Hong Kong's prison system designed to deter blatant corruption
Parole boards do a good job, but long-term supervision of ex-convicts should be explored
Recent articles in this paper (February 17) have been critical of corruption in the mainland parole system.
What about the system in Hong Kong? What is it like and are there risks here that wealthy prisoners might be able to bribe their way to an early release? Given the design of the city's parole system, I see little, if any, risk of such blatant corruption occurring here.
I have had the privilege of serving on one of our "parole boards" for the past six years. I put the words in quotation marks because our board, which is known as the Post-Release Supervision Board (PRSB), does not grant "parole" in the usual sense of discretionary release.
Two other boards are more traditional in this way. They are the Long-term Prison Sentences Review Board, concerned with recommending the early release of prisoners serving sentences of more than 10 years including life imprisonment; and the Release Under Supervision Board, concerned with recommending release as early as midway into the sentence of imprisonment and for employment purposes.
To ensure the integrity of these boards, they are independent of government, chaired by retired judges and have other members with professional expertise, including law, medicine, social work and offender rehabilitation. All members on the boards serve on a voluntary basis.
Unlike the other two boards, the PRSB is concerned only with the imposition of conditions of release in a supervision order and the consequences of breaching such an order (known as recall and suspension). By virtue of Rule 69 of the Prison Rules, which gives effect to the principle of remission for good conduct, prisoners need only serve two-thirds of their sentence of imprisonment, unless remission has been forfeited for misconduct.
