Hong Kong News Hub: ‘Five-star prison’: Hong Kong lawmaker slams HK$5.5 billion plan to revamp overcrowded detention facility

A Hong Kong lawmaker has slammed the government’s plan to spend more than HK$5.5 billon on redeveloping an overcrowded detention centre. The project was too expensive and there was no need to build a “five-star” facility for the detainees, he said.

Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho on October 25, 2023. Photo Kyle Lam/HKFP. — Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho on Wednesday blasted the government’s plan to demolish five blocks and reconstruct three new ones at the annex of the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre to add 410 places to the current capacity of 1,484.

‘Five-star prison’

The project did not take into account the forecast fiscal deficit of more than HK$1 billion, Ho said at the Public Works Subcommittee meeting in the legislature. He questioned why the detainees should be provided with “good services,” such as religious facilities and visitation rooms.

According to a document submitted by the Security Bureau, the new buildings – to be completed in three phases over eight years – would be equipped with facilities such as a clinic with isolation cells and dental treatment rooms, a religious service room, a library and an indoor sports ground.

There would also be 50 rooms for visitations by family and friends, six video visit rooms, 22 rooms for government officials and legal personnel to visit the individuals on remand, and two rooms for conducting remote court hearings.

Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre. Photo: Peter Lee/HKFP.

“We are not building a five-star prison,” Ho remarked in Cantonese.

“You did something wrong and you have to repent. You should just go to a corner and reflect. Why should you be provided with religious facilities? Give a church? A mosque? Are you kidding?” he said.

The maximum security reception centre managed by the Correctional Services Department holds adult male detainees, including defendants awaiting trial, those seeking an appeal, immigration detainees, and individuals detained over drug addiction. It does not hold individuals who have been convicted and jailed.

‘Severe overcrowding’

The Security Bureau described the facility as being “plagued by a severe overcrowding problem,” which the government had been trying to tackle since 2008 through an internal expansion project and merging the former married staff quarters into the facility.

But the overall remand population had continued to rise over the years, the government said, pointing to the average daily number of persons in custody, which rose from around 1,400 in 2012 to around 2,700 in 2022, marking an increase of 92 per cent, the Security Bureau said.

Correctional Services Department — A correctional facility in Hong Kong. File photo: Candice Chau/HKFP.

The Lai Chi Kok facility’s penal population was 1,550 in 2021 and 1,541 in 2022, which represented an occupancy rate of around 104.5 per cent and 103.8 per cent, respectively.

“The overcrowded custodial environment not only affects the daily activity area of [people in custody], but also increases the risk of conflicts… thereby affecting the institutional discipline and order,” the Security Bureau wrote.

Ho questioned why the government did not considering imposing a “triage” system to allocate prisoners to different facilities to tackle the issue of overcrowding. He said the authorities could hold detainees who received lenient sentences or individuals on remand pending probation reports in “low-quality” and “low-risk” facilities, rather than the maximum security centre.

“Not all individuals held in the Lai Chi Kok facility are Jimmy Lai,” he said, referring to one of the centre’s most high-profile detainees, the pro-democracy media tycoon who has been on remand since December 2020 under the national security law. He is currently serving five years and nine months for separate fraud charges in the maximum security Stanley Prison.

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