Prisons from 1946 to 1973

The Prisons Department faced a number of difficulties immediately after the War.

Apart from the shortage of material and resources, the loss of all official records during the period of Japanese occupation made the classification of prisoners impossible without their previous penal records. The growing number of prisoners admitted into the prison system, in particular the increase in the number of young male offenders, was of particular concern. Finally difficulties were caused by the lack of trained staff in running prisons, as most pre-war staff were in extremely poor state of health and were unable to return to duty after the War.

Victoria Prison was re-opened on 1 July 1946 with cellular accommodation for 150 and was used mainly to house remand prisoners in view of its proximity to the courts.

Some short-term prisoners were also located at Victoria Prison to provide domestic services.¹⁷

The pre-War practice of having Justice of Peace (JP) visiting prisons resumed in 1946.

On 12 August 1946, Stanley Prison was reported by the visiting JP of holding a total of 1,654 prisoners including 24 Chinese females, 96 juveniles and 290 Japanese. The JPs found the arrangement of accommodating female prisoners in the Condemned Block of the prison not a desirable practice as these female prisoners had to be moved to the prison hospital whenever there were impending executions.¹⁸

In December 1946, the reformatory age boys were moved out from Stanley Prison to the Stanley Reformatory. The women prisoners also left Stanley Prison on 1 October

17 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1946-47.

18 See HKRS 41-1-1427.

1947 when the repair work at the former female prison at Lai Chi Kok was completed.¹⁹

Despite the opening of the Victoria Prison in housing the remands, juveniles to reformatory and the female prisoners to Lai Chi Kok Prison, overcrowding remained to be the major problem faced by Stanley Prison. The main cause of the prison overcrowding was due to the influx of short-sentence prisoners. The types of prisoners admitted as described in the 1947/48 Annual Departmental Report was:

“16,160 persons were admitted to prison to serve sentence, 11,982 of which were for periods of under 3 months, 9,216 of them being for under 1 month. A total of 7,967 persons were committed for short and completely ineffective terms of imprisonment for “Obstruction” and

“Hawking without a licence”, this being a big factor in causing the overcrowding of the prisons and frustrating all efforts made to classify and improve the real criminals therein. Many of these persons were well able to pay their fines but preferred to come to prison.”²⁰

Similar problem was recorded in the 1948/49 Annual Departmental Report mentioning that 8,254 persons (5,291 males and 2,963 females) were admitted for short sentences during the year on trivial offences such as ‘Spitting’, ‘Obeying a call of nature’ and ‘Hawking without a licence’. They were accounted for 40% of the daily average penal population.²¹

Further, Commissioner Shillingford wrote to the Governor on 23 June 1948 requesting emergency measures to be taken to release certain selected groups of prisoners before the end of their sentences. This was a practice which had been

19 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1947-48.

20 Ibid.

21 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1948-49.

adopted in 1939 in view of prison overcrowding. Taking note of the unsatisfactory arrangements in 1939 when most of the early released prisoners were re-admitted to prison for fresh offences even before their original sentences expired, the Governor reluctantly agreed to release prisoners serving sentences of six months or less except those committing the following offences:

 Larceny from the person,

 Working illegal wireless stations,

 Possession of dangerous drugs,

 Being a member of an unlawful society, and

 Offering a bribe to a policeman

Records kept in Hong Kong’s Public Record Office revealed that 23 batches of prisoners numbering more than 1,400 were released early under such arrangements between 12 July 1948 and 13 December 1948.²²

Commissioner Shillingford made further suggestions to the central government in addressing the influx of non-fine-paying short-term prisoners by giving the offenders a reasonable allowance of time to pay their fines and, if necessary, the enforcement of fine payment through forfeiture of goods in the case of the hawkers. He also believed that a comprehensive and liberal probation system should be adopted in Hong Kong as:

“I am confident that adoption of some of these suggestions would result in the vast majority of these petty offenders paying for their offences and thus relieve the community of the cost of maintaining them to the tune of over a million dollars a year. I am equally confident that this would also have a

22 See HKRS 41-1-2916.

certain deterrent effect. At present the state is being fined, instead of the offenders, against its laws.”²³

Another measure to address the prison overcrowding problem was the deportation of alien prisoners when they have completed their sentences in Hong Kong. The Commissioner of Prison was appointed as the Competent Authority since January 1950 and to make Deportation Orders against alien convicts under the amended Deportation of Aliens Ordinance of 1935. A further amendment of the Ordinance on 16 August 1950 added the number of offences for which the Competent Authority might make Deportation Orders. As most of the prisoners in Hong Kong were from Mainland China, it was sometimes difficult for the Police to arrange the actual deportation at times when Sino-British relationship was tense and the Chinese Government had on occasions refused to accept these deportees.²⁴

Owing to the lack of resources in maintaining the prison buildings in the immediate years after the War, Stanley Prison was left in a poor state and the living conditions for the prisoners therein were bad. It was reported that:

“During the year under report no satisfactory works of rehabilitation or maintenance have been carried out and these costly and impressive buildings are gradually rotting. Most of the roofs leak badly and the cell windows give little protection from rain if accompanied by wind because about 80% of the glass is missing from the louvers. Most of the cells have to accommodate 3 prisoners and it is not unusual to find bed-boards propped slanting against the cell wall with prisoners crouched under them for protection against the rain which is blowing in.”²⁵

23 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1948-49.

24 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1950-51.

25 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1948-49.

Two open prisons were set up in Hong Kong in the 1950s following the British practice before the War.²⁶ The Prisons Department took over the under-utilized ‘Shap Long (十塱) Home for the Disabled’ in Lantau Island (大嶼山) from the Social Welfare Office and renamed it as H.M. Prison Chimawan (芝麻灣監獄) and started to take in Star Class short-term prisoners from January 1957. In October 1958, the Prisons Department took over the former on-site staff quarters of the engineers and workers building the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir (大欖涌水塘) in the New Territories and turned this into the Hong Kong’s second open prison, H.M. Prison Tai Lam (大欖 監獄).

The open prison concept was not without its drawbacks in particular the possibilities of prisoner escapes. On 2 August 1969, twelve inmates escaped from a dormitory at Tai Lam Prison and in August 1970, three prisoners escaped from Chimawan Prison; they evaded a large scale man-hunt by members of prison, police and military personnel for nine days before their recapture.²⁷

There were further signs of mass indiscipline in the prisons in the 1970s. On 27 December 1970, over 500 prisoners barricaded themselves inside the dormitories at Tong Fuk Prison (塘福監獄) and holding one warder as hostage. The stand-off lasted for three hours and only ended when assurances was given to the prisoners that an official enquiry would be convened to look into their grievances.

26 The first open prison was established at New Hall in 1936. See Watts, C. (2001) ‘The History of the Prison System’ in Bryans, S. and Jones, R. (Eds.) Prisons and the Prisoner – An Introduction to the Work of Her Majesty’s Prison Service. London: The Stationery Office.

27 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1969-70, 1970-71.

The subsequent enquiry, conducted internally by the Prisons Department, did reveal a

‘below standard’ management of the institution and four prison staff were disciplined for failing to follow the laid down routines in the unlocking and locking up of prisoners from the dormitories. As for prisoners, none of them were disciplined for their involvement in the disturbance due to insufficient evidence.²⁸

On 28 June 1971, two inmates escaped from Tong Fuk Prison, ran towards the Shek Pik Reservoir (石壁水塘) direction and killed an employee of the Waterworks Office en-route. Both escapees were subsequently re-captured and charged with murder. They were later convicted on a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.²⁹

The state of indiscipline had continued in the open institutions with minor disturbances at Tai Lam and Ma Po Ping Addiction Treatment Centres (麻埔坪戒毒所). Stanley Prison also noted the trend of increased violence amongst prisoners involving the use of weapons and four prisoners died as a result of assaults between prisoners. As a counter-measure, the prison management tightened up the security of Stanley Prison by setting up a special searching squad; they removed metal stockpiles outside the prison until required by the workshop and prisoners involved in outside work were to be accommodated outside the prison proper. Another area of concern was the wide spread use of illicit drugs found inside prisons leading to the introduction of compulsorily rectal examinations upon prisoners’ admission to the prison.³⁰ However, all these added security measures could not prevent the disturbance which took place in Stanley Prison in April 1973.

28 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1970-71.

29 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1971-72.

30 Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1972-73.

Before moving to the next section covering the 1973 Stanley Prison riot, it is necessary to cover the development of the Prisons staff after the War. As mentioned in Chapter One on conditions of the Hong Kong Prisons Department before the War, the Prison Officer grades as well as the Non-Commissioned Officer grades were occupied by Europeans only. The latter mainly recruited from Her Majesty’s Forces in Hong Kong. Prior to the War, the Warder grade was entirely filled by the Pakistani and Sikh staff and Chinese were not allowed to join as their loyalties were in doubt and the fear of their links with the undesirables in the colony.³¹ In 1938, there were over 230 Pakistani and Sikh staff in service in 1938.³²

The situation changed after the War in particular the Warder grades as localisation started to take place in Hong Kong. Indian and Pakistani Warders upon their resignation were replaced by locally recruited Chinese. However owing to poor pay and the low social status of being a prison Warder, the locally enlisted Chinese Warders were found to be of poor quality. This was further hampered by the lack of training provided to the new recruits. Tight discipline had to be exercised on the prison staff and 824 prison staff were disciplined and punished in the year 1947/48.³³

The situation improved since 1947 when the Salary Commission increased the salary of the local prison staff to be in line with that of the police. Arising from this financial improvement, better quality local Chinese were attracted to join as Warders.³⁴ Proper trainings were arranged for the newly recruited Warders since 1950. A month long training covering foot-drill, weapon training, Prison Rules and duties of a Warder

31 See Chan, S. (1994a) op cit.

32 See Prisons Department Annual Report for 1938.

33 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1947-48.

34 Ibid.

were given before they were posted out to work in the prison, and continued to be supervised until ready to work independently.³⁵ By 1954, the number of Pakistani and Sikh staff number were down to 41 as all vacancies came up were filled by local recruitment.³⁶

Until late in 1948, the grade of ‘Prison Officer’ was restricted to Europeans. Starting from 1949, the ‘Prison Officer’ grade was split into two: ‘Prison Officer Grade I’ and

‘Prison Officer Grade II’. The latter grade allowed for direct entry or by promotion from the Warders.³⁷

The recruitment of European expatriate prison officers was through the Crown Agent who advertised in the home press and eight of them were recruited during the year 1952-53. Through arrangement with the Colonial Office, assistance were rendered by the Prison Commissioners for these new recruits to undergo three months training courses in the United Kingdom prisons before taking up their post in Hong Kong.³⁸

This was a great improvement in preparing the new officers as no formal training was organized for the Prison Officers before in view of the small number of Officers recruited at a time. Officers joined before this arrangement had to take up the apprentice system of working alongside an experienced officer until they were readied to perform duty independently.³⁹

35 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1950-51.

36 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1953-54.

37 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1949-50.

38 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1952-53.

39 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1950-51.

During the same year, the Governor of Hong Kong approved the alternation to the cap badge and badge of the Prisons Department. The new badge incorporated the new Royal Cypher when Queen Elizabeth II became the new head of the Empire.⁴⁰ The new badge looked very similar to Her Majesty’s Prison Service badge except with the addition of the letters ‘Hong Kong’, signifying the close resemblance of the two services.

The quality of some European Officers recruited immediately after the War was however far from satisfactory. In a memorandum from the Commissioner of Prisons to the Colonial Secretary dated 25 September 1952, he reported that 59 disciplinary reports were laid against twenty European Officer in the year with 32 of these reports being ‘late for duty’. At the time there were only 58 European Officers in the service.

The Commissioner explained that most of those involved were ex-Palestine policemen who were sent to Hong Kong by the Crown Agents in 1947-48 on three year contracts and so far sixteen of them had left the Service.⁴¹

With the increased number of locally enlisted staff joining the prison services, the Prisons Department established its first Staff Training School at Stanley in 1958. A four weeks training was provided to all new recruits and one week refresher training for the serving prison staff.⁴²

With the closing down of the Colonial Office, the practice of employing European prison officers from England also ceased since 1963. Recruitment for both rank and

40 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1952-53.

41 See HKRS 41-1-1425-1, op cit.

42 See Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports, 1958-59.

file and officer grade prison staff for the Hong Kong prison service were conducted locally.⁴³

In 1968, the new Staff Training School for the Prisons Department was completed.

The first course for newly recruited prison staff started in the same year with 171 men and 4 women recruits. The basic training for the staff was extended to six months and apart from courses run by the Department, the Extra Mural Department of the University of Hong Kong⁴⁴ was involved in the training in social science subjects such as: ‘The Evaluation of Law and Punishment’; ‘The Objects and Ethics of Punishment’; ‘Delinquency and Human Nature’; ‘Theories of Deviant Behaviour’;

‘Chinese Attitudes to Law’; ‘Social Aspects of Crime’; ‘Drugs and Crime’;

‘Psychiatric Aspects of Crime’; ‘Group Counselling’ and ‘The Effects of Various Treatments in Law’.⁴⁵

Despite all these trainings, the standard of some prison staff, especially those in the junior ranks, were not the best type of staff the Department might require as reflect in the riot that happened in Stanley Prison in April 1973.