I refer to the article 'Swift action urged on crowded jails' (January 18), which quotes the Commissioner of Correctional Services Pang Sung-yuen as saying the need for new jails and increased staff are now more urgent.
Comments made during the 'superjail' debate in 2004 mentioned Hong Kong's success in shifting things that are too expensive or impractical here to the mainland, and also that the trend worldwide is to outsource government services.
Thus, prison overcrowding could be solved by outsourcing Hong Kong's prisons to the mainland's Public Security Bureau (PSB), which would run prisons there under licence for us much more cheaply.
While this suggestion did not sit well with those who favour policies accented towards rehabilitation, it merits study. Hong Kong's population is steady or falling, and crime rates are dropping, yet our prison numbers are going up. Why?
'Real' criminal numbers are not rising - the growth is in mainland prostitutes, illegal entrants and sundry overstayers who are locked up (as a deterrent?) for a few months at taxpayers' expense before being repatriated. Why not send these people back for their 'deterrent' sentences on the mainland under a licensing arrangement with the PSB?
Doubtless anxious to protect their jobs, Security Branch staff came up with a plethora of unconvincing reasons why this could not be done. May I ask them to now explain why they feel it is not possible, and why we are expected to spend more and more taxpayer dollars just to house mainland prostitutes.
R. E. J. BUNKER, Lantau
