ENG-2007 — Page 384

328 Public Order

A Prisoners Education Trust Fund, set up with charitable donations in 1995, provides financial assistance to prisoners seeking an education. Grants are given from the fund to cover course or examination fees and cost of reference materials.

Vocational Training

To help young offenders reintegrate smoothly into society as law-abiding citizens, the CSD provides vocational training programmes for inmates under 21 years of age to enable them to acquire job skills, obtain accreditation and develop work habits.

For adult prisoners, the CSD also provides pre-release vocational training for local adult offenders who wish to participate on a voluntary basis. Such vocational training is provided on a full-time basis at Lai Sun Correctional Institution Vocational Training Centre and on a part-time basis in other institutions.

Correctional Services Industries

The Correctional Services Industries (CSI) provides work for adult prisoners as required by law. Apart from keeping the inmates gainfully occupied in purposeful work, CSI helps them develop good working habits and a sense of responsibility, build up self-confidence, and cultivate employability skills to facilitate their reintegration into the society.

In 2007, a daily average of about 5 856 prisoners were engaged in CSI, which provides a wide range of goods and services for government departments and subvented bodies. Products made by the inmates under the CSI programme include furniture, uniforms, leather goods, hospital linen, protective filter mask, fibreglass litter containers, traffic signs and precast concrete products. Prisoners also provide laundry services for hospitals, clinics and ambulance depots, and they also bind books for public libraries, undertake printing work and make file jackets and envelopes. Products and services provided by CSI were worth $455 million in 2007.

Welfare and Counselling Services

Programme Officers look after the welfare of detainees and prisoners, and help them deal with personal problems and difficulties arising from their detention or imprisonment. Apart from conducting individual and group counselling sessions, the officers would also assist in the running of various rehabilitation programmes and provide services such as organising pre-release re-integration orientation courses, making arrangements for the prisoners to meet their family members and supplying them with information on community resources.

Drug Addiction Treatment

The CSD runs a compulsory treatment programme for convicted drug addicts, which provides the courts with an alternative to imprisonment. Male and female inmates are accommodated at Hei Ling Chau Addiction Treatment Centre and its Annex respectively. Young addicts aged between 14 and 20 are accommodated separately from the adults. An inmate undergoes in-centre treatment for a period of two to 12 months, followed by one year of statutory supervision. The programme is