Editor's note: Accompanying China's headline growth figures and rising affluence are gut-wrenching social changes which sometimes threaten to fray the fabric of society and are often not reported.

In a five-part series starting today, China Daily offers insights into some of the struggles people face in their daily lives and what is being done to help them.

They called Liu Ming a worm.

That was how convicted rapists and murderers at Beijing Prison showed contempt for their fellow inmate when he was brought to the institution. Liu was convicted of embezzlement when he was a senior official at a Beijing State-owned enterprise in 1999. (To protect his privacy, a pseudonym has been used).

"Worm" is a term often used for corrupt officials because, like worms that eat wood from the inside, they "eat" away at the government system from within.

Liu, now 50, was sentenced to 20 years. He found it hard to adjust to prison life and felt the walls of his 12-person cell closing in on him. Last year, he became severely depressed and needed counselling.

If this had happened five or six years ago, Liu and others like him might have lapsed into more severe psychological problems.

But in 2002, the municipality's prison bureau launched a programme to provide prison police with psychological training in order to let them provide support to inmates who might need it. The idea was mooted as long back as in 1989 but the implementation across the country took many years.

Now, almost all of China's more than 700 prisons have qualified psychologists on their staff.

Liu felt even worse after his sentence was passed when he realized the cellmate in the bed above him was a convicted rapist while the inmate in the adjacent bed was a murderer. All of them were serving sentences of between 15 and 20 years.

"They call me 'worm.' But I think they are horrifying," Liu wrote in a letter to Cao Guangjian, director of the correction and psychology department of Beijing Prison.

"We are not from the same world. I can't talk to them."

Liu refused to talk, and isolated himself. He said he even welcomed the thought of dying.

Liu approached Cao for counselling. "We gave him hope, taught him to live a better life, to get on well with his cellmates and work hard," Cao said. After a year, Liu's depression was gone. He worked hard and got on so well with his fellow inmates that his sentence was reduced.

Mental health training for police at Beijing Prison began in 2002. In 2004 the first of five officers on the staff authorised to give counselling became qualified.

Psychological support is a new method of correcting inmates' behaviour. And it is just the beginning. Every year, the Ministry of Justice gives training to police officers.

"Prison is not a place to punish," Cao said. "It should be a place of education and correction."

The correction and psychology office in Beijing Prison consists of two rooms decorated in bright colours with two large windows. Two large sofas face a glass table on which a telephone sits. In this counselling room, inmates can talk either to police trained in psychology or to personnel from a local mental hospital.

In another room are two pieces of fitness equipment a running treadmill and a punch bag.

On this particular day, inmate Li Yan, 33, wearing a blue and white uniform, was fiercely hitting the bag.

"Boxing can help let out our emotions when we are bored," said Li, who has been in prison for 11 years after a drug trafficking conviction.

Standing 3 metres away was police psychologist Sun Maolin, who laughed and said: "Hitting a sandbag is better than punching me or other people."

Joking aside, compared to ordinary citizens, inmates have a greater need of psychological assistance, said Zhang Yanping, deputy director of the Huilongguan Hospital in Beijing, one of the best mental health clinics in the capital.

"Inmates whose lives never change in prison are more vulnerable to changes happening outside the walls," Zhang said.

It is hard for them to cope with being separated from family members and the fact that prison is home for them for a certain period of time, in some cases for the rest of their lives, she said.

Sun cited an example. When one inmate's grandmother died, he lost the only family he had and the only thing he was looking forward to at the end of his term. He wanted to commit suicide.

Prison police noticed his attempts and arranged counselling sessions for him until he gave up the idea.

Since psychological problems are often deemed responsible for many things like fights, self-injury and even suicide, therapy is also vital for security inside a prison.

"If we didn't have therapy sessions, the situation could get out of control," Cao said.

The effect of counselling is easily seen. Beijing Prison officials have reported no attempts at self-injury since the launch of the programme. Furthermore, fewer criminals attempt more crime while inside prison if they have received counselling, Cao said.

"If their problems were not properly solved, these issues would probably come up when they leave prison and could cause harm to the community," he said. But if the inmates are counselled, "they will use the skills they've learnt in prison to find jobs and lead legitimate lives."

The therapy has an impact on the police, as well.

Cao Guangjian, 33, an officer for 11 years, says that since being trained his methods of communication with inmates have totally altered.

"Before, I thought I was superior to them," said Cao. But after three years of psychology training, he found he was starting to make friends with the inmates. Cao shakes their hands and invites them to sit on the sofa for therapy. "Now we are equal human beings," he said. "I respect them and truly want to help them. As a result, it becomes easier for inmates to accept my advice and they are more willing to talk to me."

His colleague Sun Maolin said the department's employees plan to dress in ordinary clothes to make inmates feel more relaxed. Also, female psychologists/police officers are to be introduced when a video counselling session with inmates is launched.

That means the inmates and female psychologists will not be in the same room, which is expected to better protect the women from possible physical attack.

"Male inmates like to talk with and feel more relaxed with female therapists," Sun said.

Call for objectivity

However, the programme has some critics. Some former inmates, such as Pan Rui, said police officers trained as counsellors have both positive and negative points.

"The move is a big step forward because it shows the progress of the legal system," said Pan, 32, who runs his own ex-prisoner aid service in Beijing called Loving Navigation, a non-profit organization.

But the downside, he said, is that inmates are so used to resisting the police and have such a strong sense of self-preservation that they won't tell the truth. "They worry about the consequences if they share what they really think," Pan added.

For example, during a visit to a youth correctional institution, an inmate whose wife ran away with his friend told Pan he wanted to escape from prison and take revenge.

"In such a case, he won't say a single word to the police about what he's been going through," Pan said. "But he could trust me because he knew I won't tell anyone."

Pan suggested introducing a third party, separate from inmates and law enforcement departments.

"Not all inmates are willing to talk to prison therapists because they are also police officers; they want to talk to someone from the outside," said Zhang Yanping from the Huilongguan Hospital, which launched a hotline with Beijing Prison in October 2004.

It is the first hotline in the country to help prisons that have inmates with psychological problems. It has already received more than 100 calls.

Officials credit the hotline with the prevention of three suicides. When an inmate talks to a hotline counsellor, the counsellor will ask questions and write the answers on a form, Zhang said.

"The index is from zero to 10 degrees," Zhang said. "If the evaluation is above 8, it indicates a possible suicide attempt. The doctors tell the prison to place the inmate under 24-hour suicide watch."

Another part of the programme is to expose inmates to society.

"Often, they have no hope for the future," Pan said. "They don't know what is happening in the outside world. If they can visit a company or factory and get in touch with real life once in a while, they can maintain a ray of hope for living in the outside world."

The prison has invited university students majoring in psychology to come as volunteers to counsel the inmates. Each summer, about 10 students from Peking University and Tsinghua University talk to prisoners face-to-face.

Increasing visits from relatives and friends is also seen as having a similar benefit.

"At some prisons, only close relatives are allowed to visit," Pan said.

"In fact, relatives or friends can make inmates feel that they're loved, and that feeling simply cannot be gained through therapy."

Source: China Daily