Chinese Prison System, "Laogai": Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, First Session, April 3, 1995

All Laogai prisoners are forced to labor to compel reform and be come new socialist persons. New arrivals are subject to immediate, daily, lengthy integration sessions and forced to admit their crimes. These sessions may last days, weeks, or months. In some cases, they last years. The official Laogai policy is reform first, production second. The prisoners of the Laogai face constant brainwashing. The value sys tem of the society as a whole has no place in the Laogai. The pris oner is stripped of his morals, his beliefs, his religions, his individ ual will, his sense of right or wrong. They are encouraged to stand together with the Government and denounce their crimes. They are completely retrained to follow the moral order of the Communist Party and its society. If a prisoner resists, he or She is tortured. There is much evi dence coming to light that thought reform is less and less success ful. This apparently persuaded the Laogai officials to rely more and more on physical torture. This situation is understandable as it be comes clear that even the Communists no longer believe their own ideology. But struggle meetings are still held. Mao Tse Tung's teachings are still used and those that Show a poor political attitude are heat en. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.