184
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
refuge is provided in the Po Leung Kuk, already mentioned under the heading of Child Welfare, where limited space is set aside for them. During the year seventy five unmarried mothers came to the Department for help and fourteen were admitted to the Kuk.
Among other types of cases to which the officers of the Section devote much time and thought in giving advice and counsel are victims of indecent assault, family cases involving incompatibility or some moral difficulty, adolescent girls in need of care and protection or girls who have ceased to be amenable to parental control. Wherever possible, some stable form of work is found for those who seek to earn their living.
Probation. Juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong is less wide- spread than in comparable towns or seaports in the United Kingdom. The commonest minor offence with which juveniles are charged before the Courts is illegal hawking; among more serious charges, simple larceny predominates. The principal cause is un- doubtedly economic; children are often obliged to earn what they can to help the family to exist. It is important to maintain and develop institutions, clubs and other centres where children and young people can be given recreation, instruction and some communal life away from the streets and their overcrowded homes. These centres contribute to drawing them away from the 'protection' of illegal (Triad) societies and from the temptation to take to petty crime.
The Probation Section of the Social Welfare Department has fourteen Probation Officers, three of whom are in charge of residential institutions for the training of delinquents. The other eleven officers, three of them women, are directly engaged in probation work, serving the Magistracies of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and the courts of Tai Po and Ping Shan in the New Territories; whilst all are liaison officers to the District Courts and the Supreme Court.
At the end of the year the total number of persons placed on probation by Court Order was 250, of whom only 47 were females. Supervision was also exercised over 17 cases (3 female) referred by the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, the Magistrates, the Police or welfare agencies; these cases receive the same standard of supervision as that given to probationers. Of the total of 217 males under supervision at the end of 1958, 102 were adults; of
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