Here’s an article detailing that this year. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/prison-labor-high-school.amp.html
The Taiyuan Prison in Taitung County received orders for 28,000 cakes for the Mid-Autunm Festival, which falls on Sept. 29 this year.
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A burden to society should reciprocate back to the community… and pick up a life skill along the way.
Totally agree, so long as the imprisoned are morally done so. innocent people jailed for things that are not ethically bad but legally so seem a bit of a hot topic.
on a side note, the going rate for prison labour I. our area is 600/day. the prisoner receives very little of that
I think a fair concern for the public is exploitation. which seems pretty tame here compared to other countries. but we certainly should be aware of all sides and avoid a situation like say the USA.
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As long at the rest goes on their board and lodgings I think its ok, less of a burden on the tax payers.
I agree, if that is the case and if it is people justifiably imprisoned.
It seems lots of businesses cooperating withgovernemnt agencies (or their contracted consultants) are using such schemes. not really sure real numbers, but know plenty of food producers that cant compete with such prices.
I view the legalized psuedo slave labor as a cheat code. I am not 100% against it in various ways, but I just cant agree with it either. Perhaps government projects would be better suited (which they also do) rather than for profit companies? As in, gives directly back to the people, not directly giving bosses more spending cash.
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This is what I mean as give back directly (no middle men taking a cut)
I think Taiwan is pretty on the ball with this and has a relevant appeals process, the thing that pisses me off are the people who skip justice by commuting the time into a fine. I feel these are the people who should be out doing a bit of hard graft.
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I personally think it is great such industries exist to widen the skillsets of prisoners but share the sentiments of the initial poster. He lamented on having to make bags rather than teaching English if you read the article!!! I think a mind is a terrible thing to waste so think it would be very good to widen the linguistic skills of prisoners.
Teaching English in a Taiwan jail–now that’s a great idea for a new TV show.
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Sadly, and remorse should be a priority in rectifying injustice.
Places near my location range from US $1 to $20.
As mentioned in my prior response, public service to pay one’s debt is acceptable. Corporate or any other similar private entity should have no hands in to gain profit.
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Absolutely agree. This isnt, however, how the majority of these situations working Taiwan (ie. it is absolutely.kostly for profit for private industry).
I see this as a potential problem. I realize it is far worse in other countries like China and the USA. But that still doesnt mean we shouldnt step super carefully here. especially given how extreme the laws are here. The fact they setup many legal frameworks to essentially allow almost anyone to be a criminal then just simply not be diligent is a huge red flag for a country.
Ya, it’s fine now. But it can go pear shaped at the snap of a finger. I assume this is done intentionally.
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A lot of prisoners are illiterate in their own language and lack skills. I haven’t even read the opening blog but yeah I agree if the guy can teach then great.
There are some people that really never should have been in prison, some wrongly convicted and some that deserve to be in there.
In a lot of western countries especially western Europe there is kind of no excuse to be in prison , as the social security systems can feed and house most. Hard prison time should probably be reserved for violent offenders , sex offenders etc.
This past three years , I had my motorscooter stolen once , my bicycle vandalized , and even my glasses stolen. Everyone of those incidents made me wish the perpetrator was punished , but prison nahh. Maybe make them wear a red boiler suit and clean the park toilets for a week.
The irony is that if I caught them doing that I’d probably have smacked them and got locked up myself.
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They also disproportionately have learning disabilities. Like, some shockingly high percentage of prisoners have learning disabilities. Unable to sit still/focus/learn in preschool > never learn to read, write or do basic math in elementary school + probably not treated particularly well by parents, teachers, peers > anyone is surprised they end up in a “life of crime”?
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A friend mentioned something to me years ago, that made me.rethink hiring them. but his words, although off the cuff, really had deep meaning.his words: you dont need to bother hiring.them because there are 2 types of prisoners here. bosses and rejects. The rejects cant work, and the bosses you shouldnt try to push to work (for obvious reasons).
outside of that though, there are the ones that didnt really commit a meaningful crime, in the sense of ethics, but couldnt pay the fee. there are countless examples. but Ibasically also disagree with the pay for freedom style here. even in cases of man slaughter (eg. traffic accidents). someone is either wrong.or not, and jail should be based on that. not the ability to pay your way out. this is a huge issue here in my opinion. A grocer that sells organic produce not in a bag gets a 100k fine and cant pay going.to jail would be insanity. I mean, luckilytaiwan always seems easy to find cash, but it doesnt work out well for some. the situation isnt so simple as criminals deserve tobe taught. some criminals didnt really do anything at all, but it was illegal. worth noting.actual laws, because Ibet every one of us on this forum are technically breaking a law or 2 somewhere and not realizing it.
I dont view Taiwan as terribly bad on treatment of criminals, but Ido view taiwan as over reaching on laws.
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I make you hundreds of plants from one seed.
You can only go to jail for criminal matters in Taiwan.
If you were issued a 100k administrative fine, all they can do is garnish your wage or put liens on properties you own to enforce it. Same with traffic fines.
On the other hand for criminal convictions where you were sentenced to jail time, and it’s less than 6 months, then you get a “easy fine” which means you pay 1000nt per day and not go to jail. So if you can’t or don’t pay, you go to jail.
However even under this circumstance if you can’t pay you can do community service, basically doing work for the government (probably digging ditches or something) as punishment.
Unless selling organic produce not in a bag is a criminal offense, and criminal offense means you were taken to a prosecutor and arraigned there. If it’s a bureaucrat issuing tickets/fines, then you don’t go to jail for it, they put liens on your property if you don’t pay.
By the way the easy fine thing is completely up to the prosecutor. If you’re a repeat offender they will NOT let you pay the fine and you will go to jail. Basically being a repeat offender (and this means 3 or more convictions within a 5 year period) tells them you never learned your lesson, and you need jail to learn it.
And you can’t go to jail in Taiwan for failing to pay traffic tickets. However if you want to renew a drivers license, transfer titles, or vehicle registration all tickets must be paid or you can’t do it. But unlike the land of the free, not paying traffic tickets won’t result in arrest.
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Selling organic produce not in a bag can get a 100K fine ? I never knew that and why ? For what ? So if you have a little plot of land , grow some sweet potatoes and sell them without a bag you can get fined 100K? I often buy some bananas from an old guy who sells a few on the street in the morning. He sells without a bag, and on the street . How would he pay 100k and come to think of it , it is probably illegal for me to help the guy out by buying a few of his bananas. 
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I’m pretty sure that was just an off-the-cuff example made with poetic license for absurdity rather than reality.
(But who knows, maybe that really is a law? 
)
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I’m also pretty sure it’s an administrative fine, meaning you can’t go to jail for it.
Taiwan doesn’t make everything a criminal matter unlike the land of the free.
Traffic fine is civil, meaning if you can’t pay, they can’t make you.
To clarify. if a shop is 100% organic, I believe this is a non issue. But dont quote me on that. if the shop sells non organic items then ALL organic items must be packaged and labelled accordingly. This means bulk items, raw produce etc cannot be sold without being contained. the minimum fine is 60k, and goes up. I am not sure what the maximum fine is. I have a number of customers that have been fined for this very thing this year. the laws I. taiwan are quite extreme. FDA, EPA etc are getting actually quite excessive. and slowly, unlike before, they are also becoming more diligent in doing their jobs.
For the items to be organic they arent just required to be certified at the farm, but the factory has to be certified as well. This is obvious, and has many implications on OEM and the like. It is much easier for “hand made” level company registration to do this. That works fine, but limits to domestic sales only (no export). The laws arent all bad, but they are awkward, flimsy , often unclear and rarely enforced. So Ifeel it is kind of a cluster fuck. Many of my.customers that are fined were fined because their organic produce were not in a package (eg. a bag). some are “eco stores” and are trying to do the environmental thing via less waste. they were fined for.that because their store also sold non organic items. Now, to be fair, the idea is to avoid contamination/lies. and that seems fair to want to avoid this. but a better regulatory and logistics framework clearly needs to be worked out.
All the more reason people really ought to get involved more. Not just businesses. In taiwna people actually have a voice. In my opinion. but I guess that’s a whole other conversation on how and why.
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I think the problem with many democracy is that most people just don’t care enough, and so often the rich people are the ones influencing policy.