All detainees in the re-education through labor centers in Beijing have been released, the Beijing News reported on Thursday.

The newspaper has found that all six centers in Beijing have removed their name boards as re-education through labor centers. Some of them have been emptied and some inmates have been transferred to drug rehabilitation facilities, the newspaper said. 

The community-based correction system has been introduced in Beijing to punish minor criminal offenders who might have been sent to re-education through labor centers previously, according to a report released by Beijing judicial authorities at midnight on Monday.

A total of 5,098 criminals are in the community correction program in Beijing, the report said.

The bi-monthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted a resolution to abolish legal documents on re-education through labor, or laojiao, on Saturday.

The resolution stresses that all laojiao penalties before the abolition of the system remain valid. After abolition, those still serving laojiao time will be set free.

Global Times