CO129-591-8 Policy directives 10-3-1944 - 17-8-1944 — Page 93

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HONG KONG

CIVIL AFFAIRS POLICY DIRECTIVES

64132.

Second Draft

14/4/44.

PRISONS

1.

Accommodation consisted of:-

Hong Kong Prison (Stanley);- 1476 single cells for males (of which

18 were used as stores).

Victoria Remand Prison:-

166 male prisoners.

Lai Chi Kok Female Prison:- 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. Complaint was

made of a lack of technical instructors.

4. In the first instance the Prisons Department should be

administered as a branch of the Police De, artment under general

control of the Commisioner 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

control of the Commissioner of Police and if practicable the

recommendations adopted for reducing the prison population which

The chief were advanced by the Commission on Prisons in 1939.

of these was the substitution of sentences of detention in a

labour camp for the short sentences 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

This will entail the creation of a many prisoners as possible.

staff of industrial instructors which would be possible from among