given in Appendix 8. Those figures represent a heavy individual case- load; eight years ago ten officers were supervising two hundred proba- tioners. The technical 'success' rate, that is to say the number of those who completed their periods of probation without further offence, is now 71.7 per cent, compared with about two out of three in the early 1960s. Most of the 'failures' were subsequently sentenced to a training centre or to prison.
34 The Probation Committees for Hong Kong Island and for Kowloon and the New Territories each met four times during the year to consider reports on selected cases prepared by probation officers and to advise on matters referred to them by the Principal Probation Officer under rule 14 of the Probation of Offenders Rules 1956.
CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS
35 The juvenile correctional institutions consist of a reformatory school (run on the lines of an approved school in Britain) at Castle Peak in the New Territories; a combined institution (remand home and probation home) at Yau Yat Chuen; and the similarly multi-purpose Ma Tau Wai Girls' Home. Although there are many fewer girls than boys whom the courts judge to be in need of residential training such girls often need much individual attention; the Ma Tau Wai Girls' Home now provides an addition to the previous alternatives of a pro- bation order, which may be ineffective if there are no conditions of residence and training attached, or on the other hand the rigours of imprisonment. A probation hostel at Kwun Tong, for young male offenders aged between 16 and 21, is almost completed and should be opened early in the coming year. This will be used experimentally for reformatory school boys in their last stage before they are released on licence. Working drawings are being prepared for a second reforma- tory school and tenders may be called for shortly: this new school is pressingly needed to meet the growing demand for reformatory treat- ment and will be at Kau Wah Keng (or O Pui Shan) above the Lai Chi Kok Hospital on the north-west edge of Kowloon.
36 The Castle Peak Boys' Home has places for a maximum of a hundred and fifty boys and this year accommodated an overall average of a hundred and ten. The accommodation available for trade training is inadequate in relation to its importance, but plans for a new trade training block have now been approved; where the more effective in- struction given nowadays will make its full impact. The curriculum
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