From murderer to undertaker: rehabilitation of convicts in China

Previously jailed for murder Cao Yongsheng now makes a living caring for the dead thanks to a rehabilitation program in China that gives these criminals a second chance. funeral workers.

This is an unusual strategy for helping ex-prisoners, many of whom claim that the lack of programs rehabilitationlack of skills and ingrained discrimination encourage them to reoffend.

Cao Yongsheng He served 17 years behind bars for killing one person and seriously injuring two others. Working in a funeral home allows you to “calm the deceased (…) and atone for crimes,” he says.

“It’s a kind of spiritual absolution for me,” he says. AFP this 56-year-old man who works in a mortuary in the northeastern city of Shenyang, teeming with coffins, incense and wads of paper money burned at Chinese funerals.

IN Chinathere are about 1.7 million prisoners, according to data compiled by the World Prison Brief from the University of London, the country with the largest prison population after the United States.

However, their authorities do not regularly publish information about how many of them re-offend after being released.

Rehabilitation

This volunteer project offers training and financial support to ex-convicts so they can start a career as a gravedigger and stay on track.

The group, known as “Mom Says Goodbye to You in Heaven,” says it’s the only initiative of its kind in China focused on reforming serious offenders, usually defined as those who have spent a decade or more in prison.

For Cao, one of its first beneficiaries, the program meant exchanging a shaky job and bleak prospects for a stable income, a happy marriage, and deep roots in his community.

“It was a big turning point in my life,” he says of his job, which also includes his business partner, another former prisoner.

“Without this platform, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he says.

More than 50 ex-prisoners have been trained as funeral workers since the launch of the program five years ago, organizers say.

He connects them with other interns and offers them training as well as an injection of money to start their own business.

The work is often strenuous, as they may be called in the middle of the night to visit grieving families, clean and clothe the dead, and transport them to the crematorium, the terminus for much of China’s population.

But the members say they are just happy to have a permanent job. (AFP)