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6. The main idea underlying these proposals is to ease the position not by adding further buildings to the already cumbersome Prison at Stanley but by endeavouring to cut down by various means the number of prisoners to be admitted to the Prison and to introduce a system of classification and segregation and a programme of productive hard labour for all prisoners which should, in the course of time, result in reducing the prison population by a combination of reformative and deterrent methods.
7. The Lai Chi Kok Female Prison was, and still is, suffering from serious overcrowding. Here the problem is somewhat different, and it was decided to increase the accommodation by the construction of wards to hold a further 100 prisoners. Unfortunately, this was subsequently held up for financial reasons.
8. A visit to the old Victoria Gaol was quite sufficient to show how urgent had been the necessity for the provision of a new prison. The building of the Hong Kong Prison at Stanley, while by no means solving the prison problem of the Colony, has greatly improved the situation and will enable the Administration to introduce a system of reform which should do much to increase the efficiency of the Service as a whole and enable the Department to deal effectively with the various types and classes of prisoners admitted to its care. The creation of an efficient system would hardly have been possible under the conditions which obtained formerly.
9. It is not surprising that the unsuitable situation of the old Victoria Gaol, crowded on all sides by tall buildings with their windows looking down into many parts of the prison and occupied for the most part by the poorer class of Chinese, and the rabbit warren which constituted the prison itself, had had a most adverse effect on the mentality of the staff. The result was that in the layout of the Hong Kong Prison at Stanley and in its system of administration practically everything had been sacrificed to security.
10. In the workshops prisoners without sufficient work to keep them fully occupied had no trained technical officers to instruct them in the various trades, and shortage of staff consequent upon overcrowding prevented the employment of prisoners on work outside the prison with the result that many remained in comparative idleness within the walls. Apart from this, a serious lack of tools made any attempt to provide suitable labour for a large number of prisoners abortive.
11. In August Government approved the expenditure of $1,600 and in December a further $3,000 on tools. Both these sums were covered by savings on other items in the Department's Estimates for the year.
12. The purchase of these tools has enabled between 700 and 800 prisoners to be employed daily on productive hard labour inside and outside the prison; but the continued shortage of staff due to overcrowding has prevented full use being made of them, with the result that there are still over one thousand prisoners for whom some form of employment has to be "manufactured.” Much of this sort of employment, necessarily inadequately supervised, is little better than complete idleness as most of it has to be of a sedentary nature.
II. STAFF.
13. Mr. F. A. Hopkins, Assistant Superintendent of Prisons, was appointed Acting Superintendent of Prisons on 17th April, 1937, when Mr. J. W. Franks, O.B.E., Superintendent of Prisons, went on leave prior to retirement from the Service. Mr. Hopkins continued to act as Superintendent until 20th July, 1938, when the writer, who had been appointed Commissioner of Prisons on 17th June, 1938, arrived in the Colony.
14. Mr. Hopkins then reverted to his substantive rank of Assistant Superintendent; but on 2.9.38 the title of Assistant Superintendent was changed to Superintendent as it was found that the statutory powers of an Assistant Superintendent were not sufficient for the proper maintenance of discipline in the Prison and because it was considered anomalous to have an Assistant Superintendent without a Superintendent.