ENG-2006 — Page 405

Public Order | 337

Psychological Services

Psychological services are provided to inmates and prisoners to improve their psychological well-being and to correct their offending behaviour. Clinical psychologists and trained officers provide special treatment programmes for inmates such as sex offenders, violent offenders, inmates with addiction problems and young offenders. They also provide assessment reports to the courts, review boards and institutional management to assist them in their decision-making. The CSD took steps during the year to further improve the running of rehabilitative services provided for offenders after they have been discharged. It has adopted an empirically based protocol and clinical measures for assessing more accurately the risks of offenders getting into trouble again and returning to prison after they have been discharged.

Supervision Services

Statutory supervision is provided to discharged young prisoners, people discharged from training, rehabilitation, detention and drug addiction treatment centres, and prisoners discharged under the Release Under Supervision, Pre-release Employment and Post-release Supervision Schemes, as well as prisoners discharged under a conditional release order or post-release supervision order. The aim of supervision services is to help ex-offenders reintegrate into society with as little stress. as possible. To help the ex-offenders better tackle the problems they might encounter in the outside world, it is essential to establish a good rapport between them and their families and their CSD supervisors. Any breach of the supervision conditions may result in these ex-inmates being recalled for a further period of training, treatment or imprisonment.

Under the Release Under Supervision and Pre-release Employment Schemes, successful applicants may be discharged directly from prison for supervision or permitted to go out to work and live in a hostel with supervision services. Both schemes aim at enabling suitable, eligible and motivated prisoners to serve their sentences in an open environment while under supervision.

The Post-release Supervision Scheme provides supervision for certain categories of adult prisoners to facilitate their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Prisoners with indeterminate sentences may, before the Long-term Prison Sentences Review Board makes recommendations as to whether their indeterminate sentences should be converted to determinate ones, be conditionally released under supervision for a specific period to test their determination and ability to lead a law-abiding life. Prisoners whose indeterminate sentences have been converted to determinate ones may also be ordered by the board to be placed under post-release supervision.

In 2006, 2 664 offenders were discharged under supervision. They, together with those discharged in previous years and who had yet to complete their supervision period, added up to a total of 2 748 persons under the CSD's supervision at the end of 2006. During the year, 1 036 persons were recalled for breach of supervision conditions.

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338 Public Order