LAW, ORDER AND RECORDS
199
the new prison which is planned for them will be on minimum security lines.
Chi Ma Wan Prison was the testing ground for the practice of sending all short-sentence prisoners to open prisons. It has been completely successful; escapes are few and far between and an immense amount of work has been done on forestry and other projects.
Tai Lam Prison has shown the most interesting development of the year. It takes convicted prisoners who are drug addicts, regardless of their offence, age or state of health. Often their health on admission is appalling, as the result of some physical disease such as TB in addition to drug addiction. The programme of rehabilitation is vigorous and comprehensive and ends with the prisoner going off as much as twenty miles to work every day, physically fit and with increased moral resistance to drugs. One typical job during the year was the rebuilding of the retaining walls of a river bed some five miles away which collapsed during disastrous floods in May. The prisoners' work saved valuable paddy land from flood and silt.
A team of after-care officers is now at work and it is hoped that by following up cases selected on the basis of greatest need it will be possible to prevent many slipping back into the drug habit.
The Training Centres have maintained their exceptionally high rate of boys discharged and not reconvicted. Their regime is based on strict discipline combined with a constructive approach to training, and the educational standard is high; all entrants for the Education Department's Joint Primary Six examination passed during the year. The products of vocational training classes again won many prizes at the Colony's annual Agricultural Show.
RECORDS
The Registrar General's Department was established on the 1st April 1949 and contains 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. The Department is unusual for an