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Separating young offenders from non-offenders
10.9
The WGY noted that young offenders share facilities with "maladjusted" youths with behavioural problems and socially deprived children in some residential institutions run by the Social Welfare Department (SWD) and the voluntary agencies. The WGY found this undesirable and recommended that the departments concerned should consider separating the administration of cases dealing with care and protection from those involving criminal offences.
Education provided in institutions run by the Social Welfare Department and the voluntary agencies
10.10 The WGY found that the responsibility for education in the SWD approved institutions (probation homes), the reformatory schools and the SWD subvented agency boarding schools rested with the Director of Social Welfare. Hence social workers, instead of teachers, provided this education. The Working Group recommended that properly trained teachers should be employed to run educational programmes so that the tuition standards could be improved.
The Young Offender Authority Concept
10.11 The WGY found that in terms of sentencing options juvenile courts are faced with a plethora of confusing possibilities when dealing with a young offender. The courts are frequently obliged to seek advice separately from the Social Welfare Department and Correctional Services Department. Such advice may take the form of up to ten different reports on the suitability of the defendant for various types of sentence or on his general character and background. Sometimes the reports may be contradictory and so complicate the decision-making process of the courts that a sentence may be not necessarily in the best interests of reforming the defendant. In addition, there is at present only limited scope for varying the treatment that a young offender receives in response to his progress while serving a particular
sentence.
10.12
The WGY considered that the establishment of a Young Offender Authority in Hong Kong could assist enormously in rectifying this situation and, in particular, could ensure that :
(a) young offenders receive consistent
treatment; and
(b) each young offender receives a sentence
most likely to reform him.
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