Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday - May 15, 1997

BEIJING, May 15 (Reuter) - China is making progress in developing spacious

and modern model prisons aimed at improving standards across the country's

huge penal system, Finland's prison chief said on Thursday.

China's efforts to build better jails and boost training of its army of

300,000 prison staff showed a genuine desire to reform the much-criticised

prison network, said Finnish Prison Administration Director General K.J.

Lang.

"What surprised me most (was) the large message of improvement," Lang said

in an interview at the end of a 10-day visit to Beijing and the remote

Himalayan region of Tibet.

International human rights groups have frequently criticised Chinese

prisons for the widespread torture and abuse of inmates and for denying

basic medical care to high-profile dissidents.

While the prisons visited had been surprisingly advanced, it was impossible

to judge from them the conditions accorded to all of China's 1.35 million

convict population, Lang said.

"You cannot after a visit like this... say what is the situation in all

China," he said. "There must be a lot of differences."

Punishment had been cruel throughout China's long history, but real efforts

were being made to improve conditions at the Beijing municipal prison and

Lhasa's central jail, Lang said.

The Beijing prison had been nominated as one of China's five "model

prisons," he said.

"What was most impressive in both places... was the amount of space

reserved for living, for work and production, for education," he said.

The Lhasa prison, home to about half of Tibet's prison population and many

of the restive region's jailed pro-independence activists, had been totally

rebuilt and was now more impressive than many European jails, he said.

The Finnish officials, whose visit was part of 10 years of exchanges with

Chinese counterparts, were allowed to speak with one inmate jailed on

counter-revolutionary charges, who appeared to live under the same

conditions as other prisoners, he said.

Apart from the standard penal system investigated by Lang and his

colleagues, China maintains a huge labour camp network where common and

political offenders routinely suffer administrative detention for up to

three years without trial.

Police detention centres are also extensive and have been criticised by

human rights groups and Chinese officials alike for cases of reported

torture of suspects.

Beijing's efforts to improve the prison system included the expansion of

its main prison staff training centre to cater for 4,000 students from the

current 2,500, Lang said.

Beijing Justice Minister Xiao Yang in February dismissed foreign criticism

of China's jails, saying they aimed to combine punishment with reform and

to mix labour with education.

Only six to eight percent of convicts returned to crime after their

release, Xiao was quoted by state media as saying.