Funding bid for addicts

More resources are being sought to cope with the growing number of young drug abusers with criminal convictions.

The Correctional Services Department is seeking $15 million for a new building at Hei Ling Chau Treatment Centre, catering for drug abusers aged between 14 and 21.

It will ask for another $10 million to employ an extra 41 officers to counsel and supervise ex-inmates when they are released from drug addiction treatment centres.

Senior superintendent Samson Chan Shek-sing said a two to three-storey building was envisaged for the Hei Ling Chau centre, a former British army site. Existing barracks would be demolished.