THE COURTS, POLICE, PRISONS AND RECORDS
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and this work for the good of their own people is of inestimable value in setting up the drug addict and increasing his moral and physical resistance to the craving.
The daily average population was 577.
Stanley Training Centre and Cape Collinson Training Centre can now take up to 300 boys sentenced by the Courts, after a report as to suitability for training, to detention for nine months to three years. The date of release is decided by the Commissioner on the advice of a Discharge Board at each Centre. The Centres have had the very high success rate (not reconvicted) of 78% and 72% respectively over a period of five years.
The daily average population was: Stanley Training Centre, 140; Cape Collinson Training Centre, 114.
The Staff Training School has more than justified its year of existence, and it is now hard to see how the Department managed without it. The School gives basic training to all disciplined- staff on joining, and provides refresher courses at regular intervals thereafter.
After-Care. The section of full-time After-Care Officers (to be known in future as Social Welfare Officers) has been increased during the year to provide an after-care service for a proportion of drug addicts discharged from Tai Lam, as well as for all boys released from Training Centres.
Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. The Society continued to expand its activities, which are being increasingly directed towards the welfare of discharged short-term prisoners.
Staff. The staff of the Prisons Department consists of 13 gazetted officers, 686 other ranks, and 166 schoolmasters, after-care officers, trade instructors, clerks, mechanics and others.
RECORDS
The Registrar General's Department comprises the Land Office, the Registries of Births and Deaths, Marriages, Companies, Trade Marks and Patents, the Offices of the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy and Companies Winding Up, the Official Trustee, the Judicial Trustee and the Official Solicitor in Lunacy.
Land Office. The principal function of the Land Office is the registration of all instruments affecting land in Hong Kong,