Outdated security, slack management blamed for jailbreak

BEIJING - The Ministry of Justice has blamed an attempted escape by two prisoners on an obsolete security system and slack management, and urged other prisons to learn from the incident.

Saturday's prison break stunt saw one of the inmates from Beijiang Prison in South China's Guangdong province knocked down by electric wire netting and recaptured after attempting to scale the prison wall, while another escaped but was arrested nearby the next day.

"Facilities at Beijiang Prison are rather outdated... and it's one of the units that hasn't completed an information upgrade of its security system. Surely, there are also issues in its inner management," Zhang Sujun, vice minister of justice, said Wednesday at a press conference.

Zhang revealed that only a 500-meter section of the prison's 1,700-meter-long wall met prison construction codes, without offering further details.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate has ordered Guangdong provincial prosecutors to investigate possible official misconduct behind the jailbreak. It is China's second such case in less than two months.

So far, two prison heads have been dismissed from their posts for the Saturday jailbreak, and the would-be escapees are under interrogation.

"The Beijiang Prison case deeply upset those of us working in the (legal) system," said Zhang. "A jailbreak is a breach of the authority of the law, and not a single case should be allowed."

The ministry has urged prisons nationwide to learn lessons from the incident and canvass their own units for potential security weaknesses.