ONFIDENTIAL
19.
Sections 109AA and AB provide for supervision and recall orders at the instance of the Commissioner of Correctional Services for persons released from prison who are not yet 25 years of age and who have served more than three months in prison, which term commenced before the age of 21. These sections also provide for the recall to prison in the event that a supervision order has not been satisfactorily complied with.
20.
The Prisons Ordinance, Cap. 234 and Prison Rules which are subsidary to it, are indications of the sophistication of the prisons set-up in Hong Kong, and the provision for supervision orders and recall orders, an indication of the availability of after-care for the under 25 offender.
21.
It is my submission that the availability in Hong Kong of such a diversity of sentencing alternatives, adequately provides for the satisfaction of the different penal objectives. The sentencer normally has to decide to what extent the sentence must reflect the need for a punitive measure in the name of general deterrence, ma the need for a measure of individualism in the sentence in an attempt to influence the offender's future behaviour.
22.
Prior to the establishment of these penal alternatives, the courts could satisfy only the punitive abjective. I assume that no one will deny that corporal punishment merely satisfies. the punitive objective and has little or no rehabilitative value. I suggest that if an offence is such that the sentencer is bound to se to come down heavily on the side of deterrence, the means of achieving that end are available to the sentencer in Hong Kong, and in a manner (i.e. imprisonment or some form of training) where the opportunities for influencing the offender's future behaviour are so much more possible than by caning.
CONFIDENTIAL
/F.10
ין
F