Buck stops with wardens for deaths in custody

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-26 08:12

Prisons told to check if inmates are being abused or bullied

Prison wardens will be held accountable for any death or injury to inmates, Beijing municipal bureau of justice said, after several such incidents happened across the nation.

The bureau told the 14 prisons under its management on Friday to start a campaign until the end of this year to try to prevent deaths in custody.

Prisons should also check if inmates are being abused and crack down on jailhouse bullies.

The bureau said prisons must report any abnormal deaths to it within three hours.

If officers are found to use police equipment to abuse inmates, heads of the prison must report this to the bureau, in addition to starting an investigation.

For abnormal deaths, officers and chiefs will be held accountable and may face severe punishment, the bureau said.

If the deaths cause social conflicts, prison chiefs may be forced to resign.

In February last year, an inmate Li Qiaoming, 24, was found dead at the Jinning detention house in Yunnan province.

Officers claimed Li hit a wall and was killed during a hide-and-seek game. However, three inmates were responsible.

The incident sparked a nationwide inspection campaign on prison and detention house regulations.

The men who beat Li to death were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 16 years to life.

Two officers in charge of the cell received prison terms of 18 months and two years.

This year, some inmates have died at detention houses, with some strange causes including choking while drinking water, or being literally scared to death by a nightmare.

Yu Hongyuan, chief of the justice bureau, said there has been no security incident in the prison system in the city for 13 years.

He told Beijing Evening News that five officers were investigated last year for breaches of discipline or law, 16 percent lower than 2008, the third straight year of decline.

In the city's 22 detention centers, authorities have also taken measures to increase transparency and prevent abnormal deaths.

Mu Ping, president of the Beijing People's Procuratorate, which supervises the detention centers, told METRO all centers will be equipped with 24-hour surveillance cameras.

In Changping district detention center, the surveillance system helped officers stop a fight between two inmates.

Inmates can also ask to meet prosecutors if they are being abused, face any threats or find officers being corrupt, the procuratorate said.

METRO