TNAG-0396-FCO40-442-Problem-of-increase-in-crime-in-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 115

nex C

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13.

The Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 1973

(Annex C) is designed to give effect to this proposal and

generally follows the former U.K. provisions.

By virtue of

the Bill, it will be open to the Supreme Court or the District

Court to sentence an offender to not less than 5 nor more than

14 years preventive detention, if the conditions set out in

the new section 1091 are satisfied. These conditions are

that the person shall be not less than 25 years of

(a)

age;

(b) that he is convicted of an offence punishable with

at least two years' imprisonment;

(c) that he has been convicted on at least 3 previous

occasions since the age of 17 of offences punishable

with such a sentence;

(a) that he was sentenced to a custodial sentence on

at least 2 of these 3 previous occasions; and

(e) that he was on at least one of the 3 previous

occasions sentenced to not less than two years'

imprisonment.

14. The object of requiring these conditions to be

satisfied is to make it clear that preventive detention is to

be used as a last resort, when all other forms of punishment

have failed to protect society against a man who has, in effect,

become a professional criminal.

15. It should be stressed that, while there is no

specific limitation to this effect contained in the Bill,

preventive detention is not intended to cover drug addicts

or professional pickpockets, but only those guilty of really

In practice,' drug addicts are very seldom

sentenced to two years' imprisonment on any one occasion and

therefore are unlikely ever to qualify for this form of

serious offences.

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