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HONG KONG Like prison populations everywhere, the Hong Kong prison population is largely male. Women prisoners do, however, account for 12 percent of the prison
population, a far higher proportion than found in most prison systems. It
should also be noted that the women's prison population has grown at a
tremendous rate in recent years, tripling since 1985. The rise in the women's prison population, much more so than the men's
prison population, is mainly due to the influx of mainland Chinese into the
prison system. A significant proportion of these women are sex workers who have
been prosecuted for immigration violations, usually working without an
employment visa. Nearly half of the inmate population at Tai Tam Gap
Correctional Institution, for example, is made up of mainland Chinese.(165) The
other significant factor in the growth of the women's prison population is
the larger numbers of female drug addicts entering the penal system. In the past two years, in order to cope with this rapid growth, the CSD
opened both a medium security women's prison and drug addiction treatment
center at Chi Ma Wan, converting a former Vietnamese detention camp. Prior to
the inauguration of these facilities, the two existing women's facilities
suffered from extremely acute overcrowding. Tai Lam Centre for Women, for
example, once held 817 prisoners in space designed for 278.(137) Still, even
with the new facilities, three out of four women's institutions remain
markedly overcrowded. Nonetheless, no new prisons for women are planned. The Prison Rules specify that women prisoners must be supervised by women
guards.(138) In compliance with this rule -- and with international
standards(139) -- very few male staff members work in the women's
prisons, and those that do are accompanied by a female officer when they come
into contact with prisoners.(140) Notably, however, all four of Hong Kong's women institutions are run by male superintendents.(141) Under the Prison Rules, incarcerated women have the right to keep their
babies with them in prison until the babies reach nine months old, with the
additional possibility of keeping them until age three.(142) At Tai Lam Centre
for Women, when the delegation visited, eight women inmates had infants with
them. Mothers with babies stay in special nursery area. In addition, the
facility has a very pleasant play room, full of toys, for children up to age six
who are visiting their incarcerated mothers. At the mothers' request, the
children are allowed half-day contact visits with them up to once a week. Hong Kong has five institutions for juvenile offenders: four for males and
one for females. In addition, some male juveniles are held in a separate
section of the Hei Ling Chau Addiction Treatment Centre.(143) The Hong Kong prison authorities espouse a strongly rehabilitative ethic in
their treatment of juvenile prisoners. Reflecting this emphasis, facilities for
juveniles include not just prisons but also "training centers" and,
for males, a detention center. While employing different approaches, both of
these types of facilities are meant to make juvenile inmates more apt to lead a
law-abiding life upon release. This forward-looking focus is further reinforced
by the mandatory post-release supervision that training center and detention
center inmates must undergo. Nearly half of all juveniles sentenced to terms of
imprisonment were placed in either training center or detention center programs. The primary purpose of training centers is to equip juveniles with useful
skills.(144) The training center for female juveniles is located at Tai Tam Gap
Correctional Institution. To that goal, all training center inmates are given
half-day education classes and half-day vocational training. At Pik Uk
Correctional Institution and Tai Tam Gap, the Human Rights Watch/Hong Kong Human
Rights Monitor delegation saw training center inmates receiving computer and
language instruction. Young males may also be sent to Sha Tsui Detention Centre, a medium security
facility that administers a high intensity quasi-military program (descriptively
named "short sharp shock"). Sha Tsui includes two separate groups,
one consisting of detainees between fourteen and twenty years old, and the other
of those between twenty-one and twenty-four. The stated purpose of the
detention center program, an ambitious one, is "to instil in young male
detainees a respect for the law, to create self-respect and an awareness of
neglected capabilities in legitimate pursuits as well as an ability to live with
other people in harmony."(145) The primary means by which the detention center program seeks to achieve
these ends is through strict discipline. Where prisoners at other Hong Kong
correctional facilities are orderly, juveniles at Sha Tsui are rigidly
controlled. In their cells, for example, almost all personal items are banned
(no radios and no cassette players, for example), and the few personal items
allowed-such as a toothbrush, a book, a comb-must be kept in precise places.
Their shoes must be neatly placed in a specific spot under the bed, and their
clothes must be precisely folded. Besides an emphasis on physical labor-grass
cutting, maintenance and construction(146) -- inmates are subject to a substantial amount of drilling. Staff at Sha Tsui, we were told, perceive themselves as instructors rather than
guards, and the grounds of the facility are filled with inmates marching around
shouting "left, right, left, right," and following these instructors'
commands. The CSD has impressive statistics to bolster its assertions that the
detention center program's effectiveness is proved by its graduates'
low recidivism rates.(147) Academics have challenged these statistics, however,
arguing that the methods used to calculate recidivism are faulty.(148)
Regardless of whether the program results in low recidivism, the lack of
privacy, autonomy, and individual expression permitted detention center inmates
is of concern to the Human Rights Watch/Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor
delegation. On the other hand, we were impressed with the facility's
emphasis on parent-inmate relations, reflected in, among other things, the
superintendent's blanket approval of daily contact visits. Besides local prisoners and mainland Chinese, the Hong Kong prisons house
some 800 foreign prisoners from a variety of countries. Many of these prisoners
have expressed concerns about the impending transfer of sovereignty.(149) On
July 1, 1997, all previously existing prisoner transfer treaties, by which
prisoners may arrange to serve out their sentences in their home countries, will
lapse.(150) Some prisoners have reportedly been making hurried last-ditch
efforts to effect a transfer before this deadline.(151) In addition, the Hong
Kong authorities are in the midst of negotiations with several countries to work
out new transfer arrangements. Foreign prisoners told the Human Rights Watch/Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor
delegation of encountering frustrating language difficulties in their relations
with CSD staff. One Nigerian prisoner also described racial discrimination and,
in particular, guards' use of racial slurs.(152) Inmates with mental problems are housed at the Siu Lam Psychiatric
Centre.(153) In appearance, the facility is quite pleasant: its rooms and
corridors are spacious, airy, and painted in soothing colors. It also possesses
attractive gardens with flowers, fish, and birds, tended by some of the inmates.
As the facility is located on the side of a hill, inmates held there enjoy
rather dramatic views of the surrounding area. The majority of the psychiatric patients held at Siu Lam are schizophrenic,
but there are also inmates suffering from clinical depression, manias, and
severe mental deficiencies.(154) (Since no member of the Human Rights
Watch/Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor delegation has medical training, we did not
independently assess inmates' mental conditions.) Siu Lam's
psychiatric team, who divide their time between Siu Lam and a local hospital,
consists of two consulting psychiatrists, a senior registrar, an acting senior
medical officer, and two medical officers. Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) visited Siu Lam in late
1995 and apparently issued a report of its findings in 1996. The Human Rights
Watch/Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor delegation was unable to obtain a copy of
the report, but newspaper accounts stated that the RCP team expressed concerns
over the "outdated" conditions and methods used at the facility.(155)
When questioned about the report, the superintendent at Siu Lam claimed not to
have read it, though he added that "big improvements" had been made at
the facility.(156) The most obvious deficiency at Siu Lam is its severe shortage of qualified
psychiatric nurses. Although according to a recent CSD report the facility
should have ninety-seven nurses, it has almost precisely half that figure.(157)
Exacerbating this deficiency, many nurses, who also trained CSD security staff,
are assigned non-nursing duties such as manning the guard towers.(158) Nurses
explained that, as a result, they had little time to provide the individualized
treatment that patients needed-little time, in fact, even to open patients'
files. In their view, many of the problems at Siu Lam arose from its hybrid
status as both a prison and a mental institution.(159) In general, the CSD's
natural focus on security worked to the detriment of serving prisoners'
mental health needs. Besides Siu Lam, several other institutions have padded cells (called
protected rooms) in which to temporarily place prisoners who have become violent
or unmanageable. On inquiring about these rooms, the Human Rights Watch/Hong
Kong Human Rights Monitor delegation found that corrections staff generally
could not even remember when they were last used; in one facility, in fact, the
room was used for storage. Mechanical restraints, similarly, appear to be
rarely used within the prisons (although they are used in the outside transport
of certain prisoners). As mentioned previously, a large proportion of the Hong Kong penal
population consists of drug addicts, primarily heroin addicts. Because of the
severity of these drug problems, the CSD operates two drug addition treatment
centers for inmates sentenced by the courts to mandatory treatment: one at Hei
Ling Chau, for men, and one at Chi Ma Wan, for women. The focus of these
centers -- as with juvenile detention centers -- is on discipline and open-air
exercise. Methadone treatment, although it is regularly employed outside of the
penal context in Hong Kong, is not available in the centers. Besides those held in treatment centers, many drug addicts are found in the
regular prisons. In all of these facilities, obligatory urine tests (EMIT
tests) are regularly administered to inmates. Indeed, in some facilities
one-quarter of the inmate population is tested each month, without any
requirement of either a particularized or generalized suspicion of drug
use.(160) Contact visits and trips to court give rise to additional drug tests.
To be sure, the high incidence of drug use among the penal population and the
adverse impact of drugs within the prison environment may justify the intrusion
on inmates' privacy interests represented by drug testing.(161)
Nonetheless, in the delegation's view, the CSD should consider adopting a
more nuanced drug testing policy, which takes into account whether there is
evidence of drug use either by a particular prisoner or in a particular
institution. |