China is reforming its prison system, including plans to relocate rural prisons to urban areas.

Minister of Justice Zhang Fusen has called for assistance from society to help jails reform prisoners.

"Efforts in prisons alone are not enough to turn a criminal into a law-abiding citizen," he said. "With help from more people from outside, we expect to improve prisoners' ability to adapt to the outside world after release."

After a year of trial run in six provinces, China announced in November that it plans to move about half of its jails in the next seven years.

Of more than 600 jails nationwide, half are located in remote rural areas. The Ministry of Justice plans to move them to urban areas with better transportation.

After the relocation, prisons will be more accessible for specialists, social workers and volunteers to help reform prisoners while their facilities will also be improved, Zhang said.

In east China's Jiangsu Province, a beauty salon opened in Nanjing Women's Prison last November.

"The beauty shop was opened primarily for the purpose of providing training for prisoners," said Zou Liqi, director of the shop, who has 12 students at present.

Such training, as well as computer classes, is intended to help prisoners make a living after they served out their sentences, Zou said.

Jails have asked for cooperation from outside in fields such as health care, education and training for inmates, said Liang Gang, deputy director of the Prison Administration under the Ministry of Justice.

Community rectification programs have been tried in six provinces including Beijing, Shanghai and east China's Jiangsu Province for early this year.

For decades prisons in China tried to create a self-sufficient world behind bars. Some jails located in remote mountainous region even had to build schools for wardens' children and find jobs for their wives, which has been a huge burden when they already lacked money.

Things have changed, and jail logistics, long monopolized by the government, have began to solicit non-government suppliers.

The first jail supermarket opened in Shanghai in 1999 and so far almost all prisons in the city have one to supply daily necessities for inmates.

The Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai opened an on-line service for prisoners to order goods from the supplier since the prison does not have enough space to open a real supermarket.

The reforms have just begun and jails in less developed regions still have a long way to go, Liang said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2003)