Academics and lawyers are responding to issues raised by former Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) triad member Cheng Li-te (鄭立德) before he and five other convicts committed suicide during Wednesday’s attempted jailbreak.
In the statement, in addition to discontent at what he saw as the unfair treatment of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who was granted medical parole while other inmates are not, Cheng also complained about the paltry pay — NT$200 a day — for working inmates, his view that his conviction had been a miscarriage of justice and concerns that he had nobody he could turn to for support, as well as difficulties he said prisoners encountered in seeking a commuted sentence or parole.
Central Police University professor Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭) said the points could be food for thought from the vantage point of the prisoners.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
National Central University professor Cheng Jui-lung (鄭瑞隆) said the incident should be a wake-up call for the nation to review the prison system, adding that the government should seek to address the issues of insufficient funding, lack of guards and prison overcrowding.
The decision to commit suicide after failing to escape might have stemmed from the convicts’ discontent with the legal system and a feeling that they had their freedom deprived, Cheng Jui-lung said.
“They probably felt that their lives were meaningless in the prison,” Cheng Jui-lung said.
National Chung Cheng University professor Yang Shih-lung (楊士隆) said there are pros and cons to the long prison sentences stipulated in penal regulations, which might lead to more severe crimes being committed.
Yang called on correctional facilities to emphasize reform education so inmates feel their lives “have meaning,” adding that it is typical for inmates with long sentences to become emotionally agitated after four to six years in detention.
Lawyer Lu Chiu-yuan (呂秋遠) said that the aborted jailbreak effort was not about prison reform, adding that the convicts should not be viewed as heroes.
Their demands merely expressed the sentiment that they sought parole because they believed themselves to be innocent, Lu said.
In the statement, Cheng Li-te praised President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for being a good minister of justice.
During his tenure as justice minister, Ma lowered parole standards from half of an inmate’s sentence to one-third in 1994, meaning that convicts with 10-year terms sentences of a decade could be released on parole after serving three years instead of five years.
Although the measure decreased the number of prisoners, it had also caused many social problems, prompting the reinstatement of the earlier parole standards in 1997, Lu said.
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