thumb|Locations of laogai camps in the 1990s, according to [[Harry Wu]]
Laogai (), short for laodong gaizao (), which means reform through labor, was a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Láogǎi () is different from láojiào (), or re-education through labor, which was the abolished administrative detention system for people who were not criminals but had committed minor offenses, and was intended to "reform offenders into law-abiding citizens". Persons who were detained in the laojiao were detained in facilities that were separate from those which comprised the general prison system of the laogai. Both systems, however, were based on penal labor.
Some writers have likened the laogai to slavery.
History
Maoist era
During the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese prisons, which were similar to organized factories, contained large numbers of people who were considered too critical of the government or "counter-revolutionaries". However, many people arrested for political or religious reasons were released in the late 1970s at the start of the Deng Xiaoping reforms (known as reform and opening).
In the 21st century, critics have said that Chinese prisons produce products for sale in foreign countries, with the profits going to the PRC government. Products include everything from green tea to industrial engines to coal dug from mines. According to James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson, who both teach at Chinese schools, the products made in laogai camps comprise an insignificant amount of mainland China's export output and gross domestic product. They argue that the use of prison labor for manufacturing is not in itself a violation of human rights, and that most prisoners in Chinese prisons are serving time for what are generally regarded as crimes in the West. The West's criticism of the laogai is based not only on the export of products made by forced labor, but also on the claims of detainees being held for political or religious violations, such as leadership of unregistered Chinese House Churches.
Market reform era
Structural changes following the introduction of market reforms have reduced tax revenue to local governments, increasing pressure for local governments to supplement their income from elsewhere. At the same time, prisoners usually do not make a good workforce. The products manufactured by prison labor in China are of low quality and have become unsalable on the open market in competition with products made by non-imprisoned paid labor.
In 1994 the laogai camps were renamed "prisons". However, Chinese criminal law still stipulates that prisoners able to work shall "accept education and reform through labor". The existence of an extensive network of forced-labor camps producing consumer goods for export to Europe and the United States became classified. Publication of information about China's prison system by Al Jazeera English resulted in its expulsion from China on May 7, 2012.
Modern era
In 2003, the word "laogai" entered the Oxford English Dictionary. It entered the German Duden in 2005, and French and Italian dictionaries in 2006.
In 1992, writer Harry Wu, who had spent the period 1960 to 1979 in laogai camps, created the Laogai Research Foundation, a human rights NGO located in Washington, DC. In 2008, Wu opened the Laogai Museum in Washington, D.C., calling it the first ever United States museum to directly address human rights in China. In 2008, the Laogai Research Foundation estimated that approximately 1,045 laogai facilities were operating in China, and contained an estimated 500,000 to 2 million detainees.
In 2013, there were approximately 350 camps. Laogai was ended that year. Also issued to the prisoners are a pair of shoes made of rubber or plastic. These minimums do not meet the needs of the prisoners, who must purchase underclothes, socks, hats, and jackets with their monthly earnings of 2.5–3 yuan (US$0.37–US$0.44 as of April 11, 2009). One camp near Beijing distributes between 13.5 and 22.5 kg of food per person per month. This is about average. The food consists of sorghum and corn, which are ground into flour and made into bread or gruel. The prisoners of the Beijing camp also receive 3 ounces of cooking oil per month. Every 2 weeks, the prisoners receive "a special meal of pork broth soup and white-flour steamed buns". Important Chinese holidays, such as New Year's, National Day, and the Spring Festival, are celebrated with meat dumplings, an exception in an otherwise meatless diet.
Nutrition in the camps was a big problem, especially during the early 1950s through the 1960s, in the early years of the PRC (People's Republic of China). Before the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) took control, hunger was rarely used to control prisoners. Dulan County prisoners have planted over 400,000 trees.
Estimated number of deaths
The estimated number of deaths in laogai varies substantially among authors on the subject:
- In 1997, human rights activist and Laogai Research Foundation creator Harry Wu put the death toll from 1949 to 1997 at 15 million.
- In 1991, political scientist Rudolph Rummel puts the number of forced labor "democides" at 15,720,000, excluding "all those collectivized, ill-fed and clothed peasants who would be worked to death in the fields".
- In 1997, Jean-Louis Margolin estimated in The Black Book of Communism that 20 million deaths resulted from high mortality rates in laogai. Margolin's calculation assume a yearly imprisoned population of 10 million people and a yearly mortality rate of 5%. If camps operated from roughly 1949 to 1980, that yields about 15.5 million dead.
- In 2005, linguist Jung Chang and historian Jon Halliday estimated in Mao: The Unknown Story that deaths in prisons and labor camps "could well amount to 27 million" during Mao's rule. In 2005, Jin Xiaoding negatively described Chang and Halliday's logic as a "magic formula" that simply multiplies 27 (years of Mao's rule) by 10 million (assumed camp population) by 10% (assumed yearly mortality rate) to obtain 27 million dead, with no discussion of responsibility or other data. Charlie Hore called this method "guessing". Chang and Halliday say that inmates were subjected to back-breaking labor in the most hostile wastelands, and that executions and suicides by any means (like diving into a wheat chopper) were commonplace.