作者：周敏
事情刚刚发生在2026年5月，湖北黄石市阳新县宏志达青少年成长基地的一名班主任，用木戒尺和空心铁杆打断了一个13岁男孩逃离的念头。戒尺打断就用铁棍接上，直到孩子跪到地上，教官认为他在装，继续用拳头打他的头和眼睛。孩子鼻血流在地上，在昏迷中原地躺了一夜，没人过问。
次日教官得知男孩右眼失明，用鸡蛋替他滚眼睛消肿。后经过了七小时开颅手术，右眼仍然无法视物。
这个案子的细节如此地触目惊心，足以引发又一轮循环：舆论愤慨、家长质问、官方表态，然后复归平静。但我们不应该只停留在愤慨里，而是进一步盘问：这个”认为孩子异常→强行隔离→强制矫正”的处理手法从何而来？其实，我们在别处见过它，还不止见过一次。
图片来源于网络
一、改造术的国家谱系
1957年，中国建立了劳动教养制度。它的运作是简洁有效的：无需经过司法审判，公安机关即可将”轻微违法”或”思想有问题”的人关押长达四年，以教育改造之名。这套制度整整存续达五十六年，2013年才正式废除。
在五十六年里，中国社会完成了一次深刻的观念训练：问题人口可以被隔离，隔离是为了改造，改造是为了他好。
这个冠冕堂皇的说法在不同时期有不同的实施对象。针对法轮功学员的转化工程，把家属动员进来，让亲情成为改造工具——如果你的孩子、父母来劝你放弃信仰，转化的成功率会更高。新疆的职业技能教育培训中心，强制寄宿，切断与外界的联系，开设思想转化课程，对外一律宣称是自愿参加的职业培训。强制隔离戒毒所，将“成瘾”医学化，用治疗的名义完成人身控制。
这些国家机构的外壳各色不同，但内部结构出奇地一致：封闭空间、信息隔断、强制身份重塑、对外宣称是为当事人好。
宏志达的运营手册，和上述这些国家机构是一样的DNA。家长被告知六个月内不得探视，不得与孩子通话，只能通过班主任在微信群里发布的照片和视频了解孩子动态。孩子是被骗进基地的，以”配合调查电信诈骗案件”为由骗上车。基地对外宣称用专业方式和传统文化思想教育孩子。
唯一的差别在于，宏志达是民营，改造孩子的授权来自家人。
二、杨永信的范本
中国民间改造术的形成，杨永信这个名字是绕不过去的。
2000年代中期，网瘾成了中国最显眼的社会议题之一。媒体、专家、官员形成了一个罕见的共识联盟：网络游戏正在毁掉中国的下一代，必须干预。陶宏开、杨永信等人在这个背景下登场，获得媒体的大量正面报道。
杨永信的方法很简单——电击。他在山东临沂的精神科病房里，对被家长送来的青少年实施电击治疗，声称可以矫正网瘾，戒除不良习惯。病人描述电击时的感受是剧烈疼痛、全身抽搐。
2009年，央视《新闻调查》对此进行曝光，引发全国震动。然而有一个细节被很多报道忽略了：曝光后，相当数量的家长选择继续留下来，甚至对记者表示感谢。他们看到了”效果”——孩子变得顺从听话、不再反抗。
家长的选择比电击本身更引人深思。它说明，家长对这套逻辑的接受，并非被骗，而是主动认同。他们认同孩子需要被强制改造，笃信“痛苦是矫正的必要代价”，也认为封闭隔离是有效手段。
杨永信的机构撑到2016年才被叫停电击治疗，一部分原因是他依托的是正规精神科病房——国家医疗体制的背书，为他提供了持续的合法性外壳。这个外壳被撤除之后，电击停了，但强制封闭的模式本身，却保留下来，没有受到质疑。
杨永信证明了一件事：民间市场对这套改造逻辑，有真实而持续的需求。
三、上之所好，下必甚焉
国家强制改造术的精神遗产，是它所确立的正当性：问题人口可以被隔离和强制转化，痛苦是改造的合理代价。这套正当性一旦成为社会常识，民间就会主动复制。
医学术语被军事化语言改造了。治疗就是训练，病人成为学员，疗程变成了成长周期。这样一来，准入门槛被降低，绕开了卫生监管，同时保留了专业性的表象。
关键的一个变化是国家授权被家长授权替代。劳教需要公安机关的决定，精神科强制住院要医院和家属联署，而送孩子进成长基地，只要家长的签名和汇款就行了。授权链条被缩短到底，摩擦成本极低。
信息封锁则从国家管控手段变成了商业标准条款。六个月不得联系，这是张先生在付款前就已经知道并接受的条件。这俨然已是一种教育手法——孩子得和原有环境彻底切断，才能完成改造。
民间化的本质，就是去掉了官僚程序、文件审批，只保留了暴力内核，然后以市场价格售出。
四、国家的暧昧态度
宏志达案曝光后，阳新县教育局的回应值得读一读：涉事基地前身为某双语学校，现已注销，执照由市场监管局颁发，因此教育局没有监管职能。市场监管局被联系到后，工作人员回答”不知道”，直接挂断了电话。
为什么国家对这类机构的态度长期这么暧昧？
因为这类机构处理的，恰巧是国家也想处理的人群：不服管、偏离轨道的、让家庭和学校头疼的青少年。对他们进行关押隔离、强制他们服从，这套手法国家自己还在使用，只是用于不同的对象和场所而已。
只打击成长基地的暴力手段，却不质疑强制封闭本身的性质，这是整治行动的局限所在。杨永信被叫停的仅仅是电击，并不是强制寄宿、信息封锁，也不是人身控制。这个边界的划定，本身就表达了政府的立场。
只要”问题人口可以被强制改造”的前提不被触动，成长基地就永远有它的生存土壤。换块牌子，换一个县，就可重新开张。
五、打人
张浩一个孩子在地上躺了一夜。疼痛冰凉的夜。
被狠狠打断的木尺、嗖嗖挥舞的空心铁棍，它们在空中冷冽的回声是一套绵延数十年的改造术在民间的倒影——从国家的劳教所，到精神科病房，再到军事化训练营，里面慌张的面庞，一次比一次年轻、一群比一群懵懂。
我们谴责那个教官，对的；我们追问那个基地，也对。但如果追问就停到这儿，我们就让这套违背人性的操作链条滑走了——这链条环环相扣，每一环都在宣告，问题人口可以被关押，隔离可以产生改变，惩罚暴打是矫正的合理代价。
这条长长的锁链，它不从宏志达开始，也不会以宏志达结束。
编辑：黄吉洲
校对：毛一炜
翻译：戈冰
Folk Authorization of “Reformation Techniques”: From Re-education to Growth Bases
By Zhou Min
This incident occurred in May 2026 at the Hongzhidai Youth Growth Base in Yangxin County, Huangshi City, Hubei Province, where a homeroom teacher used a wooden ruler and a hollow iron rod to crush a 13-year-old boy’s attempt to escape. When the ruler broke, the instructor replaced it with an iron rod, continuing to strike the boy until he knelt on the ground. Believing the boy was faking it, the instructor then punched him in the head and eyes. The boy’s blood flowed onto the floor, and he lay unconscious on the spot all night, with no one checking on him.
The next day, upon learning that the boy had lost sight in his right eye, the instructor used an egg to roll over his eye to reduce the swelling. After undergoing a seven-hour craniotomy, the boy’s right eye remained blind.
The details of this case are so shocking that they are bound to trigger yet another cycle: public outrage, parents’ demands for answers, official statements, and then a return to calm. But we should not stop at outrage; we must ask further: Where does this approach—“deeming a child abnormal → forcibly isolating him → subjecting him to forced correction”—come from? In fact, we have seen it elsewhere, and not just once.
Image source: Internet
I. The State’s Genealogy of “Re-education”
In 1957, China established the system of re-education through labor. Its operation was simple and effective: without judicial trial, public security authorities could detain individuals deemed to have committed “minor offenses” or to have “ideological problems” for up to four years, in the name of “re-education.” This system persisted for a full fifty-six years before it was officially abolished in 2013.
Over those fifty-six years, Chinese society underwent a profound ideological indoctrination: problematic individuals could be isolated; isolation was for the purpose of re-education; and re-education was for their own good.
This noble-sounding rationale targeted different groups at different times. The “re-education” campaign against Falun Gong practitioners mobilized family members, turning familial bonds into tools of re-education—if your children or parents came to persuade you to renounce your faith, the success rate of “re-education” would be higher. In Xinjiang’s vocational skills education and training centers, participants are forced into residential programs, cut off from the outside world, and subjected to ideological re-education courses—all while the regime publicly claims these are voluntary vocational training programs. Compulsory drug rehabilitation centers medicalize “addiction,” using the guise of treatment to exert control over individuals.
While the outward appearances of these state institutions vary, their internal structures are strikingly consistent: closed spaces, information blackouts, forced identity reshaping, and the public claim that it is all for the individual’s own good.
Hongzhida’s operational manual shares the same DNA as these state institutions. Parents are told they cannot visit for six months, cannot speak with their children, and can only learn about their children’s well-being through photos and videos posted by the homeroom teacher in a WeChat group. Children are lured into the facility under the pretext of “cooperating with an investigation into telecommunications fraud.” The facility claims to educate children using professional methods and traditional cultural values.
The only difference is that Hongzhidai is privately run, and its authority to reform the children comes from their families.
II. The Yang Yongxin Model
When discussing the development of China’s private reform practices, the name Yang Yongxin is impossible to ignore.
In the mid-2000s, internet addiction became one of China’s most prominent social issues. The media, experts, and officials formed a rare coalition of consensus: online gaming was destroying China’s next generation, and intervention was necessary. Against this backdrop, figures like Tao Hongkai and Yang Yongxin emerged, receiving extensive positive media coverage.
Yang Yongxin’s method was simple: electric shock therapy. In a psychiatric ward in Linyi, Shandong, he administered electric shock treatments to adolescents sent by their parents, claiming it could correct internet addiction and cure bad habits. Patients described the experience as intense pain and full-body convulsions.
In 2009, CCTV’s *News Investigation* exposed these practices, causing a nationwide uproar. However, one detail was overlooked by many reports: after the exposure, a significant number of parents chose to stay, even expressing gratitude to the reporters. They had witnessed the “results”—their children had become obedient and compliant, no longer resisting.
The parents’ choice is more thought-provoking than the electric shocks themselves. It demonstrates that their acceptance of this logic was not the result of being deceived, but rather of active endorsement. They believed their children needed to be forcibly reformed, firmly held that “pain is a necessary price for correction,” and considered isolation an effective means to that end.
Yang Yongxin’s institution managed to continue its electric shock therapy until 2016, partly because it operated within a formal psychiatric ward—the endorsement of the state healthcare system provided him with a continuous veneer of legitimacy. Once this veneer was stripped away, the electric shocks ceased, but the model of forced confinement itself remained intact, unchallenged.
Yang Yongxin proved one thing: there is a real and persistent demand in the private market for this logic of “reformation.”
III. When the State Approves, the People Will Exaggerate
The spiritual legacy of state-sanctioned forced “re-education” lies in the legitimacy it established: problematic individuals can be isolated and forcibly transformed, and suffering is a reasonable cost of re-education. Once this legitimacy becomes common social knowledge, the private sector will actively replicate it.
Medical terminology has been redefined through militarized language. Treatment becomes training, patients become trainees, and treatment cycles become “growth cycles.” This lowers the entry barrier, bypasses health regulations, while maintaining the appearance of professionalism.
A key shift is the replacement of state authorization with parental consent. Re-education through labor requires a decision by public security authorities; involuntary psychiatric hospitalization requires joint signatures from the hospital and family members; yet sending a child to a “growth base” requires only a parent’s signature and a bank transfer. The chain of authorization has been shortened to the extreme, with minimal friction costs.
Information blackouts have shifted from state control measures to standard commercial clauses. “No contact for six months”—this was a condition Mr. Zhang knew and accepted before making payment. This has effectively become an educational tactic: children must be completely cut off from their original environment to complete their “reformation.”
The essence of this privatization is the removal of bureaucratic procedures and document approvals, retaining only the violent core, which is then sold at market prices.
IV. The State’s Ambiguous Stance
Following the exposure of the Hongzhida case, the response from the Yangxin County Education Bureau is worth reading: The facility in question was formerly a bilingual school that has since been deregistered; its license was issued by the Market Regulation Bureau, so the Education Bureau has no regulatory authority over it. When contacted, staff at the Market Regulation Bureau replied, “I don’t know,” and hung up the phone.
Why has the state maintained such an ambiguous stance toward these institutions for so long?
Because these institutions deal precisely with the very groups the state also wishes to deal with: unruly, wayward adolescents who cause headaches for families and schools. Detaining and isolating them, forcing them to obey—the state itself still employs these methods, albeit on different subjects and in different settings.
Cracking down only on the violent tactics of “growth bases” while failing to question the nature of forced confinement itself is the limitation of these rectification efforts. Yang Yongxin was ordered to stop only the use of electric shocks—not the forced boarding, information blackout, or physical restraint. The very drawing of this line reflects the government’s stance.
As long as the premise that “problem individuals can be forcibly reformed” remains untouched, these “growth bases” will always have fertile ground to thrive. Change the sign, move to a different county, and they can reopen.
V. Physical Abuse
Zhang Hao, a child, lay on the ground all night. A night of pain and cold.
The wooden rulers snapped in half, the hollow iron rods whizzing through the air—their chilling echoes are a reflection of a reform technique that has persisted for decades in society: from state re-education through labor camps to psychiatric wards, and on to militarized training camps. The panicked faces within grow younger with each passing year, and the groups grow more and more bewildered.
We condemn that drill instructor—and rightly so; we hold that base to account—and rightly so. But if our questioning stops here, we let this inhuman chain of operations slip away—a chain where every link is interlocked, each one declaring that “problem individuals” can be detained, that isolation can bring about change, and that brutal beatings are a reasonable price to pay for “correction.”
This long chain does not begin with Hongzhidai, nor will it end with Hongzhidai.
Summary: In 2026, a 13-year-old boy at the Hongzhidai facility in Hubei attempted to escape and was brutally beaten by an instructor with a ruler and an iron rod, resulting in the loss of sight in his right eye. This case is a concrete manifestation of the Chinese Communist Party’s consistent authoritarian governance mindset: viewing individuals as tools to be forcibly reshaped by the state or parents, where violence and deprivation of liberty are deemed legitimate as long as they are carried out “for your own good.”
Editor: Huang Jizhou
Proofreader: Mao Yiwei
Translator: Ge Bing
