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410 THE GONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22ND SEPTEMBER, 1877.
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wrong.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 22ND SEPTEMBER, 1877.
411
An analysis of Table A in the Police returns dated the 31st of January, 1877, gives the following number of prison offences--out of all proportion to the increase of crime---indicates something radically An annual increase of 250 per cent in the number of prison offences is a serious and significant fact. Is it surprising, with such prima facie evidence of prison disorganization laid before him in the returns forwarded by my predecessor for the years 1874, 1875, and 1876, that Lord CansaUVON should instruct me to review the whole system of prison discipline in Hongkong?
Number of cases:
Number of cases
of Robbery from the person with violence,
Number of cases of Burgly,
Number of cases of Larceny.
of Assaults and Disorderly Conduct.
J2
09
374
288
August, 1876, inclusive, f
Four months, from May to)
Four months, from Septem-
ber to December, 1876, inclusive,
28
345
200
This return shows, that the number of felonies committed in the four months preceding th unsual influx of passengers from Canton was four hundred and fifteen, whilst in the four mont during which the reduced fares were in operation, the number of felonies was three hundred a
In the returns laid before Lord CARNARVON are also given the exact number of cases brought before the Police Magistrates, and the number of prisoners convicted by them. You will perhaps be surprised to learn as I was very much surprised to see it that the number of prisoners brought before the Police Magistrates in 1876 amounted to 10,426, and the number of persons convicted and punished amounted to 7,998. These figures appear in returns dated Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong. 24th of February, 1877.
How is this to be accounted for?
Now, gentlemen, with some small experience, I venture to assert that such an amount of crime, and such an extraordinary growth of prison offences as you have seen recorded in this Colony last year and preceding years is without precedent in any part of the British Empire with a population of only 140,000.
The system of prison discipline is the system by which crime should be stamped out. It is the great engine the Government is bound to use to repress crime and reduce the number of criminals; joined, to efficiency in the administration of justics. With these two But it is not an increase of crime confined to the year 1876.
in proper working order, the crime which has been recorded before my arrival in the Colony should in Table of the Criminal Statistics, which we not have existed. How has the grave result come to pass? Well. I am myself slow to form a decision Here is the return of Serious Offences submitted to Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY on the 31st of January, 1877, by Mr. DEANE:--
seventy-eight.
Description.
12
SERIOUS OFFENCES.
Murder,
Robbery with Violence from the Person...
Burglary or Larceny in a Dwelling House,
Assault with latent to rob,
Kidnapping,
Piracy,
Unlawful Possession,
Larvenies,.
Felonies unt already given,,
* Due case also given ander Picks.
Total,.
**
Number of Cases.
1874
1825
1876
3*
15
18
24
107
00
3
1
51
65
A
A
203
261
239
802
938
1,050
10
18
8
الانه
1,163
1,895
1,485
on this question, but it is to nifest from the Secretary of State's despatches that he has been struck with some facts which it was impossible not to see. How could he shut his eyes to the authentic returns to which I have referred? But, it is quite possible, his Lordship may have noticed something more than those figures. In the report of the Gaol Committee, the guiding principle upon which the prison was administered is laid down in these words: Owing to the peculiar ciremastances of this Colony, and the fact that by far the larger proportion of the criminals confined in the gaol are Chinese. whose language is but little known to those who have charge of them, whose characters and dispositions are imperfectly understood, and of whose previous history and lives it is almost impossible to obtain any knowledge, any attempt to cultivate their higher faculties, and to improve their moral condition seems hopeless.'
وه
Gentlemen, that was a very grave sentence for the Committee to write. In every part of the British Empire Her Majesty's Government have laid down what they believe to be sound principles of prisou discipline. Over and over again it has been said that that system should consist of a due mixture of severe punishment with some attempt at reformation; that the moment you assume one of these to be hopeless and act on that assumption, you deviate from a well established principle, and you are trying not a new, but a very old worn out experiment; au experiment tried years ago, but never with success; on the contrary, with the same lamentable result that you have scen bere. Your departure from that sound and axiomatic principle of prison discipline, does not however entirely account for the extraordinary number and steady increase of your criminal class.
**
In this Colony, it has been the practice to classify crimes into serious offences and minor offenest
It is a rule laid down over and over again by Secretaries of State, that when a man is sentenced Now what has been the number of cases of serious offences in Hongkong in the years 1874. 1870, a to undergo, for example, eight years of penal servitude, he should undergo at least two-thirds of that 1876? In 1874, the total number of serious offences was 1,165; in 1875 this had risen to 1,395;
punishment; that release from gaol must depend upon a man's steady good conduct in prison, and in 1876, it had risen to 1.485, Of what do these serious crimes consist?
But Take offences agast under no circumstances should he be released without undergoing two-thirds of his sentence. property of larcenics there were 802 in 1874, 938 in 1875, and 1,059 in 1876. Of robbery what do I find here? In January last, no less than fifty prisoners are branded and deported to China violence from the person, there were 15 cases in 1874, 13 in 1875, and 24 cases of that most sera from Hongkong, thirty-nine of them after having served one-third only of their legal sentences. Some offence in 1876. Of minor offences, which include common assaults and offences other than felons were sentenced by my honourable and learned friend on the right (the Chief Justice) to eight years' penal there was a similar increase: they amounted to 3,495 in 1874; to 3,623 in 1875; and 4,510 in 18 servitude; others by my honourable friend on the left (the Hon. C. MAY) to three months imprisonment. But it is not a mere question of the three last years. Had Lord CARNARVON turned his attention They are all treated in the same way; and this curious fact is recorded on the books recorded in the the increase of crime in this Colony for ten years past, he would find from these papers, that there very papers laid before the Executive that the prison conduct of one man is very bad," according to been an increase from the year 1867 to the year 1876, and that the largest number of serious offer the Superintendent's report, and the next num's "very good;" another prisoner's conduct is recorded as recorded during those ten years was in 1876.* But the statistics of one single year may be fallacion "indifferent," another as "well conducted;" some had been repeatedly punished for the worst class of and therefore I have reduced to the annual averages the crime of the last five years and the precede prison offences, others had not a single had record against them; yet all treated in the same way: with five years, and here is the result. Annual average of serious crimes from the year 1867 to the ye different sentences, but all sent out of the Colony after passing one-third of their sentence only in 1871, 1,303; annual average from 1872 to 1876, 1,351; annual number of offences of all ki prison, quite irrespective of what their conduct in prison had been. That, I need hardly assure you. during the five years from 1867 to 1871, 5,718 as against 7,124 offences of all kinds committed duris opposed to all sound principles of prison discipline. Bad as its moral effect in the prison must have from 1872 to 1876. It is quite possible also, that those who have looked into the mat been, it did not prove of much benefit either to the honest community outside. This wholesale may have noticed something else relating to prison discipline in this Colony, and that is the incre branding and deportation was avowedly done" to relieve the overcrowding in the prison." Of the two in the number of prison offences of late years. They are also recorded in our books and have le batches of criminals thus transferred to the neighbouring shores of China in January, some found their transmitted every year to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Taking them for the last the way back to commit robberies again in Hongkong before the month of April. years, here is the result: 1874, 426; 1875, 1,085; 1876, 2,726. Such a startling increase in t
the five
years
(*)
1867. 1868. 1860.
1870.
1871.
1873. 1872.
1874. 1875. 1876.
Serious Crimes, **** 1.468 1,240 967 1,357 1,483 1,994 1,316 1,185 1,300 1,485
Minor Offences, ................... 4,585 4,450 3,5534 4,380
5,018 8,956 6,16-4 4,407 4,086 5,061
My honourable friend the Acting Colonial Treasurer and Senior Police Magistrate will understand me when I also assert that the system of repeated short sentences on old offenders is a bad system. I have had cases before me recommended for deportation in which it was not a case of a second, or third, or fourth, but a sixth or seventh offence by the same man. Cases come before me of this character: first offence, larceny, sentence one month's imprisonment with hard labour and to be logged; second offence. larceny, punishment two months' hard labour and to be flogged; third offence, larceny again, with one s imprisonment and to be flogged. Then, probably, the juvenile criminal is grown up, and the
month's