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Taiwan’s Former Political Prisons: From Incarceration to Curation

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The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Tourism

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ((PSIPP))

Abstract

In 1949, the Nationalist Party of China (Kuomintang, KMT) established a settler-state Chinese government in Taiwan, determining Taiwan’s fate for the next half century. The Party leader, Chiang Kai-Shek, imposed martial law (1949–1987) across Taiwan. During the martial law period, police and security forces were involved in torture, which included putting psychological pressure on detainees, as well as the surveillance and harassment of relatives and other associates of dissidents. Three prisons witnessed the persecutions during the period of martial law: the Jing-Mei Detention Centre; the New Life Correction Centre; and the Oasis Villa in Green Island. These prisons incarcerated more than 3000 political prisoners accused of treason or subversion.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to the Ministry of National Defence and its subordinate agencies, the register for the Trials and Charges of Sedition and Espionage during Martial Law contained the names of 27,350 people as of 2005; the victims of the White Terror during the 1950s accounted for over half of this list (Qiu and Xie 2007).

  2. 2.

    Lin Shu-yang (1926–2012) read propaganda from the anti-imperialist, leftist, and socialist movement and joined the underground “Huan Zhong Hui,” another part of the Taiwanese leftist movement, after Japan surrendered. He was arrested in the middle of the night at his home on May 31, 1950, and was confined until 17 December 1984, when he was released (Lan 2012).

  3. 3.

    Each of the squadrons had six dormitory rooms for inspectors in the front of the cell area. A leaflet notes that the size of each bed was 135 cm in width to accommodate three to four prisoners; with 120–160 prisoners in total in one dorm cell (Lin 2012).

  4. 4.

    In 1949, the KMT, sensing an approaching crisis, appointed Wu Kuo-Chen as Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial government, to promote an image of democracy and to gain American support. Despite the tense political climate, he stood up against the rampaging police and military powers and Chiang Ching-kuo’s intelligence system. In 1954, while Wu was in the United States, he spoke out about the misconduct of the Taiwanese government, describing the establishment of political prisons and incarceration of young patriots on Green Island. In March 1954, he was accused of embezzlement and failure in fulfilling his duties and was dismissed. Soon after, Green Island gained international attention, and US ambassadors and journalists visited the island in the 1950s. As such, when journalists arrived, the new lifers with poor education, who enjoyed chatting, were sent into the mountains and those who were interviewed were instructed to act out classes, games, and other aspects of life for the journalists; the pictures taken were for an international audience (Lin et al. 2003: 37–38).

  5. 5.

    The prisoners arrested and sentenced during the White Terror had different political ideologies; therefore, there are multiple types of political victim groups, including leftist, pro-unification, pro-independence, and nonpartisan (Wang 2014: 50).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Creative Industries Design, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan

    Hui-Wen Lin

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  1. Hui-Wen Lin
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Correspondence to Hui-Wen Lin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education and Arts, Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Australia

    Jacqueline Z. Wilson

  2. Department of Criminology, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Sarah Hodgkinson

  3. Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Justin Piché

  4. Department of Criminal Justice, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Kevin Walby

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Lin, HW. (2017). Taiwan’s Former Political Prisons: From Incarceration to Curation. In: Wilson, J., Hodgkinson, S., Piché, J., Walby, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Tourism. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56135-0_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56135-0_11

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