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Wednesday, January 9, 1974
SECOND CHANCE FOR YOUNG DRUG OFFENDERS
Offenders sentenced to treatment in a drug addiction treatment
centre will have no conviction recorded against them unless this is ordered
by the court,
This is one of the main changes proposed in the Drug Addiction
Treatment (Amendment) Bil 1974 which aims at introducing a number of
procedural improvements.
In moving the second reading of the Bill in the Legislative Council
today, the Secretary for Security, the Hon. G.P. Lloyd, explained that
treatment was medical rather than cure. "Rehabilitation is more likely to
succeed if offenders, particularly young and first offenders, can return
to normal life with clean sheets."
The bill also enables the Commissioner of Prisons to recall to a
centre for further treatment a person who fails to comply with a supervision
order, thus dispensing with the present need for an additional appearance
before a magistrate.
Under the present ordinance, a detention order lapses and treatment
or supervision ceases on a sentence of imprisonment for however short a period.
Mr. Lloyd said this was unsatisfactory, and the bill would provide
that a detention, or supervision or recall order would lapse only upon
a prison term of more than two years or upon the making of a new detention
order.
/If the