Prisoners’ Rights in China

In the fall of 1992, the information office of China’s State Council issued a lengthy white paper entitled Criminal Reform in China. The document is filled with sweeping pronouncements buttressed by statistics on China’s penal system: the number of prisoners enrolled in classes of various kinds, the rate of recidivism, the employment rate among released prisoners in Beijing and Shanghai, and so on. The document’s declared purpose was to “help the people of the w...