Prisoners to spend Spring Festival with families at home

Newly 1,300 inmates from 300 prisons across the country will be allowed to go home to spend Spring Festival with their families, an official from the Bureau of Prison Administration under Ministry of Justice said.

The ministry recently issued a notice to prisons across the country to allow prisoners to visit families during Spring Festival, the news website cyol.com reported.

In Shanghai, 10 inmates from four prisons will be allowed to visit their families at home, an official from the city's prison administrative bureau said.

These prisoners should fulfill lots of conditions, such as good behavior in prison, completion of over half of prison term and not endangering the society after leaving prison, the official said.

They are required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet during the leave, and if the bracelet is removed, police will know immediately, the official said. Prisoners have to report their daily activities to local police.

Apart from Shanghai, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces also approved certain prisoners for family visits during Spring Festival this year, with Sichuan OK'ing about 260 prisoners and Shaanxi more than 100.

China's prison law and relative regulations allowed prisoners to leave prisons to meet families while meeting some conditions, but because of safety risks and some other reasons, some prisons stopped such practice in recent years.

After investigations, Minister of Justice Zhang Jun said recently that prisons across the country could gradually push ahead the practice after making good preparations for preventing possible safety risks.

Prisoners going home to meet families have been considered an effective means to improve their reform, and the ministry has recently issued a document on promoting the practice in the prison system reform.

Vice-Minister Xiong Xuanguo told a news conference on Feb 8 that prisons should do the work well in allowing prisoners to visit relatives and leaving prisons while serving prison sentences according to law.