The number of people remanded in Hong Kong hit a 24-year peak in 2024, surpassing the previous high last year by 18 per cent, while prisoners serving jail sentences for national security and anti-government protest offences dropped for the first time.
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Wong Kwok-hing, commissioner of the Correctional Services Department, said on Thursday that the expanded population behind bars had also posed “formidable challenges” to both the governance and security of correctional institutions.
“Very often due to the rise in penal population, the number of disciplinary offences has also risen,” he said.
Wong also revealed during Thursday’s annual review that instead of amending the law to ban people who remained under a supervision order from travelling abroad, authorities only required these individuals to seek approval before leaving the city.
The prisons chief said last February that he would look into banning those on supervised release from leaving the city after activist Tony Chung Hon-lam sought political asylum in the United Kingdom while under such an order in 2023.
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“After our discussion with the Department of Justice, we realised that we have sufficient power under current laws to add new supervision conditions. Since last year, we have implemented an arrangement to require all people under supervision orders to file a request before leaving Hong Kong,” Wong said.