XN000022-1972-11-15 — Page 2

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Wednesday, November 15, 1972

The Government will also consider instituting other measures.

These include:

The re-introduction of a form of rigorous imprisonment for people convicted of violent crimes;

To introduce a preventive detention system to remove "habitual criminals" from society for long periods;

To introduce compulsory corporal punishment for specified offences; and

To introduce minimum sentences for robbery or serious assaults.

Mr. Roberts said these proposed measures showed the part the

Government was taking to deal with the problem. "But we cannot do it

alone

crime cannot be kept within acceptable bounds unless every member

of the community is prepared to do what he can to help."

A person has a public duty to report a crime, even if it might

be inconvenient and take a lot of time, if he wishes to see crime contained,

he said.

The Attorney General said the Commissioner of Police was re-examining

the procedures in force in his stations in an effort to reduce the

inconvenience to people who attend to report crime, "but there will always

be a measure of inconvenience remaining".

Mr. Roberts pointed out that during the past generation "we in

Hong Kong have prided ourselves on an increasingly liberal and humane

attitude towards the treatment of wrongdoers.".

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