Beaten, Unpaid, ‘Re-educated’: Survey Lifts the Lid on Life Inside China’s Prisons
Karma Ngawang 
china's Prison of tibetan people
Testimony from 59 former inmates held across at least 36 prisons reveals routine violence, unpaid factory labour and forced political confessions, according to a new report by rights group Safeguard Defenders.
A prison system that functions less like a correctional institution and more like a chain of factories staffed by captive workers. That is the picture emerging from a new investigation into conditions inside Chinese prisons, released this week to mark Nelson Mandela International Day on July 18.
The report, Behind Bars: A Survey on Prison Conditions in China, published on July 16 by the human rights organisation Safeguard Defenders, draws on a survey of 59 former prisoners, both Chinese and foreign nationals. Between them, they were held in at least 36 prisons spread across 16 provinces and municipalities, a geographic range the group says proves the abuses described are systemic rather than confined to a few rogue facilities.
One inmate stated it clearly by saying that “the prison is not a factory prison, but a factory prison in which ‘guilty and innocent are treated just like animals, with not even basic rights’.”
The numbers are huge. China imprisons close to 850,000 individuals annually while the incarcerated population at its jails is close to 2.34 million individuals spread over 680 jails, probably the highest ever sentenced prisoner population in the world.
What the Survey Found
- 54 per cent of respondents suffered violence from prison staff or fellow inmates.
- 53 per cent lived under a “cell boss,” an inmate who rules the cell through intimidation and beatings.
- 52 per cent received no payment at all for their prison labour.
- 58 per cent were denied medical care for a health problem.
- 29 per cent were never given time for outdoor exercise.
- 81 per cent were made to write “though reports”; those who refused were typically punished.
Violence and the Cell Boss
More than half of those surveyed said they experienced violence at the hands of guards or other prisoners. The catalogue of abuse includes kicks and punches, Tasers, pepper spray, prolonged stress positions, shackling and solitary confinement.
The use of solitary confinement is among the report’s most disturbing findings. Some prisoners were isolated far beyond 15 days, the maximum permitted under China’s own Prison Law and the internationally accepted ceiling set out in the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, beyond which isolation is considered psychological torture.
Matthew Radalj, a former Australian detainee whose long-form interview anchors the report, said he was Tasered “almost on a daily basis” during his time in solitary and remained chained by the leg “for the entire 194 days.”
Working for Nothing
More than half of the former prisoners said they were never paid for their labour. Those who did receive wages mostly earned 100 yuan, about 15 US dollars, or less per month.
A case study of Chishan Prison in Hunan province, a facility already at the centre of international forced-labour allegations, describes 12-hour shifts, unsafe workshops and inmates handling fine fibres that triggered respiratory illness. Former political prisoners there attributed chronic back pain and severe weight loss to the working conditions.
Chinese law itself entrenches the problem. The Prison Law allows punishment, including solitary confinement, for inmates who refuse to work or are judged not to be working hard enough. That squarely meets the International Labour Organization’s definition of forced labour: work extracted involuntarily under menace of penalty.
Confess, Praise, Comply
Ideological control runs through the entire system. Eighty-one per cent of respondents said they were required to produce thought reports: letters of repentance, statements of confession and essays praising the Chinese Communist Party. Education behind bars, the report notes, was overwhelmingly political indoctrination rather than vocational training that might help prisoners rebuild their lives after release.
The price of refusal was steep. Prisoners whose writings were deemed insufficiently remorseful or “politically correct” lost the right to apply for sentence reductions, had family visits and phone calls cut, saw shopping quotas slashed, or faced beatings and solitary confinement. One respondent said medical attention was withheld because he would not write a confession letter.
Nowhere to Complain
Underpinning the abuse, the report argues, is a near-total absence of accountability. Prisons are run by prison police under the Ministry of Justice, with oversight assigned to the procuratorate, the very body responsible for securing convictions in the first place. In a one-party state, neither can be called independent, and no external body is empowered to inspect or intervene.
Complaints rarely went anywhere. One former inmate said he stayed silent because he was “scared.” Another reported that after he filed a complaint, “not only was no action taken, but action was taken against me.”
The report identifies three core gaps between Chinese law and international human rights standards: forced labour is legally sanctioned, the definition of torture excludes psychological harm, and political coercion is written into the prison “reform” system itself, despite international prohibitions on forced confessions and punishment for political beliefs.
A Warning to Governments
The study is a sister publication to Safeguard Defenders’ June report on China’s detention centres, whose launch event in Lisbon Beijing attempted to have cancelled. At a time when China is erasing public data and making testimony ever more dangerous to share, the group argues, survivor accounts remain one of the few windows into the system, and a stark warning to governments weighing extradition treaties or security cooperation with Beijing that such arrangements sit uneasily with the most basic human rights guarantees.
About the Author
Jun Hao 
Rinchen Tashi 
