Gao Bo: A role model of community correction from Beijing

Since starting his career in community correction work in 2014, Gao Bo, deputy head of the community correction division of the judicial bureau of Beijing, has been contributing to the safety and stability of the capital city in an outstanding manner that has earned him multiple honorary tiles.

As part of the enforcement of criminal penalties, community correction is an important activity which can be difficult and risky. Gao and his colleagues often receive urgent tasks at 5:30 in the evening and spend the whole night on them. 

From time to time, they also face some thorny issues which are hard to address under the existing law. 

In addition, though police officers may sometimes oversee community correction work, ordinary civil servants are the major enforcers, exposing them to the risks posed by criminals subject to community correction. 

All in all, community correction is an extremely important work that matters to the safety and stability of the Chinese capital.

Standing up to these challenges, Gao and his colleagues visited their peers in others provinces to learn from their experience and develop a work mechanism suitable for Beijing.

Gao divided community correction work into small and specific tasks like organizing the learning of the Chinese Constitution for individuals subject to community correction from across the city, fixing the loopholes in the exit administration, writing a textbook on community correction and developing a management system app. He also took other steps, such as introducing Beijing's practices to the rest of the country.

Thanks to his relentless effort, the community correction work in Beijing is becoming increasingly law-based, standardized, socialized and information technology-driven.

In 2018, in a meeting with an expert delegation from the Ministry of Justice of Finland, Gao discussed a wide range of issues stretching from recommitting crimes, skill training and minor protection to electronic oversight, human rights protection and restoration of social connections, extending the scheduled time span for the meeting from half an hour to three hours. 

Responding to the delegation's praise for China's ultra-low crime rate, Gao said that apart from the community correction workers, the good results also stem from numerous legal publicity bulletins over all the city, people's mediators, the lawyers protecting the legal rights and interests of individuals serving community correction and thousands of social volunteers, all of whom help transform criminals into law-abiding citizens.