28 June 1989
一九八九年六月二十八日
66
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
香港立法局
SECRETARY FOR SECURITY: Sir, I should like to reply to the comments made by Members on juvenile delinquency and the rehabilitation of young offenders. Overall, the number of crimes committed by young people and juveniles has remained more or less constant over the past four or five years, but this is no reason for complacency. Efforts must continue to discourage young people from crime, and to ensure that young offenders are given the best possible chance of a fresh start.
To discourage and prevent juvenile crime, the Fight Crime Committee and its Standing Committee on Young Offenders regularly seek to introduce new measures to discourage the young from involvement in crime. Recent publicity in schools and in the media has concentrated on those offences, such as shop theft and triad activity, which constitute the majority of juvenile crime. One of the main targets of this year's fight crime publicity campaign is juvenile delinquency.
But, despite the best efforts of the Government and the community, we have to accept that there will always be young people who, through lack of guidance, temptation or simply boredom, will gravitate towards crime. When this happens we have to ensure that our penal system is equipped to allow young offenders the best possible chance of rehabilitation and re-integration into the community.
Young offenders are provided with a wide range of vocational training and educational classes in correctional institutions. The aim of these programmes is to ensure that young offenders can re-integrate successfully in the community as useful and law-abiding citizens.
To provide magistrates with advice on the most appropriate programme for a particular offender, the Young Offenders Assessment Panel was established in April 1987. The panel's work was reviewed by the Fight Crime Committee in 1988. The conclusion was that the panel made a valuable contribution to our programme of rehabilitation, and that it should be expanded once resources were available.
As regards the specific suggestions made by Mrs. TAM and Mrs. TU, I would like to say:
a) first, that we have recently published a consultation document on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Scheme, including the legislation on spent convictions, and the arrangements for the issue of Certificates of No Criminal Conviction. Once we have obtained the views of the
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