ENG-1958 — Page 253

THE COURTS, POLICE, PRISONS AND RECORDS

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sentenced to detention in a Training Centre. The provisions of the Training Centres Ordinance are based on the Borstal section of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948. The Centres can together take 270 boys, all of whom would probably have gone to prison before the inception of the scheme. Of 344 boys released over a period of six years only 70 have been reconvicted. 161 boys were accepted during the year, the daily average population being: Stanley Training Centre, 143; Cape Collinson Training Centre, 105.

The staff of the Prisons Department consists of 13 gazetted officers, 585 other ranks, and 148 schoolmasters, trade instructors, clerks, mechanics and others.

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After-care. The Salvation Army and Family Welfare Society have continued their work among adult prisoners. The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society has begun its task of co-ordinating and extending the work of such voluntary agencies.

After-care of boys discharged from the Training Centres is in the hands of three After-care Officers who in difficult conditions carried heavy case loads with much success.

三

RECORDS

The Registrar General's Department comprises the Land Office, the Registries of Births and Deaths, Marriages, Companies, Trade Marks and Patents, and the Offices of the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy and Companies Winding Up, the Official Trustee, the Judicial Trustee and the Official Solicitor in Lunacy.

Land Office. The principal function of the Land Office is the registration of all instruments affecting land in Hong Kong, Kowloon and portions of New Kowloon; instruments affecting land in the rest of New Kowloon and the New Territories being registered in one or other of the three District Offices. Although the system of registration under the Land Registration Ordinance is basically one of registration of deeds and not of title, the Land Office Registers do in fact show in a clear and accurate manner the devolution of title to each lot, or section of a lot, and details of all incumbrances affecting it. The result is that, in practice, the system is regarded as virtually equivalent to registration of title. Land tenure is described in Chapters 7 and 10.