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PUBLIC ORDER
All convicted male prisoners are received at Victoria Reception Centre and after a thorough medical examination appear before a classification board for allocation to an institution best suited to their needs. The centre also contains a psychiatric observation unit manned by fully trained staff under a consultant psychiatrist. This unit will be replaced next year by a new Prisons Department Psychiatric Centre at Siu Lam in the New Territories.
All women prisoners are received and housed at the Tai Lam Centre for Women. Opened at the end of last year it provides separate facilities for remand and convicted women prisoners, for convicted persons known to be drug-dependent, and for young women between the ages of 14 and 21.
The former women's prison at Lai Chi Kok is being used temporarily as a remand and recall centre for young male offenders between the ages of 14 and 21 pending the opening next year of Dragon's Back Training Centre on Hong Kong Island.
On conviction young male offenders are housed under open conditions at the training centres or at Chi Ma Wan Prison where there is a young prisoners' section with separate dormitory accom- modation and daily routine (half day at school; half day at work). There is a thorough, and successful, system of statutory after-care for young men released from training centres and all are found employment before release. They remain under supervision for a period which may be as long as four years from the date of sentence. The training centres had an inmate population of 677 on December 31, 1970.
The open prison system is used whenever possible in Hong Kong as experience has shown that an environment where prisoners lead healthy outdoor lives doing constructive work leads to more successful rehabilitation. Open prisons, with an average population of 1,553 during 1970, are situated on Lantau Island in the New Territories and an immense amount of useful work has been done by prisoners in forestry areas and on minor construction projects.
About 53 per cent of all prisoners and inmates live and work under open conditions and this brings with it attendant escape risks. During the year there were altogether 68 escapes compared with the
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