CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
GF Lloyd Esq CMG
Acting Deputy Colonial Secretary
Colonial Secretariat
HONG KONG
Telephone 01-
Sile
19
Your reference
Our reference
CR 3285/57 III HKK 14/11
Date
30 March 1973
Dear Peter,
1. Thank you very much for your letter of 22 March about the plans for coping with the crime wave. All concerned here of course appreciate that no final decisions have yet been taken, either by officials or by ExCo, and that what you have given us is a sight of policy at its formative stage. I personally think this is what co-operation is about, and I very much hope that we can keep the interchange going at this informal level.
2. The information about the community drive against crime and about recruitment to the Auxiliary Police is particularly interesting. We had been wondering what the Governor was planning as his next step in community involvement. Iresumably the diffi- culty is to achieve this without creating private vigilante squads with all that this implies.
3. Our preliminary thought is that the increased powers for magistrates and preventive detention proposals are well suited to the purpose, although the former does highlight the need to ensure that Hong kong gets magistrates of the highest quality.
4. As for the proposed amendments to the Fublic Order Ordinance, the evident reason for these is to stop magistrates evading the purposes of Section 33. However, I wonder, with diffidence, whether the proposed Section 33 (4) is in fact necessary, or even perhaps desirable. Section 33 (2)(b) as now drafted would permit three other forms of punishment as alternatives to imprisonment. It will therefore presumably be more difficult henceforward for magistrates to claim that Section 11 (2) of the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance would permit other forms of punishment altogether, especially as the latter is the older law and Section 33 (2)(b) relates specifically and comprehensively to young persons. At the same time there could be cosmetic advantages, at least in the UK, in not appearing to tamper with the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance.
/In
Bu 2 months
CONFIDENTIATM
PMI
1714