TAIPEI: Prison inmates, serving jail terms of six months or less, are to go to work today, helping with digging out and reconstruction in some of the areas worst hit by Typhoon Morakot.

A "Ministry of Justice" spokesman said the early-release program falls under a Criminal Code Amendment passed in January, providing for sentences requiring convicted criminals to provide community service.

Under the Amendment, passed in order to reduce overcrowding in prisons, petty criminals are permitted to perform community service if they cannot afford to pay fines and prefer not to serve their full terms behind bars.

At present more than 1,800 of Taiwan's nearly 64,000 convicted prisoners are eligible to apply for the early-release program. The government expects that about a thousand will perform community service annually.

The prison population is estimated to be about 9,000 over capacity.

Authorities have not provided the number of inmates who will take part in relief work in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot.

The storm lashed Taiwan August 7-9, dumping massive amounts of rain on the southern parts of the island, burying villages under tons of mud and washing out roads and bridges.

Overcrowding is most serious in prisons in Taipei, Keelung and Taoyuan, said Wu Hsien-chang, director of Department of Corrections.

Social service groups have had mixed reactions to the community-service sentencing idea.

Wang Yu-min, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Child Welfare League Foundation, said the group would welcome male convicts to do manual labor, such as moving cartons of toys and cleaning. The foundation would be willing to take on the inmates, as long as they were not convicted of violent crimes or sexual assault, Wang said.

The Genesis Social Welfare Foundation is not interested.

"We have enough resources to recruit volunteers, so we would be pleased to let other charity organizations have the convicts," a foundation spokesman said.

Shihlin District Prosecutors Office spokesman Yen Nai-wei said yesterday that the community service program would not hurt public order because the eligible inmates would be screened by prosecutors before being released.

"The program is not expected to exacerbate the unemployment problem either," said Yen, pointing out that more than 1,000 public organizations and schools have asked for a total of 1,900 inmates.

The Shihlin District Prosecutors Office, however, will release only 200 inmates into the community service program next month.

CNA/Reuters

(HK Edition 09/01/2009 page2)