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PUBLIC ORDER
refresher courses at intervals of approximately three years. In- spectors, on being appointed to gazetted rank, attend a 10 weeks course at the Police Training Contingent for training as company commanders.
PRISONS
The Commissioner of Prisons is responsible for the administration of 10 institutions in various parts of the Colony. These consist of three security prisons at Stanley, Victoria and Lai Chi Kok; three open prisons at Chi Ma Wan, Tai Lam and Tong Fuk; three training centres for boys at Cape Collinson, Stanley and Shek Pik; and a Staff Training School at Stanley.
All male convicted prisoners are received at Victoria Reception Centre where they are given a thorough medical examination prior to appearance before a classification board for allocation to the different institutions according to conviction, record and condition of health. Women prisoners are received and held at Lai Chi Kok Prison which has an average inmate population of 140; this security prison is now outmoded and is to be replaced in the near future by a new open prison in the Tai Lam area.
The present total prison population averages about 6,000, and of this figure some 62 per cent received on conviction have been charged with narcotic offences. Drug addicts in need of treatment are usually sent to Tai Lam Treatment Centre, an open institution specializing in the rehabilitation of addicts. Some 14,000 male prisoners have passed through the rehabilitation programme at Tai Lam since it was opened in 1958 and of this number about 40 per cent have never been reconvicted. Tai Lam has an expanding after- care service geared to the important undertaking of helping dis- charged addicts. Results so far in this very difficult field have been encouraging. Of a total of 1,200 prisoners who completed a 12 months period of after-care some 47 per cent did not relapse into drug addiction.
The open prison system is used whenever possible in Hong Kong as experience has shown that an environment where prisoners lead healthy outdoor lives doing hard constructive work leads to more successful rehabilitation. Open prisons are situated on Lantau Island in the New Territories and an immense amount of useful work has