XN000022-1973-05-11 — Page 2

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Friday, May 11, 1973

NEW MEASURES TO HELP FIGHT VIOLENT CRIME

A series of new measures to deal with criminala is to be introduced

as part of the government's effort to reduce violent crime in Hong Kong.

The new measures are contained in proposed new legislation, published

in today's gazette, and include wider powers of punishment for District Judges and certain Magistrates and a new type of sentence designed is to isolate habitual criminals for long periods from society.

Under a system of preventive detention envisaged in the Criminal Procedures (Amendment) Bill 1973, a person convicted of serious crimes on four or more occasions may, on the application of the Attorney General, be confined in a special institution for a period between five and 14 years –

The length of sentence will be decided by the Supreme Court or the District Court. The persons liable to preventive detention under this

system are those who:-

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are not less than 25 years of age

are convicted of an offence punishable with at least two years jail

have been convicted on at least three previous occasions since the age of 17 of offences punishable with such a sentence

were sentenced to a custodial sentence on at least two of those three previous occasions; and

were on one or more of the three previous occasions sentenced to not less than three years total imprisonment.

/The aim