REF.
(32
HKLO1
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
(208)
3 December, 1973
You wrote to me on 18 October about the
figures for the growth of capital crime in Hong Kong.
We consulted the Colonial Secretary in
Hong Kong, Mr. Denys Roberts, who was until recently Attorney-General. He has confirmed that the
statistics which I circulated in my letter of 20 October refer to offences known to the Police and not to prosecutions or convictions. For this reason it is not possible to distinguish between murder and manslaughter. The distinction is often not known until investigations into the circumstances leading to a death have been completed or a court has delivered its verdict; in unsolved cases the distinction may never be known Nevertheless the chances of accidental death, or death from other causes, being classified by the Police as murder or manslaughter are considered to be remote. In this sense, the term "murder and manslaughter" is inter- changeable with "homicide".
The Colonial Secretary is in no doubt that the figures of homicide reflect a genuine increase in the amount of violence. Homicide is something which has invariably been reported, whatever the reporting habits of the public about other crimes may be.
With regard to other kinds of crime, there is no evidence to suggest that any significant part of the increase before the middle of 1973 has been due to more willingness to report. The only changes in the recording
/practices
M.J.C. Butcher, Esq.,
Assistant Private Secretary,
Home Office,
Whitehall,
S.W.1
CONFIDENTIAL
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