Can Hong Kong break its prison shackles to cut crime?

Advocates of penal reform say the city must drop its punitive approach and take note of measures introduced overseas to stop inmates reoffending

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Pik Uk prison in Hong Kong, where 115.5 people per 100,000 are incarcerated, compared with 75 in Norway. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00am, 28 Jul 2017Updated: 4:26pm, 28 Jul 2017

In the United Kingdom’s newest and largest prison, inmates use laptops and do their own weekly shopping. In Norway, prisoners can ski, cook, tend to farm animals and spend time on their own private beach.

Their routines are a far cry from the more regimented incarceration system in Hong Kong, where inmates had to fight last week to be allowed to play with stray cats. Tong Fuk Correctional Institution gave in after originally saying the felines would have to go, apparently due to arguments they were causing between the inmates.

Despite Hong Kong’s less liberal approach to prisons, experts say the city must be doing something right. The reoffending rate has been declining over the past decade, with only 25.9 per cent of inmates released in 2014 reoffending within two years of their release, down from 39.9 per cent of the 2000 cohort.

Even taking into account differing methodology, that’s on the low side. In the United States, 76.6 per cent of inmates released from state prison were rearrested within five years, according to the US government.

Hong Kong’s numbers may be relatively good, but they still mean a quarter of inmates are convicted of a new offence within only two years. With each crime costing the city at least HK$239,000, according to a study, that’s not something to scoff at.