Abolition of re-education through labor a milestone

On Nov 15, 2013, the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee issued its resolutions to implement a long list of comprehensive reforms. Among the reforms is the abolition of the controversial "re-education through labor" policy, abbreviated as laojiao in Chinese. The move has been hailed, both at home and abroad, as a milestone in the development of China's legal sector.

Formally established by a central government administrative regulation in 1957, laojiao is a special measure of administrative - rather than criminal - detention. Its purported aim is to punish those who commit offenses not serious enough to demand criminal punishment.

Laojiao has undergone significant changes over the years. The earlier lists of targets included politically unreliable individuals. Later, the spectrum of laojiao was expanded to tackle a number of social evils, such as drug addiction, prostitution and gambling. Most recently, so-called illegal petitioning was added to its list of offenses.