CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
D TE Roberts Esq CBE QC
Colonial Secretary
HONG KONG
Telephone 01-
Your reference
Our reference
Date
B
210
SCR L/M 54/73
HKK 14/16
22 October 1973
1.
Dear Denys,
*
166
218
With your letter to Duncan Watson dated 4 August you forwarded statistics of major crime in Hong Kong. These figures had been requested by Ministers in their consideration of the death penalty issue. The tables enclosed with your letter were therefore circulated to the Ministers concerned.
2. Several questions have since been raised by Ministers, on which I would be grateful for your further help.
3.
(1) It was considered that the figures might be more
(2)
meaningful if those for murder and manslaughter were separated, and also if the return showed precisely what the statistics refer to. Are they, for instance, of offences known to the Police (the normal measure of the murder rate in this country) or are these figures of cases prosecuted or of cases in which they were convictions?
Ministers asked whether you think the figures can be taken at their face value or whether there may have been any changes in law or practice which might account for apparent increases in the actual volume of crime. Do the figures reflect an actual shift in the level of criminality rather than an increase in 'crime known' which is perhaps attributable to such factors as a change in the reporting habits of the public or the recording practice of the Police?
(3) They also asked if the murder figures could be related
to the size of the population by expressing them as a "murder rate" per million.
Could you possibly send us the material for a reply?
CONFIDENTIAL
Yours ever, Andrew
A C Stuart
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
ви і
D
→ 30/11 December
Prik
24160
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.