The purpose of after-care is to protect those freshly released from prison by providing them with the settlement, skills training, employment or starting a business, education and psychological counseling, solving their problems and eliminating public discrimination, so that they can be accepted and supported, and can return to society and family.

Every ex-prisoner helped means one less victim in society. If the after-care work can be undertaken thoroughly, crime and social costs would also be reduced. After-care not only protects ex-prisoners - its ultimate goal is to protect the safety and property of the public.

 1.Qualifications for After-Care Client

According to Article 2 of the Rehabilitation Protection Act, the following individuals may be protected (hereinafter referred to as the after-care participants):

(1) The prisoner released from prison after serving the full term of a sentence or absolved;

(2) The prisoner released on parole, on bail, or bail for medical treatment;

(3) The prisoner released after serving the full term of correctional punishment, or being absolved from the correctional punishment;

(4) The juvenile delinquent who has served the full term at the reformatory;

(5) The defendant exempted from prosecution under Article 253 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or Article 147 of the Military Trial Law;

(6) The defendant exempted from punishment or service;

(7) The defendant whose sentence has been suspended;

(8) The defendant for whom imprisonment has been suspended or whom the prisons have rejected;

(9) The juvenile serving juvenile probation service;

(10) The juvenile under protective restraint.

 2.Types of Protection

(1)Application for Protection

The after-care participant may apply for protection with the Association or the branch closest to where he/she is domiciled, resides, or is located.

(2)Notified Protection

Where the prosecutor, military prosecutor, probation officer, or prison warden believes that there is a need to protect an after-care participant, he/she shall notify the After-Care Association or branch located near the domicile of the after-care participant. Subject to such person's consent, the Association shall immediately assign personnel to visit such a person and provide the necessary assistance.

3.Means of Protection

(1) Direct Protection

Direct protection is provided in instructing or reforming or skill training. The Association currently offers schools, halfway institutions, and businesses as direct protection institutions, and also collaborates with social welfare authorities in providing settlement and skills training.

 A.Schools

Schools for children and juveniles are established in Changhua and Taoyuan to house children and juveniles aged above 7 and under 18. Schools take the form of family-style management, where counselors and the children live together and provide schooling, family education, and character guidance. Through subtle immersion in everyday life, children re-learn the concepts of right and wrong as well as proper attitudes about life, thereby promoting normal development of personal character, correcting deviant behavior, and enabling them to return and adapt to family and social life.

 B.Halfway Institutions

Halfway institutions provide after-care participants who are homeless, temporarily unsuitable for returning home, or who voluntarily submit to drug rehabilitation programs with temporary accommodation, and provide them with employment, skills training, and psychological counseling and guidance. The period of accommodation is generally set as 6 months (or 18 months for those who are undergoing drug rehabilitation program); this period may be extended to 3 to 6 months if accommodation is still necessary after the expiry of the initial period. Meals and housing will be provided during this period, and day-to-day needs as well as petty cash will be provided each week depending on the circumstances. Those after-care participants who take drug rehabilitation programs will also benefit by being kept from the temptation of drugs.

 C.Skills Training

The after-care participant will be assisted in learning new skills, as an extension of the corrective function of the prison. The Association proactively collaborates with social resources and various local vocational training institutions in providing vocational programs in computing, cooking, ceramics, beautician training, gardening, textile design, mechanics, architecture, and advertising, thereby assisting the participant to rejoin the workforce or start his/her own business.

 D.Exemption from Technical Accreditation Fee

To enable financially strained after-care participants to learn new skills and apply for technical accreditation examinations, the Association has collaborated with the Ministry of Justice and the Central Region Office, Council of Labor Affairs in lobbying for a reduction of, or exemption from, the technical accreditation fee.

This reduction or exemption began in 2009; each after-care participant became entitled to one free accreditation in his/her lifetime. It changed in 2010; each participant is now entitled to one exemption from the technical accreditation fee for vocational skills in the same category, and three exemptions in total for vocational skills in different categories.

 E.Collaborating with Social Welfare Institutions in Providing Accommodation

To expand its functionality as a halfway house, the Association actively solicits other relevant social welfare institutions in providing housing services. The collaborating institution would provide accommodation, counseling personnel and pay the costs for the counseling services, while the Association would bear the costs of meals and petty cash for the person being housed, as well as partially subsidize the administrative expenses.

Types:

(A)Children and juveniles

(B)Adults

(C)Adults undergoing drug, or alcohol rehabilitation program

(D)Others (such as AIDS halfway house or halfway house for psychological illnesses and drug rehabilitation)

(2) Indirect Protection

A. Employment Assistance

To promote employment of after-care participants, the Association will assign personnel to correctional institutions every month to provide psychological counseling, vocational education, employment/entrepreneurial counseling services, and other measures to promote entry into the workforce. The Association will also reinforce its willingness to rejoin the workforce through post-prison tracking and counseling.
The Association proactively solicits businesses willing to provide after-care participants with employment, establishes a database of collaborating businesses, proactively makes individual contacts, and notifies individuals of employment-related information, to successfully match employers with employees.
Collaborating with employment agencies to develop new employment resources;
making use of such online employment agencies such as 123yes, e-Job, 1111 and 104 in referring job opportunities to after-care participants, and actively soliciting businesses and locating new collaborating businesses, to increase the number of job opportunities available to after-care participants.

B. Education Assistance

Where any child or juvenile under after-care is interested in pursuing further studies, he'she is assisted in entering, re-joining, or transferring to a school. To encourage the after-care participants to pursue further studies and to assist them with funding, scholarships, subsidies, special scholarships, and living expense allowances are also offered. Local branches of the Association also collaborate with local temples and charity groups in encouraging children of current and ex-prisoners in financial hardship to dedicate themselves to education. For this purpose, scholarships are also available for children of current and ex-prisoners.

C. Medical Counselling

Where an after-care participant has an illness and is unable to seek medical treatment due to financial hardship, the Association will assist by referring him/her to a public or private hospital, and provide such person with hospitalization or clinical treatment as necessary. Where such a person has no national health insurance and is unable to obtain any other social aid, the Association will provide appropriate financial assistance.

D. Alternative Care Counselling

Where an after-care participant is mentally incapacitated, psychologically weak, suffering from a severe illness or contagious disease, old, physically disabled to the extent of being unable to care for him/herself, or is aged over 65 without any family to care for him/her, the Association will request the appropriate social welfare authority to designate an appropriate nursing institution to house such a person, so that he/she will be properly cared for.

E. Emergency Assistance

Where the after-care participant or the spouse and lineal blood ascendant of such after-care participant are subject to a serious incident or crisis, that cannot be resolved on his/her own due to financial hardship, the Association will offer financial assistance depending on the circumstances, or request the relevant social welfare authority or private welfare group to provide the necessary assistance.

F. Interviewing After-care Participant

Upon receiving the written notice of after-care issued and submitted by correctional institution, district courts, district prosecutors office or other institutions, the Association will assign its staff or after-care counselor to interview the after-care participant by the protection notice, to understand the actual needs of the participant and provide the necessary counseling and assistance.

G. In-Prison Services

(A)To better implement the after-care function and promote coordination between the prison correction and after-care work, each branch will hold in-prison educational programs (psychological counseling, vocational education, employment
entrepreneurial counseling, general legal knowledge, and promotion of after-care and cultural activities) and counseling each month.

(B)Each branch will appoint the appropriate personnel to undertake in-prison service work and will provide individual counseling and guidance to prisoners who are about to be released, assisting them to make plans for their lives after the release and solve any potential problems that may arise after the release, as well as arrange for further education or employment.

(3) Temporary Protection

After-care participants will be given travel allowances-including returning to domicile or other places-subsidization of medical expenses, household registration, meals, and accommodation, or given small loans for starting businesses, or other appropriate means of protection. In the majority of cases, such assistance is given soon after the release of the prisoner.

A. Travel Allowances

Financial assistance is given to those who are freshly released from prison and lack the funds necessary to return home, or who become unemployed away from home, or who fail to meet the friends they arranged to meet, and are temporarily stranded away from home.

B. Subsidization of Medical Expenses

Subsidization of a part of the medical expenses is given to after-care participants in financial hardship, who receive medical treatment for injury or illness at a public hospital, medical center or regional hospital and are unable to cover the medical expenses on their own.

C. Financial Assistance for Meals and Accommodation

Financial assistance is provided where an after-care participant is far away from home and must return home by car, ferry or airplane, and where he'she is unable to bear the cost of meals and accommodation while waiting for the scheduled time of travel. Money is also provided to after-care participants who must undergo medical treatment or be sent to alternative care due to physical or mental impediment, and are unable to bear the costs of meals and accommodation incurred in the course of travel.

D. Business Start Loan

When a less than four years participant has the entrepreneurial ability and experience to operate a small business but lacks the required funds, in the interests of enabling such person to make his/her living, a small loan will be granted upon the case being assessed and approved by the branch assessment team, provided that the after-care participant provides two or more persons with the financial ability or of honest background as his/her co-guarantors, or provides real estate for the mortgage.

4. "0800 After-Care Service Hotline'

This hotline provides after-care participants and their families with information about employment and emergency assistance, as well as answers questions about drug addiction rehabilitation. It also offers legal consulting and psychological counseling, ensuring that after-care participants and their families receive convenient and timely assistance. The after-care service hotline is: "0800-788595",
During the Chinese New Year holidays, the after-care service hotline continues to operate. This is important to after-care participants who are unable to return to their homes due to emergency, lack of funds, or homelessness. The hotline "'Service Online, Warmth Unending" will continue to provide after-care participants and families in need with relevant information and assist participants to return home and solve their problems, reducing the likelihood of their committing further offenses.