The correctional education system in China is an under-researched area, and there is no evidence of a published systematic review, especially when it has been over 10 years since the enforcement of the National Plan (2010-2020). Therefore, this systematic review examines the practicality of this area and informs policy-makers, practitioners, and national and international readership on its status. That said, we reviewed 28 eligible studies between 1987 and 2019, which included quantitative, qualitative, and mixed designs conducted by both insider and outsider researchers. The systematic review was guided by PRISMA and generated insights from the practical theory. The paper concludes with a presentation of constituents of the practical theory on correctional education: conceptualisations, patterns, normative criteria, design principles and models. The extracted data resulted in various views on the correctional education system. For instance, outsider researchers focused more on human rights, enforcing political education, inflexibility and opaque environment for data accessibility and human intrusion, although a few researchers appreciated the efforts being put on correctional education system development, whether it concerned being a social-oriented system or quantitatively reported data on correctional education development. Dissimilarly, insider researchers praised the integration of family education, political education, moral education, or integrating social work, technology, and western methods.