In a narrow sense, a prison refers to a criminal who is sentenced to death with a two-year suspension of execution, life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law.
The principle of combining punishment with reform and combining education with labor is applied to criminals, and criminals are transformed into law-abiding citizens. The competent department of a prison is the Prison Administration, and the highest administrative department is the Ministry of Justice.
1. The punishment function of a prison refers to the sum of the psychological pain effects caused by the state's putting the criminal's body and mind under the condition of punishment and restricting his spiritual and material life.
2. The reform function of prison refers to the sum of educational effects of changing criminals' criminal concepts and cultivating them to abide by the law according to the purpose of punishment.
3. The defense function of a prison refers to the sum of the effects of preventing criminals from committing crimes again by executing penalties, and at the same time, warning, deterring and educating other people who may commit crimes in society so that they will not embark on the road of crime.
4. Special prevention means that by executing the penalty, the prison isolates the criminals from the society and loses the conditions for committing crimes again, thus depriving the criminals of their personal freedom and preventing them from committing crimes again while serving their sentences.
5. General prevention means that the prison punishes criminals to deter those who have not committed crimes and prevent them from committing crimes.