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We consider that reactivating the Scheme may send a wrong message to young people who might be tempted to experience triad membership, Instead of with the expectation that they can renounce it later. reactivating the Scheme, we believe that we should strengthen other measures to fight against triad influence, particularly on young people. To that end, we have adopted a three-pronged approach: prevention through education, publicity, and social services; enforcement through arrests and punishment of offenders; and rehabilitation through family, social and correctional services.
The measures taken under this approach have yielded encouraging results in our fight against triads. The ratio of triad involvement in overall crimes in the past three years has remained relatively stable at less than 5%. There has been a decreasing trend in the number of juveniles arrested for unlawful society offences in the past three years, with a drop of 10% from 316 in 1994 to 283 in 1995, and a further drop of 22% to 222 in 1996. The number of overall unlawful society offences has also dropped by 4.4% from 1,512 in 1994 to 1,445 in 1995, and further dropped by 21% to 1,134 in 1996. However, there is no room for complacency. We will continue to accord high priority to the fight against the triad problem to ensure that Hong Kong remains one of the safest cities in the world.
Monitor of licentiate examination by Medical Council
Following is a question by Dr the Hon Huang Chen-ya and a reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
In view of the extremely low passing rate of the licentiate examination held annually by the Medical Council of Hong Kong, will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
of the mechanism put in place to monitor whether the assessment criteria of the licentiate examination are fair;