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estates, leading to molestation of young girls living in the estates, juvenile gang fights with knives and bicycle chains, etc.:-

(a) What steps can the Resettlement Department take to organize estate dwellers into "self-protection teams" against such unlawful activity?

(b) What other steps can be taken to provide youth recreation and vocational study facilities in order to divert the energies of resettlement estate youths into more constructive channels?

THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:-

The only complaints about activities of this kind which I or my staff have received are from groups of residents living in individual blocks, one each at Wong Tai Sin and Chai Wan Estates. These complaints were of a general nature and did not give rise to arrests or prosecutions for specific offences. This does not suggest that there is any wide-spread anxiety among residents of estates on this score.

2. During the period 1st January to 30th November, 1965, complaints of offences by persons under the age of 21 lodged at Police Stations which have resettlement estates in their areas numbered 741. The majority of these were cases of petty larceny from shops and construction sites. Of this number, one was a gang fight and 10 were cases of alleged indecent assault. There were 6 cases of conspiracy to commit an affray, the persons being arrested before a fight could take place. In considering this figure of 741 cases over a period of 11 months, it is important to bear in mind that the Colony-wide figure for the same period was 2,874 and that the Police Stations in question (for example Shau Kei Wan and Wong Tai Sin) cover considerable areas outside the boundaries of our estates. The Police are unable to give figures of offences committed exclusively in the estates.

3.

Police attention to teenage gang activity and juvenile crime generally was described in paper No. CW/142/64 circulated to Members on 25th February, 1965. I am assured that the Police have continued, and will continue, to pay special attention to this matter, priority being given to the areas in which juvenile crime is seen to be the most prevalent, which of course includes resettlement estates as high density residential areas. The Juvenile Liaison Branch of the Police Force is a special unit dealing solely with juvenile misbehaviour, emphasis being put on the need to prevent crime.

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juvenile misbehaviour, emphasis being put on the need to prevent crime.

Neither the Police nor I are in favour of organizing estate dwellers into "self-protection teams" which could readily become "protection rackets". Prevention and detection of crime are the responsibility of the Police and I am confident that they are fully capable of carrying out that responsibility within our estates, as elsewhere. Estate staff are in regular touch with officers of the appropriate police stations, and a useful exchange of information takes place in this way. I hope that liaison between residents of estates and my department, and thus with the Police, will further improve through the direct contact between Kai Fong Associations and my department which has recently been established at the instance of my friend the Secretary for Chinese Affairs.

Mr. CHEONG-LEEN will find details of recreation and vocational training centres in paragraph 7 of the monthly situation reports of my department which are regularly circulated to Members of this Council. At the end of November 1965, there were the following welfare services in estates catering for young people other than infants:-

25 vocational training centres, 11 recreation centres, 8 youth centres, 42 boys' and girls' clubs and 6 libraries. These figures do not include similar centres outside the boundaries of estates but within easy reach of them. The Director of Social Welfare and I, in co-operation with many voluntary organizations, are continually trying to encourage the establishment of more facilities of this kind within the estates and we are all very alive to the need for them.

MR. CHEONG-LEEN:- Mr. Chairman, does the Commissioner for Resettlement imply in the first paragraph of his answer, that since his department has received only a very few complaints from the period January 1st to November 30th, that there isn't any great anxiety among residents in the estates at the juvenile problem?

COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:- As I said in the first part of my reply, there have only been two complaints through the department. My purpose was to deny the suggestion in the opening words of Mr. CHEONG-LEEN's question which purported to be a statement of fact. These were "many residents in resettlement estates were very concerned in the incidence, etc.,"

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