CO129-578-7 Prison Department- staffing increases 15-3-1939 - 8-12-1939 — Page 12

No. 638.

12

53836/595

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONG KONG.

3rd October, 1939.

4

Kmas

Sir,

2.

RECEIVED

21 OCT1939

C. O. RECY

I have the honour to refer to your

As

despatch No. 289 of 31st July, 1939, conveying the

views of the Colonial Penal Administration Committee

on the proportion of European Staff in the Prisons Department, and to submit the following comments.

The proportion of one European to every

twenty-five prisoners for outside parties was an

ideal to be aimed at; in practice no more than

one European to forty prisoners is possible.

regards the proportion in the prison as a whole,

after accounting for the inevitable numerous

absences on leave and on special duty, only

twenty European officers are left for disciplinary

duty at any given time in a prison containing

2,700 to 3,000 prisoners; an average of one

European officer on duty to every 140 prisoners.

3.

I am advised that with few exceptions

the Indian officers recruited in the past can only

be regarded as reliable when under direct and

constant supervision of a European officer.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

MALCOLM MACDONALD, M.P.,

In

&C.

&C.,

&C.,