TNAG-0396-FCO40-442-Problem-of-increase-in-crime-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 104

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Mr Wilford

CONFIDENTIAL

пр Спо

nrs

then?/A

MW

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN HONG KONG

1. Mr Lloyd has sent us some useful comments in his letter

of 22 March.

2.

It seems that our encouragement to the Hong Kong Secretariat

to consult us at the formative stage of policy is beginning to

show results. The advance news of the community campaign against

crime and recruitment to the Auxiliary Police is particularly

useful.

3. Most of the proposed legislative changes do not, I think,

call for comment from us at this stage. The proposed new maximum

sentencing powers for the magistrates are compatible with the

powers of similar courts elsewhere, including the magistrates'

courts in Uganda with which I was associated and which were much

less sophisticated than those in Hong Kong. I think, however,

that we should take every suitable opportunity to point the need

for better magistrates for Hong Kong.

4. The only point on which substantive comment might be called

for is the question of mandatory sentences for young persons.

I think there is anyway some confusion of thought in that despite

Section 11 (2) of the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance the range of

possible sentences laid down in the amended Public Order Ordinance

would seem to be definitive. I also think we could be in for

trouble in the UK if a magistrate in Hong Kong sentenced a

fourteen year old to imprisonment for carrying, say, a knuckle-

duster, and then claimed that the deliberate exclusion of the

Juvenile Offenders Ordinance meant that he had no alternative

CONFIDENTIAL

/under