requested, Chiu said, and the prison has 18 different workshops for different kinds of products, including carpentry, ceramic art and sand drawings.
The prison initially only accepted requests for woodwork and ceramic products, limiting the choice to wooden furniture, portrait frames, tea tables, ceramic-plate paintings and flower vases, but last year hardwood furniture fitted together with mortise and tenon joints were added to the list, he added.
The prison earns between NT$200,000 and NT$300,000 every month from woodwork products alone, Chiu said.
Although ceramic arts — which involve molding, imprinting, burning and glazing — are more technique-heavy and require more manpower, which means it takes longer to manufacture the requested items, there are still no shortage of people calling in to place orders, he said.
The prison gets an income of NT$50,000 to NT$80,000 per month from ceramic arts, he added.
Governmental organizations also often place special orders for sand drawings as a special gift to some of their visitors, Chiu said.
As sand drawings pay great attention to detail and use many colors, making each drawing is an extended process requiring 30 to 40 days to finish, depending on the drawings’ complexity and size, he added.
The prison has an exhibition hall where many works produced by inmates are put up to be admired.
The drawings cover a large variety of subjects, like animals, people and even scenes of natural beauty, Chiu said.
The more exquisite the details of each drawing, the more work has to be put into the artwork by the inmates, and each drawing is worth its weight in gold, he said.
Chiu added that some of his colleagues, upon hearing that they would be transferred to other facilities, even ordered a sand drawing to remember their stay at the prison.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at