"If we can't provide a clear law, and quickly, the transformation of laojiao facilities will be a mess," he said. "It's possible some facilities may continue to be used to detain people with laojiao sentences."

Re-education through labor centers could still be used as corrective facilities, he said, "but how they work and how long a suspect can be detained are questions that are up in the air".

Legal Evening News reported that the Tuanhe Re-education Through Labor Center in the capital's Daxing district released all its inmates in the summer and has been renamed as a unit of Beijing Prison.

The city's justice bureau, which manages laojiao facilities, declined to comment when contacted by China Daily.

"It's not a good time to discuss the issue," said an official who did not want to be identified. He said his office has "no idea how to reform our work" and is awaiting specific instructions from higher authorities.

At least one laojiao facility in Beijing and others in Yunnan and Hunan provinces have already been converted into centers to treat drug addicts.

"We now provide physical and mental assistance to people with the willingness to quit drugs, rather than punish those who receive a laojiao sentence," said Yuan Zhixin at the Beijing Tiantanghe Rehab Center.

Although the facility's purpose was changed at the beginning of the year, he said the nameplate has yet to be changed.

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