54132
HONG KONG
CIVIL AFFAIRS POLICY DIRECTIVES
First Draft
8/4/44.
PRISONS
114
1.
Accommodation consisted of:-
Hong Kong Prison (Stanley): - 1476 single cells for males (of which
18 were used as stores).
Victoria Remand Prison:
Lai Chi Kok Female Prison:
166 male prisoners.
200
2. The chief disability under which the/Prison staff worked
was overcrowding.
There were in 1939 an average of 2832 prisoners at Stanley
instead of 1458. Three prisoners had to be housed in some cells
intended for single prisoners.
3.
Difficulty was experienced in/finding useful employment
for prisoners.
In 1939 the daily average was 1391 men employed at
Stanley and 205 women in the Lai Chi Kok Prison.
of a lack of technical instructors.
Complaint was made
4. In the first instance the Prisons Department should be
administered as a branch of the Police Department under general
control of the Commissioner of Police.
5. The administration of the Prisons on the same lines as
those in force in pre-war days should be re-introduced under the
ble control of the Commissioner of Police and if practical the
recommendations adopted for reducing the prison population which were
advanced by the Commission on Prisons in 1939. The chief of these
labour was the substitution of sentences of detention in a camp for the
$ short sentence of imprisonment which were so numerous as to clutter
up the prison proper. Such camp if created was to be on the
Mainland.
6.
Efforts should be made to provide useful employment for as
many prisoners as possible. This will entail the creation of a
staff of industrial instructors which would be possible from among
Chinese graduates of local industrial Colleges.