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Correctional Facility in Shanghai Uses VR to Show Petty Criminals What Prison Life Looks Like

Local officials are drawing up implementation measures for the use of VR education for some corrections cases to provide a strong deterrent for incarceration.
By Weilin Li
Feb. 7, 2022 updated 01:28

As Shanghai Morning Post reported, a community corrections center of Minhang District’s Justice Bureau has sought to educate three petty criminals in the corrections process and allow them to experience life in a real prison virtually on January 27th.

The person quoted, Mr. Chen, who was under probation and one of the three such people in this pilot VR project, said he truly felt the value of freedom after using the VR helmet. 

“I didn’t expect that there is such a kind of educational method, and it really touched me. I really don’t want to go to prison…” he said in an interview with the news outlet.

In the Minhang district, the Prosecutor’s Office and Judicial Bureau are drawing up implementation measures for the “VR+Education” experience for individual community corrections cases to provide non-experienced prison scenarios to generate more deterrence.