2009-09-14
Social Labor Service is Expected to be Substituted for Sentences of Incarceration and Fines
The new system where sentences of imprisonment or fines are converted to “social labor service” will be put into effect on September 1, 2009.
At the end of 2008, the Legislative Yuan passed an Amendment to Article 41 of Taiwan’s Criminal Law, enacting the system of “social labor service.” According to the Amendment, a person who has committed crimes for which the maximum sentence is under five years imprisonment and who has been sentenced to less than six months imprisonment, even in cases where no conversion into a fine is available, is allowed to convert his/her sentence of imprisonment into a social labor service with the prosecutor’s permission. Minister of Justice Ching-Feng Wang has described this new system as “social imprisonment substitute.”
Based on preliminary statistics provided by district prosecutors’ offices in Taiwan, there will be 800 to more than 1000 defendants convicted of minor offenses whose sentences of imprisonment or fine can be converted to social labor service. The district prosecutors’ offices have made plans to have these people contribute to reconstruction in the typhoon Morakot disaster areas.
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