III. The development of community correction in China
Community correction is a reform and improvement of the system of penalty execution in our country, and is an important aspect of deepening the reformation of the judicial system.
The pilot program of community correction in China began in 2003; it was expanded in 2005 and promoted nationwide in 2014.
Over the past decades, the judicial administrative organs have been establishing a sound work system of community correction, implementing in earnest various tasks of community correction, earnestly improving the quality of institutional teams of community correction, and constantly strengthening the basic guarantee of community correction, and actively promoting community correction works.
By the end of 2016,the judicial administrative organs at all levels have received 3.19 million offenders serving in the community.
The community correction of 2.49 million offenders have been cancelled in total while 0.7 million offenders are currently in correction; the recidivism rate of community prisoners during their service are being kept at a low level of 0.2%.
IV. The significance of implementing community correction
First, it is essential to explore the construction of the socialist penalty system with Chinese characteristics, and actively promote the socialist democracy and legal system; it fully embodies the superiority of China's socialist system and the requirements of human civilization progress, serving for the establishment of socialist political civilization and a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
Second, it is conducive to implement social correction in targeted steps on offenders who do not need, is not suitable for imprisonment or continue to be imprisoned, make full use of the power of all sectors of society, improve the quality of education and reform, maximize the number of negative factors which have been transferred to positive factors, and maintain social stability.
Third, it is conducive to rationalize the allocation of execution resources, make the two forms of execution, namely imprisonment correction and community correction, complement each other, enhance the effectiveness of punishment, and reduce the cost of execution.