Subject: Press Release 5 March 98
For Chinese press release, please see the attached text file
PRESS RELEASE - 5 March 1998
INDEPENDENT PRISON INSPECTORATE & IMPROVEMENTS TO JP SYSTEM NEEDED
A prisoner who hanged himself was reported to have characters in his palms blaming the Correctional Services Department (CSD) of having beaten him up. This and other similar incidents highlight the need for an independent prison inspectorate and an improved JP system.
One of the tests of a good prison system is the extent to which it has effective mechanisms in place to monitor conditions and report abuses. Although there is a superficial profusion of prison monitoring bodies in the territory-including the CSD's internal bodies, visiting justices of the peace, and the ombudsman-the protection provided by these bodies is incomplete. At present, there is no group or institution with full and unrestricted access to the prisons that has the freedom to criticize and, if necessary, to draw public attention to abuses. The Hong Kong SAR Government should establish an independent prisons inspectorate with a broad mandate to investigate conditions in the territory's penal facilities; report its findings to the responsible governmental authorities, to the legislature, and to the public; and make recommendations for reform. Qualified outsiders, including academics, members of the media, and representatives of human rights organizations should be allowed to inspect the prisons and to
interview prisoners out of the earshot of guards.
The CSD's Inspectorate and Management Services Division is responsible for monitoring departmental compliance with the relevant ordinances, rules and departmental policies; it conducts regular and ad hoc inspections of penal facilities. Regardless of the seriousness with which these bodies approach their responsibilities, our experience convinces us that internal departmental monitoring of prison conditions is inherently insufficient. First, fearing retaliation, prisoners often hesitate to complain to internal bodies of mistreatment by prison staff. Given the adversarial atmosphere that tends to reign in the prison context, they assume that such bodies are biased in favor of departmental staff. Second, whether the problems found are serious or relatively trivial, outside bodies are freer to criticize and, if necessary, to draw public attention to abuses. The pressing need for transparency and accountability in the operation of prisons militates in favor of outside oversight.
Justices of the peace (JPs) are counted as the primary mechanism for outside monitoring of Hong Kong's prisons. Appointed by the Governor or the Chief Executive, their main practical function is to visit prisons and other institutions. JPs include both government officials, known as official JPs, and members of the public, known as unofficial JPs.
According to the Prison Rules, each penal institution is to be visited by two justices of the peace (one official and one unofficial) every fifteen days or every month depending on the nature of the institution. Within this prescribed period, JPs have considerable flexibility to choose the date and time of their visits, and they can arrive without giving prior notice. Usually an unofficial JP will be contacted by an official one to arrange for a visit. JPs normally receive a fifteen-minute to half-hour orientation from the facility's superintendent, then they tour the facility in the company of the superintendent or a high-ranking officer. Although the amount of time spent at the facility varies according to its size and the JPs' preferences, they normally spend between one and a half to three hours per visit.
We found serious defects in the approach and methodology of Hong Kong's system of JP visits. To begin with, because JPs have no specific training or experience in prison matters, they are ill-prepared to delve beneath the surface in investigating conditions. Moreover, the job of JP is not a full-time occupation, but rather more of an honorary post. They lack the time to investigate. In addition, their visits are largely overseen by the prison authorities. A prison chaplain described the JPs' prison tours as "staged visits." Indeed, the Prison Rules specifically mandate that a high-ranking officer accompany the JPs around the prison and "bring before them" any prisoners wishing to speak to them. Although a few prison officials stated that the JPs might if they preferred speak with prisoners privately, it is quite clear that the normal practice is for JPs to speak with prisoners in the presence of prison officials.
The lack of confidential conversations between prisoners and JPs flies in the face of the requirements of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which state that during prison inspections, "[t]he prisoner shall have the opportunity to talk to the inspector or to any other inspecting officer without the director [of the prison] or other members of the [prison] staff being present." While many prison officials seem not to have contemplated the possibility that prisoners and JPs might speak to each other privately, others are openly hostile to the idea.
At the close of their visit, the JPs write up their comments in a log book, describing their impressions of the prison and any complaints made to them. We viewed these comments at every facility that we visited in our 1997 joint prison study with Human Rights Watch. We found them to be brief and almost uniformly uncritical. At High Island Detention Centre, for example, a facility that we found to be in serious need of improvement, we read with surprise the JPs' comments of only one month earlier. However, the JP noted: "The sanitary conditions were not entirely satisfactory . . . [but] overall, the centre was in good order."
Finally, the JP system suffers from a serious lack of continuity and follow-through. Instead of repeat visits by the same inspector over a period of time, which would afford the inmate-complaints more protection and would permit that JP to evaluate whether conditions were improving and recommended improvements were being implemented, every time a different set of JPs visits. Moreover, there is little effort by the Governments to enable JPs to share their own experience, not to mention continuous effort to follow through.
The Office of the Ombudsman is charged with "redressing grievances and addressing issues arising from maladministration in the public sector." The ombudsman has a limited mandate to hear complaints in prison: most notably, they cannot involve a crime (thus no cases of excessive force by guards), and they must be submitted by the prisoners themselves, not by relatives.
We welcome the ombudsman's increased prison activity. We note, nonetheless, that the ombudsman's mandate is extremely complaint-specific and until now reactive: as far as we know, he has not conducted broad investigations or formulate broad recommendations for improving the prison system. Unfortunately, neither the focus nor the effect of the ombudsman's work is to inform the public about prison conditions -- only a few representative cases are described to the public in the ombudsman's monthly reports, and a summary of the ombudsman's work is provided in his annual reports.
We recommend the SAR Government to take immediate steps to improve the JP system. We also urge the government to establish an independent prisons inspectorate as soon as possible.
ENQUIRIES: 28114488 or 78891144 (LAW Yuk-kai)
