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This hard – hitting text, actually written like a novel, despite its being a non – fiction piece, tells the story of unimaginable repression and gratuitous violence inside the North Korean corrections system, more or less as a throwback to the old days of the completely dehumanized communist prison system in the former U.S.S.R. That the North Koreans have chosen since some time ago, even at the collapse of communist forces everywhere, to emulate if not duplicate the soviet work camp system in all its horrific aspects and detail does seem unhinged. The present North Korean leadership somehow still refuses to acknowledge such camps exist, or even there might be a chance of them and by this relies on the theory of the big lie, itself as dependent upon greater fools. It is possible that the Kim Jong Eun regime continues to deny the existence of these debased, undignified and repressive (again) camps because U.S. and other allies’ imaging of the camp areas might be sketchy and though while indicating the presence of work zones and industrial and agricultural concerns in places like the Camp 14, there is no incontrovertible and completely certain official state opinion anywhere as to the establishment and maintenance of these institutions in the North. Also, as had been the case with Chin Dong – hyuk as an escapee from the DPRK repressive corrections system, escapes and then defections are rare and while there are defections and the like to South Korea, Japan, etc., every day, South Korean towns themselves do not allow for the continued presence of many of the few escapees and the reasons for this are evident and include dirty work as performed by the state services from DPRK to the North.
That Chin Dong – hyuk was born in one of the infamous DPRK prison camps in an area around the Taedong river, and that he grew up in that system, having been considered a criminal from birth by DPRK state policy, and that his only avenue for survival at different points in his living within that repressive camp system included wrongdoings that were frequent, immoral and criminal; tells the reader that there is more to the communist / socialist model of prison corrections today than detention and incarceration. It does and did include personally injuring and destroying one’s fellow inmates to the extent possible, even oneself under the circumstances: a. Wrongs and various types of individual destruction and bad behavior are encouraged within that system despite the official rules of the system and its sentencing guidelines not allowing for these things including various types of trafficking and contraband trade; b. With the image of corrections in most Western nation states as one of rewarding exemplary and notably well – socialized behavior as is0 in the evidence, the DPRK prison system in its nefarious glory encourages problem behaviors that circumvent the proper and normal standards of civil and ordinary conduct and social interaction; c. From this story and its contents that start with the narrator’s childhood and continue to the present day, one can tell that things like education, hard work and industriousness and other positive traits, are completely discouraged; d. Crimes by prisoners against each other, from the most petty to the most egregious capital crimes, are not exclusive of wrongs against the prisoners by camp authorities given who they are and their work ethic, cancelling much of the humane and humanitarian approach to detention in DPRK as preached by its leadership; e. It is entirely possible the flogging and torturing of prisoners at the same time, and by camp ‘trustees’ and other state personnel, and the crimes against prisoners, that no NGO, nor association nor collection of people will ever be able to address these endemic issues addressing what should be done with people, and the DPRK system even with its habit of frequent sabre - rattling and its relations with P.R.C.; f. It is surprising, in fact a complete surprise, that DPRK detention and incarceration methods and facilities, degenerate as they are, have not found a home and are not constantly subject to public scrutiny and resultant misinformation due to pressure from various “watchers” and the reaction to them by DPRK; g. There are too many examples at present of the obduracy and degeneracy of DPRK prison camps, as documented, for world public opinion not to allow for and adverse judgment of these institutions, and subjecting them to examination and their conditions and people, including inmates, an evaluation of methods and practices in North Asia, if adjudicated, will probably be ignored by DPRK and its friends; h. There are any number of inhuman conditions that can be cited concerning the conduct and just observation of North Korean society and its camp system, and the material in this text that calls for a resolution of these things is predicated upon international conflict on many fronts; … .
The details as described above provide an extremely stark and sinister backdrop to most of the Chin story before his arrival in South Korea and then America. The tortures and abuses suffered by Chin and his co – heroes at present, some of whom have passed before their time as the result of abuses within DPRK camps, are deeply scarred and deeply personal at the same time. In a way, while stories by other dissenters include much functional material that is persuasive but cannot really portray personal feelings and the overall humanity of politically – motivated sentencing in places like North Asia, the Chin story is one of very balanced informational details and a depiction at the same time of a very young person who has been compelled to survive to travel West and tell about an entire history, but who, through the unbearable shocks and vicissitudes of prison camp life has been led to believe by his camp handlers in an very penetrable way that shame and guilt, degeneracy, thoughts of self – destruction and other negative influences are constructive in daily life. Russian Marxists (actually former Marxists) perfected this and other things long ago in the workings of the day in their GULAG system and this cause in “producing” people has been taken up in the camp system in DPRK as well. The justification for such things, including the Marxian idea about utopia that displaced such ideas in Russia from Western Europe in 1917 / 18 – 21, does smack of flim – flammery and calls for the kind of state oppression within the state as one finds in DPRK at present. These are political statements that only border on what appears to be the purpose of the Chin story, which is in one small way to “check” the grim and ghoulish forces that rule there at this time.
