Moral pressures, rejection by the group, self-recrimination and feelings of disgrace. . . such things often cause the families of criminals to hang their heads in public. Such punishment not only harms these families, it harms our whole society.
Last May, the Department of Education of the Taiwan Provincial Government and the Taipei County Police Department jointly sponsored an event which selected a "Law-Abiding Little Angel" from among the students at each of the county's primary schools. But the child who won the overall first prize had that prize taken away when the police discovered that his father had a criminal record.
In July of last year, three candidates for admission to the Central Police University who scored well on their entrance examinations failed the university's background check when it was discovered that their fathers had criminal records. On reaching the interview stage, they were denied admission. However, when the media exposed the story, the Ministry of the Interior loosened the standards of the background check and the three were admitted to the university.
The five-year-old son of Chen Chin-hsing, one of the principle culprits in the Pai Hsiao-yan kidnapping and murder, has been pushed into a fishpond several times because of his strong resemblance to his father.
Such occurrences are frequent, but few people seem to be asking if such treatment is fair.
Treating the whole clan as accessories
One of the basic premises of modern law is that punishment is limited to the perpetrator of a crime.
Chiu Chen-pei, a lawyer with Power Well Law Offices, asks why it is that although people have no power to choose their parents, we nonetheless make them responsible for their parents' mistakes. He says that the ancient Chinese idea that guilt extends to the wife and children of a criminal is not in keeping with the spirit of modern law.
In imperial days, guilt didn't even stop with the wife and children. Examples abound of entire clans being executed for the crimes of one member. The importance with which Chinese view family relationships has led to adages such as "if a man be moral, even his dogs and chickens will ascend unto heaven." Good works "glorify one's ancestors" and "shine honor on one's door." Likewise, if one commits a crime or loses one's position, it reflects on the whole family.
Chinese legal tradition not only subjects a criminal, but his whole clan to the long arm of the law. This extension of guilt to the extended family existed as early as the Shang dynasty (trad. 1766-1122 BC). The Shang Shu, a text of this era, states that if a man commits a crime, his wives and children are also to be executed. Later, this "guilt by association" was extended to more and more distant relations, reaching its extreme in the Qing dynasty case of Lu Liulang, whose guilt led not only to his extended family being executed, but even his students.
But although the law has changed to limit punishment to the person who committed the crime, tradition persists-in the hearts of many people, the "law" has not yet changed. While the legal system punishes criminals, society punishes their families.
The Services for Inmates' Families (SIF) department of Taiwan's Red Heart Association, which consists of three social workers and a team leader, is currently the only professional social work organization providing aid to families of convicted criminals. How the department came into being is a story in itself.
Several years ago, a reporter was sent to interview a recently arrested suspect. The suspect wept bitter tears which the reporter assumed stemmed from his impending incarceration. But the suspect surprised the reporter, stating that he was not crying for himself, but was worried about how his elderly parents, his wife and his children would survive with him in jail. The reporter was deeply moved and the next day wrote an article which spoke against punishing the families of criminals.
In 1988, the Red Heart Association was established in Taiwan. Li Hsien-kuang, executive director of the association, is that reporter's son. His father's article made a deep impression on him, so in the early days after the association was established, he made providing services to families of criminals one of its objectives.
Data on families which the Red Heart Association has helped show that most come to the association for legal advice and help with psychological and economic difficulties.
"My husband said not to appeal, that an appeal wouldn't do any good anyway. [He said] we should keep the money [that we would spend on an appeal] to live on. What do you think? Should I file an appeal for my husband?" The question is asked of a social worker at the Red Heart Association by the 18-year-old wife of man currently in prison. Meanwhile, her two children romp at her side. One can't help but be concerned for their future.
Yang Wen-chuen, a member of the SIF team, says that most people are scared and worried when they have their first encounter with the law. They don't know how serious their situation may be and are not familiar with the legal process. Some can't afford to hire a lawyer and have nowhere to turn for help. The Red Heart Association thus provides legal advice to the families of those in legal troubles.
Branded
Emotional problems often arrive with the rendering of a verdict. Liu Shang-lan, head of the SIF team, says that when a person is actually incarcerated, family members often feel rage, helplessness, humiliation, guilt or inexpressible emotions. Parents and wives have to bear the burden of feeling that they didn't keep a close enough eye on their child or husband. Children have to live within a society which views them as the children of a criminal.
Research by Hung Chuen-chuen, who holds an MA from Soochow University's graduate institute of social work, indicates the most difficult problem for a family to overcome is the stigma of being branded as family of a criminal.
"Those imprisoned are evildoers." "Criminals' families are problem families." "Birds of a feather flock together." "The family didn't fulfill its responsibility to teach and admonish." "The family is an accomplice and is just the same as the criminal." Such sayings abound and are a heavy load for family members at school, in the workplace and in the community.
"I prefer to tell people he's dead," says the wife of one imprisoned man. The child of another, serving time for drug smuggling, says, "I go to see him, but I don't like him. I'm angry at him for leaving me unable to hold my head up at school."
In addition, with the "bread winner" in jail, money is a problem for these families. Yang Wen-chuen says that families which meet the low-income criteria can apply for assistance. However, if they don't meet these criteria, they can only apply for a lump sum emergency assistance payment of NT$10,000-20,000, an amount of limited use to a family that has lost its economic viability.
To encourage the children of convicted criminals to strive to get ahead, the Red Heart Association offers them scholarships. Liu Shang-lan says that the association's purpose is to encourage children to pursue higher studies. Therefore, eligibility standards only require that the children have passing grades in their classes and receive a mark of at least 80 out of 100 for conduct. Last year, 46 children received the association's scholarships.
The children of Kao Yu-kuan, the wife of an imprisoned man, have won scholarships from the association for several years running. She says that her husband has been in jail for almost six years on drug-related charges, so she must work several jobs to support their six children. She cooks snacks at a kindergarten, mops the floors in a hospital, collects litter from the streets and does whatever temporary work comes up. For her, the association's scholarships are like sweet rain on parched earth.
A family secret
Annie Yu, a professor in both National Taiwan University's department and graduate institute of sociology, believes that the "pseudo-single-parent families" of prison inmates are more problematic than genuine single-parent families.
Mothers often choose to hide their husbands' incarceration from their kids for a number of reasons, including not knowing how to tell their children, fear that the children will look down on their fathers, fear of ruining the children's image of their father, concerns that the children will become "bad kids," and worries that the children will develop feelings of inferiority or that others will look down on them. Instead, they tell the children their father has "gone on a long journey" or that he is "doing business overseas."
But research shows that hiding the truth from children leads to confusion, anxiety and rejection. Liu Shang-lan says that when the father suddenly disappears, the mother becomes extremely busy, the children are transferred to other schools and the family moves for reasons which are not explained to the kids. . . . The children can't help but have suspicions. As a result, they become heavy-hearted and taciturn.
Hung Chuen-chuen's research shows that the father's incarceration becomes a taboo subject for the family. Regardless of whether the children knew of their father's imprisonment or not, all of the subjects she interviewed indicated that their children would not ask about or discuss this issue of their own accord even within the family. With non family members, it was an even more tightly held "family secret." Since these families felt that they had "lost face and [didn't want to] air the family's dirty laundry in public," family members worked together to keep the secret and did not take the initiative in providing this information to others.
Yang Wen-chuen says that overseas it is fairly common for the families of incarcerated persons to form their own self-help groups. Faced with the same sorts of troubles, members of such groups are very helpful to one another. In Taiwan, the Red Heart Association has tried several times to organize such groups, but has as yet been unable to get one going. The biggest obstacle has been the feeling of "self-imprisonment" the families have as a result of societal pressures.
The role of society
Although families prefer to keep their secret to themselves, the media often makes that impossible.
Take Hsiao-kang (not his real name), who is currently waiting to begin his military service, as an example. While watching TV with his elder bother one day during the summer before the start of his second year of middle school, he saw news of his father being arrested for drug smuggling. "I didn't want to believe it." At first, he thought that if he didn't say anything no one would know about it. He didn't expect that as soon as classes began he would be called in for a talk with his teacher.
"Not long after that, my friends' parents told them they couldn't associate with me. The parents were afraid I'd turn them into bad kids. But the kids who were a little wild sought me out." Hsiao-kang, who wanted to do well at everything and had pride in himself, couldn't bear the way he was viewed by others, whether with pity or with disdain. He began skipping classes and hanging out in video game parlors. He also got together with others to steal, bully and extort money. His originally strong moral sense fell by the wayside.
"You can't blame us for having extreme personalities." Hsiao-kang says that society made him that way. "Now Chen Chin-hsing's kid is being pushed into ponds. When he grows up and can do something, will he strike back?" he asks.
Hsiao-kang says that if at that time he hadn't been cast out, if his path forward had not been blocked, at least the decision of whether to be a good or bad person would have been his own. "But everybody labeled me as the 'child of a criminal.' Given that, should I conform to their expectations and also become a criminal?"
Asked about how her husband's imprisonment has affected her children, Kao Yu-kuan is pained. She says that when it happened, her daughter had just entered middle school. The little girl hated her father and would go so far as to glare at any man she saw. Kao's sixth-grade son developed an inferiority complex. . . . Kao says that whenever she had any free time, she took the children swimming or to play ball, anything to help them let off some steam and keep them too busy to think too much.
"We were lucky to have met a lot of very good people," she says. Not only did their teachers tell them repeatedly, "Your father's mistake is not your mistake," the father of a classmate of her son's even told her that if she had any difficulties paying the children's tuition, he would help. Even today, when she thinks back to the warmth of this offer, she can't hold back her tears.
An inheritance?
Statistics from the United States show that among prison inmates there, 37% have a relative who is a convicted criminal, 70% come from single-parent homes and the children of inmates are five times more likely than other children to commit a crime.
Unfortunately, no such statistics are available for Taiwan. Nonetheless, Lin Chien-yang, a professor in the graduate institute of crime prevention at the Central Police University, states that based on a Ministry of Justice analysis of crime in Taiwan, while the family has the greatest influence on the probability of a child's committing a crime, the influence of a parent's criminality is slight. In 70% of such cases, crimes were traced backed to poor child-rearing on the part of the parents.
But even though having a criminal parent was not the key factor in children committing crimes, it may nonetheless influence behavior indirectly. Chou Ching-fen, a former director of the SIF, says that when incarceration separates a criminal from his family, family relationships are sorely tested. Such sudden changes have a negative effect on other family members. And then there are also the social pressures. Just how much is a child supposed to bear?
Liu Shang-lan says that over the last six years an average of nearly 40,000 children per year have been separated from a parent because that parent was incarcerated. This experience of involuntary separation from a parent not only scars a child's development, it also creates a crisis for the family. Divorce and the disintegration of the family are a frequent result. Yang Wen-chuen says that according to data from the courts, in 1997 the imprisonment of a spouse was second only to abandonment as the most prevalent ground for divorce.
"The punishment administered to criminals also punishes the next generation. Punishment is inherited, so how can we expect criminality not to be?" asks Lin Chien-lung, an associate professor in the English department at Soochow University. Lin, who admits that he has had a very complete experience of jail having attended reform school as well as serving time in juvenile and adult prisons, says treating these children hatefully only makes them turn against society.
Lin uses his own experience to explain. He was born into a poor family. With his parents so busy trying to make ends meet that they had no time to raise the children properly, at one time three of the family's ten members were in prison. Once, two of his uncles were sent to prison together. The neighbors said they were "bad seeds." But Lin says, "What was bad was the environment, not the seeds." In prison, Lin read a great deal, constantly tempering the metal of his being with learning. He took test after test and divided his time between work and study until he finally succeeded in improving his station in life. Because of his own bad experiences, he even offered to adopt the two children of Chen Chin-hsing. Lin says, "Let me raise them. I don't believe in 'bad seeds.'"
Redemption through love
The Red Heart Association has been quietly going about the work of providing assistance to the families of criminals for 10 years now. In that time, they have cared for more than 700 such families.
Yang Wen-chuen says that many people are suspicious of work done on behalf of families of criminals. The families of the victims of crime are particularly apt to point the finger of blame. They ask, "What's the good in helping the families of criminals?" Or they say, "They've gotten what they deserved. The families of victims are the ones that really need help."
"We don't deny the rights of victims, but we want to remind everyone that the families of criminals are also victims. They are innocent. There is nothing contradictory in offering compassion and assistance to both these families and those of victims." Yang says that only by understanding the difficulties and needs of these families, and by encouraging them to improve their circumstances, can we avoid creating more crime. "Aiding the families of criminals is actually helping ourselves and our own children."
In fact, providing aid to these families not only prevents criminality from becoming an inheritance, it also helps in lowering the likelihood that criminals will become repeat offenders.
Many crime prevention experts believe that not only is the love of their families a major source of hope and support for imprisoned criminals, it is also a strong motivation to turn over a new leaf.
John Yau of the Christian Born Anew Fellowship writes in an article that Ministry of Justice statistics on repeat offenders show that the two principal factors in discouraging criminals from becoming repeat offenders on their release from prison are the acceptance and stability of their families, and a stable job and living environment.
The Red Heart Association hopes that more people will take time to think about the issue of criminals' families. Social attitudes need to undergo a change. People need to view the situation of these families, themselves victims in many ways, with care and sympathy.
And what do these families think? "Even though the hurt from other people finding out is not as bad as it used to be, I still do my best to keep it a secret," says Hsiao-kang, who though once lost has now regained his self-confidence and sense of achievement through activities such as participation in school clubs, visiting orphanages, donating blood and organizing social events. Hsiao-kang says he doesn't want to be discriminated against, nor does he want pity. "A person is responsible for what he does. Don't extend that to other people. That's enough."
"There isn't anything honorable in this situation. But from another perspective, a rotten tree can still produce good seeds. Even though a father makes a mistake, if his children can strive to get ahead in the world, if they do well in school, these exceptional kids should be noticed and receive encouragement. Society, the nation should give them fair recognition, let them be proud of themselves and allow them to face the world with courage. . . ." So writes Kao Yu-kuan in an article she published under her own name, articulating the hope that every convicted criminal's family holds out to society.
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(left) "A person is responsible for what he does. Don't extend that to other people." Hsiao-kang believes that society shouldn't punish the innocent. Being the son of a criminal wasn't his idea.
(above) When a verdict is rendered and a criminal sent to jail, his family enters an invisible prison of its own, built around it by society.
p.122
Under Qing dynasty law, a subject who rebelled was executed, and punishment was also meted out to his father, grandfather, sons, grandsons, brothers, and even those who shared his living quarters. (courtesy of Lin Han-chang)
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For security reasons many organizations-including the Investigations Bureau, military intelligence, the judiciary, the police and the military police-run background checks on applicants. Only those with a "clean" personal and family record are hired. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)
p.124
Over the last 10 years, social workers from the Red Heart Association have helped the families of more than 700 imprisoned criminals. Unfortunately, most Taiwanese still view their work with suspicion.
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The Red Heart Association is the only domestic organization which provides aid to the families of imprisoned criminals. The organization distributes fliers in the visiting areas of jails and prisons to let families know that it is available to help.
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Lin Chien-lung, once imprisoned for murder but now a university professor, believes that the "passing down" of criminal behavior to the next generation is a function of environment. Kids aren't born bad. The way to break this chain is letting go of the desire for revenge and helping these families.
p.128
A wall covered with awards demonstrates Kao Yu-kuan's children's determination to better their circumstances. Kao says that if only they are given a fair chance, they will excel.
For security reasons many organizations-- including the Investigations Bureau, military intelligence, the judiciary, the police and the military police--run background checks on applicants. Only those with a "clean" and family record are hired. （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）
Over the last 10 years, social workers from the Red Heart Association have helped the families of more than 700 imprisoned criminals. Unfortunately, most Taiwanese still view their work with suspicion.
The Red Heart Association is the only domestic organization which provides aid to the families of imprisoned criminals. The organization distributes fliers in the visiting areas of jails and prisons to let families know that it is available to help.
Lin Chien-lung, once imprisoned for murder but now a university professor, believes that the "passing down" of criminal behavior to the next generation is a function of environment. Kids aren't born badly. The way to break this chain is letting go of the desire for revenge and helping these families.
A wall covered with awards demonstrates Kao Yu-kuan's children's determination to better their circumstances. Kao says that if only they are given a fair chance, they will excel.
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