ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the human rights situation in the laogai, and then comment on the government's international responsibilities in this respect. The laogai has often been a brutal institution. This is especially true in Xinjiang, where at least until very recently, many of the prison camps can hardly compared prisoners were during 'feudal' times. Guards preferred beatings as a way to deal with discipline problems at the lowest level; more formal punishment, such as term-extension, would require reporting problems to superiors, which would imply negligence on guard's part. In the urban parts of Qinghai, the most common reason for people to enter into the prison system has to do with the use or trafficking in illegal drugs, and this situation appears to be true of much of China today. International human rights non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly called attention to problems in China's.
