Inmates to get 2-day home visits

From July, people in criminal detention will be allowed to go home for one or two days a month to visit their families under a new regulation published at the weekend by the Ministry of Public Security.

Foreigners in criminal detention will be granted the same privilege, as long as they have relatives in China. They will not be allowed to leave the country, the regulation on the management of criminals in detention houses says.

Under Criminal Law, people sentenced to criminal detention - a court-issued punishment of usually less than six months - and those sentenced to less than one year's fixed-term imprisonment, are kept in detention houses rather than jails.