300px|right|thumb|A photograph of Shayang Re-education Through Labor camp in [[Hubei|Hubei province, from the archives of the Laogai Museum]]
Re-education through labor (RTL; ), abbreviated laojiao (), was a system of administrative detention in the People's Republic of China. Active from 1957 to 2013, the system was used to detain persons who were accused of committing minor crimes such as petty theft, prostitution, and trafficking of illegal drugs, as well as political dissidents, petitioners, and Falun Gong followers. It was separated from the much larger laogai system of prison labor camps.
Sentences under re-education through labor were typically for one to three years, with the possibility of an additional one-year extension. They were issued as a form of administrative punishment by police, rather than the judicial system. While they were incarcerated, detainees were frequently subjected to a form of political education. Estimates of the number of RTL detainees on any given year range from 190,000 to two million. In 2013, approximately 350 RTL camps were in operation.
On 28 December 2013, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress abolished the re-education through labor system and detainees were released. However, human rights groups have claimed that other forms of extrajudicial detention have taken its place, with some former RTL camps being renamed drug rehabilitation centers.
In 2014, re-education facilities were constructed in Xinjiang and they were used to target a wider context than people who were accused of committing minor crimes and political dissidence. By 2017, these had become the massive Xinjiang internment camps holding 1–3 million people, utilizing forced labor, now recognized as re-education camps by many nations and intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, EU, and human rights groups.
Re-education through labor and the Chinese penal system
The People's Republic of China employs several forms of correction for people who have been arrested, of which re-education through labor was one. The Laogai Research Foundation classifies re-education through labor as a sub-component under the umbrella of the laogai ("reform through labor") criminal justice system, and juvenile detention camps for individuals under a minimum age (which has varied through the years, and may currently be under 14). The system formerly included components such as custody and repatriation for individuals without a residence permit; and "shelter and investigation," a system of detentions for individuals under legal investigation, which was abolished in 1996. although it is not officially recognized as part of the laogai penal system. Some human rights groups claim that as many as 10,000 Falun Gong members were detained in between 1999 and 2002, with some sources estimating up to half of the official reeducation through labor camp population is Falun Gong practitioners. In some labor camps, Falun Gong practitioners make up the majority population.
There have been numerous calls for the system to be reformed or replaced. As early as 1997, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) called for China to allow judicial control over detentions; in 2000, the UN Committee Against Torture recommended that all forms of administrative detention, including re-education through labor, be abolished; In March 2007, however, the Chinese government did announce that it would abolish the re-education through labor system and replace it with a more lenient set of laws. According to the proposal, the maximum sentence would be lowered from four years to 18 months; re-education centers would be renamed "correction centers" and have their fences and gates removed. A month later, Chongqing municipality passed a law allowing lawyers to offer legal counsel in re-education through labor cases.
Many human rights groups, however, doubted the efficacy of the proposed reforms, saying that the new laws would only help minor criminals and not help political prisoners, and the reforms would not actually abolish the re-education through labor system. Nine months after the declaration that the laws would be rewritten, the re-education through labor system had not been abolished; in December 2007, a group of academics drafted an open letter to the government calling for an end to the system. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there were reports that some individuals who applied for permits to protest were detained without trial; of these, some were sentenced to re-education through labor. In the United Nations Human Rights Council's September 2008 Universal Periodic Review of the People's Republic of China, re-education through labor was listed as an "urgent human rights concern," and as of February 2009, a large number of re-education through labor camps were still in operation. ||
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| China Labour Bulletin || align="center"|2007 || align="center"|300,000 ||
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| Unspecified non-governmental organizations || align="center"|2003 || align="center"|310,000 the provinces with the most centers being Guangdong (31), Heilongjiang (21), and Henan (21). In a February 2009 meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Chinese government stated that there are 320 centers. The provinces with the largest numbers of re-education centers include Guangdong, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Henan.
Detentions
Conviction and detention
Sentencing for re-education through labor is generally carried out by the police rather than by the judicial system, so individuals are rarely charged or tried before being detained. Public security bureaus (police offices) are able to carry out administrative detentions for "minor" infringements that are not considered criminal acts; at least one analyst has suggested that local public security bureaus often abuse their authority and detain individuals for things such as personal vendettas. Individuals may also be sentenced to re-education through labor by courts, but the proportion of individuals who receive trials rather than going directly into administrative detention is determined in part by how much capacity that province has for re-education detainees—provinces with large re-education through labor apparatus generally allow fewer detainees to have trials. Where detainees have been allowed a trial, their lawyers have faced "intimidation and abuse," according to some reports, and the individuals under trial have sometimes been convicted on the basis of confessions that were coerced through "torture and severe psychological pressure." Individuals who attempt to leave the country illegally have also been sentenced to re-education through labor upon their return. In periods leading up to visits from foreign dignitaries or politically sensitive anniversaries (such as the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989), local authorities have supposedly detained "undesirables" such as the homeless, mentally or physically disabled individuals, and migrant workers. One China specialist at the RAND Corporation has claimed that the police, faced with a lack of "modern rehabilitation and treatment programs," use re-education through labor convictions to "warehouse" individuals for "an increasing number of social problems."<!----> Detainees in camps are required to work for little or no pay; while Chinese law requires that prison laborers' workday be limited to 12 hours a day. In 2001, sociologist Dean Rojek estimated that detainees generally worked six days a week, "in total silence." They also perform work ranging "from tending vegetables and emptying septic pits to cutting stone blocks and construction work."
Though most reports describe the conditions of re-education camps as "brutal," dissident Liu Xiaobo said that he had been treated very mildly, that he had been allowed to spend time reading, and that the conditions had been "pretty good."
According to Chinese state media Xinhua, slightly over 50% of detainees released from prison and re-education through labor in 2006 received government aid in the form of funds or assistance in finding jobs.
Life after release
Detainees who are released from re-education through labor camps may still be unable to travel or see other people freely. Individuals who remain in re-education through labor for 5 or more years may not be allowed to return to their homes, and those who do may be closely monitored and not permitted to leave certain areas. and for being used to detain political dissidents, Chinese house church leaders, and Falun Gong practitioners. Furthermore, even though the law up until 2007 specified a maximum length of detainment of four years, at least one source mentions a "retention for in-camp employment" system that allowed authorities to keep detainees in the camps for longer than their official sentences. In light of the widespread disapproval of the system, HRIC called in 2001 for the system to be abolished entirely. Among its criticisms it cited the fact that the wording of re-education through labor laws was excessively vague, allowing authorities to manipulate it; the fact that the punishment given in re-education centers was too severe for the crimes committed; the abusive conditions at re-education centers; and the variation of re-education through labor laws from one province to another. In 2007, when new laws were drafted, the Ministry of Public Security was opposed to the proposal that would allowing judicial review before punishment was enforced.
Abolition
During the third plenum of the 18th Party Central Committee in Beijing on 15 November 2013, Chinese officials announced that they planned to abolish the Re-education Through Labor system.
The planned abolition of the system, however, has been criticised by human rights groups, with Amnesty International issuing a report titled "Changing the Soup but Not the Medicine." Amnesty's report concludes that the camp closures are a positive step forward for human rights, but the fundamental problems of arbitrary detention remain in China: