China is a country where the rule of law is selective and often unjust. One source of injustice is the 50-year-old system known as "laodong jiaoyang," or re-education through labor. Under this system, tens of thousands of offenders are imprisoned in China without trial.
A United Nations Human Rights Council report estimates that some 190,000 Chinese were locked up in 320 re-education -- or "laojiao" -- centers in 2009. That is in addition to an estimated 1.6 million Chinese convicted in regular courts and held in the formal prison system.
The "re-education through labor" system dates back to the 1950s when the newly established communist regime swept up "counter-revolutionaries" and "class enemies" to maintain order. Today it empowers police to jail accused offenders -- from petty thieves and prostitutes to drug abusers -- for up to four years without a judicial hearing.
Though the practice is supposedly meant for only minor offenders, critics of the system say it is often used as a tool to persecute government critics, including intellectuals, human rights activists and followers of banned spiritual groups like the Falun Gong, and is a major source of human rights violations.