‘Don’t look down on Hong Kong’s prison staff’: outgoing correctional services chief says social events in recent years underscore importance of his department’s work
- Commissioner of Correctional Services Woo Ying-ming points to national security law and how those who have flouted it may radicalise others behind bars
- He describes prison as a microcosm of society, stressing that the work done by his staff often get overlooked
Work in Hong Kong’s correctional facilities is closely linked to law and order in the city, especially with the potential for radicalisation among inmates as more people in violation of the national security law are thrown behind bars, the outgoing prisons chief has said.
Commissioner of Correctional Services Woo Ying-ming looked back on his 33-year service in an interview with the Post, saying he was grateful that the department’s work was drawing wider attention and recognised in recent years amid a series of social events in the city.
The average daily number of remands had hit a decade high, jumping from 1,436 in 2011 to 1,962 in 2020, as more than 10,200 people were arrested in connection with the anti-government protests that erupted in June 2019.
At the time, in a first such move of its kind, some 200 armed specialists in prison riot control were enlisted by police as special constables to ease the manpower crunch in the embattled force.
Police have also arrested 167 people under the Beijing-imposed national security law since June 2020, with most of them thrown behind bars.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Hong Kong in early 2020, retired and off-duty prison officers joined inmates in producing surgical masks, raising the output to 4 million pieces a month with the city gripped by a shortage of the protection gear.