Tough nuts to crack for volunteers in prison rehabilitation program

Liu Juan sits in a bright room with a desk and two chairs. It’s not the first time. She has lost count of the times she has been called to the room to talk to people. Prison is a place where time seems to stand still.

The people Liu talks to could be lawyers, entrepreneurs and community workers — all of them are members of the Zhijian Assistance and Education Workshop formed by the Jing’an District Social Assistance and Education Volunteer Association and the prison.

The workshop is named after Kang Zhijian, a volunteer from the Jing’an association, who has dedicated himself in helping the people behind bars for more than two decades. The organization’s volunteers go into prisons trying to help inmates both while they are behind bars and when they eventually walk free.

Their task is not easy. Many inmates distrust anyone working in tandem with the prison system at first. Inmates like Liu are hard-boiled.

She was sentenced to Shanghai Women’s Prison for six years on drug trafficking charges in 2013, even though she refused to plead guilty. Lawyers came to talk about an appeal, but she refused to consider it.

About a year after she was incarcerated, police charged her with a violent crime, which added seven years to her prison sentence.

“She claimed to be innocent, but I looked into her cases carefully and she is not,” said Zhang Yuxia, a volunteer lawyer from the workshop. “I think she also knows the penalties are just.”

Zhang told Shanghai Daily that she has encountered many female inmates who tend to blame others for everything that has gone wrong in their lives.

“In crimes of passion, they often blame the man or others for pushing them to the edge,” she explained.

Liu, for example, insisted she received nothing from selling drugs. Her boyfriend, she said, took all the money. She also denied assaulting anyone but claimed that she had no choice when taking certain actions.

 “You always have a choice,” Zhang said. “When choices are made, there will be consequences.”

Liu suffers from high blood pressure and heart problems but refused to take medication. She told the guards that if she had a fatal stroke, that would end her pain for good.

Yang Fulan, an officer from the women’s prison who also works with the Zhijian workshop, said she always had to control herself when dealing with Liu because the inmate’s attitude was so hostile.

 “It is our job not only to discipline them but to try to make them better people so that when they are released, they don’t return,” said Yang. “If we give up on them, then they have no one to show them the way.”

Things started to change for Liu after she met Kang Zhijian. Kang promised to take good care of Liu’s mother and daughter, who now live together. Indeed, Kang often goes to the home of Liu’s mother, taking her food and helping with household matters.

 “He told me what’s done for them,” Liu said. “If I died here, it would only sadden my family.”

Liu finally plead guilty in the third year of her sentence.

As we talked, Kang walked in, bringing news of her family.

“Your mother is doing well,” Kang told Liu. “And so is the dog, in case you wonder.”

Liu lowered her head and nodded, muttering, “I miss them so much.”

 “The road ahead is long,” Kang told her. “You have to take care of yourself so that when you leave here someday, you can look after your mother.”

Kang said no one behind bars is hopeless. Many of them made a terrible mistake in an irrevocable moment. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” he said.

According to Ding Hairong, the administrator at Jing’an’s Justice Bureau who is in charge of social assistance and education, the district last year helped eight inmates whose residency is in Jing’an find jobs after release and helped four get residency documents with the joint effort of the prisons.

Ding said it’s a lonely life behind bars.

“Families may leave them, friends may reject them, society may resent them,” said Ding. “But if we don’t give them a second chance, they may be pushed back into a cycle of crime.”

A second chance was what inmate Hu Yanhua needed most.

In 2007, Hu fell out with her alcoholic husband and the next thing she knew, her husband was lying on the kitchen floor with a knife in his chest. Hu, 27, only learned the fact that she accidentally killed his husband when she stood trial.

 “Both the judges and my lawyer said I should appeal,” Hu said. “But I didn’t because I owe him more than that.”

Her 5-year-old son went to stay with his grandparents, who couldn’t forgive Hu for what she did. Hu cried herself to sleep every night.

Yang couldn’t just stand by and watch the woman drowning in sorrow, so she invited Hu to the new magnolia art troupe opened for inmates.

The basics of dancing at first were too difficult for Hu to understand, but Yang persisted.

 “I wanted to give her hope, something to look forward,” said Yang. “More importantly, I didn’t want her to lose faith in living, which I had seen too many people do during my career.”

Eventually, Hu mastered dancing and it seemed to change her. She wrote letters every month to her parents and in-laws. After five years, her in-laws finally wrote back, saying they forgave her.

 “You have to earn a second chance and respect from others,” said Hu. “Even from the ones you hold dear.”

In her 12 years in prison, Hu not only mastered dancing but also earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations.

When she was released earlier, she started working at a water heater sales company. She had an exemplary work record but she didn’t tell her employer about her past. When the company manager eventually found out about it, she was asked to resign.

At home, Hu’s 15-year-old son still refuses to talk with her. He dropped out of school. It took time for Hu to reconnect with him, but eventually, she did and the boy returned to school.

Life on the outside is daunting.

Shanghai Daily arranged an interview with Pan Qi, an inmate who received help from Kang’s volunteer association and opened a clothing boutique after her release. At the last minute, she backed out.

 “We can talk over the phone,” Pan told the reporter. “But I don’t want to meet.”

The phone interview didn’t go well. Pan dodged almost every question. The only thing she kept repeating was how hard it was for her to stand on her own feet.

In recent years, prisons in the city have been inviting companies to venture inside see the skills many of the inmates have mastered during their incarceration. The prison also offers professional training and basic life skills training, such as how to use WeChat and Alipay, or how to get around the city with Metro, for some of them were put behind bars for so long that many of the trending technologies may seem utterly strange to them.

The prison hopes with the training, the inmates can lead an easier life after they leave their cells and try to blend in.

 “Many promised to reform and lead proper lives while they are inside,” said Yang. “But once they are released, temptations can be hard to resist.”

Seven years on, no one can say for certain whether Liu will eventually go back to her family or will return to a life of drugs. What Yang and the volunteers can do is to help her as much as possible and hope for the best.

 “But as long as we can help even one in a thousand criminals find the right track, we’ll keep doing what we do,” Yang said.

(The names of the inmates have been altered to protect privacy.)

Ti Gong

Wang Rongjiang / SHINE