HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1952
offences compared with 13,903 in 1951, and 169,777 reports of miscellaneous offences as compared with 197,705 in the previous year. The main increase in crime was in the number of small larcenies, often of articles which were of little or no value. Prosecutions were made in 47.66% of the cases reported.
Prisons
There are three prisons in the Colony of which the largest is at Stanley, a village on a peninsula about ten miles outside the city. The nearest other buildings, also on the peninsula, are Stanley Fort, a military barracks, and St. Stephen's College. There is, how- ever, an increasing amount of residential building in the Stanley area.
The main prison buildings consist of six separate cell blocks each containing 246 cells. Smaller buildings contain punishment and condemned cells, a young prisoners' block, a hospital, workshops and ancillary services. The first cell block houses long-term habitual criminals, three blocks contain long-term first offenders, and the last two house short-term prisoners of both groups. Plans are at present under consideration for the removal of the short-term prisoners from the prison to a camp site where work will be available in the open air.
Young prisoners who are first offenders, regardless of length of sentence, are housed in huts outside the perimeter of the prison grounds. The age limit for this group is at present 25. It will be reduced in numbers when the Training Centres Ordinance, which provides for the indeterminate "Borstal" sentence, becomes law.
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