Understanding Criminal Justice in Hong Kong provides a much-needed overview of the criminal justice system in Hong Kong. It is designed to be used as a text for students studying this subject as part of a wider course in criminal justice, police studies, law or social work, and for practitioners working in Hong Kong in the police, prisons, probation, voluntary agencies and other criminal justice personnel. It will also be an invaluable source of information about how criminal justice operates in Hong Kong in the context of broader courses in comparative criminal justice. This book outlines the basic concepts of criminal law in Hong Kong, and analyses the process of the criminal justice system, ranging from the report of a crime through to the correctional system. At the same time it examines how the criminal justice personnel or actors work in practice, and how they deal with the offenders and victims during the criminal justice process. Throughout the book readers are also encouraged to consider the arguments and debates that surround the controversial issues in the Hong Kong criminal justice system.

An essential text for anyone interested in crime, law and justice in Hong Kong, this book offers the only comprehensive survey of all the major parts of Hong Kong's criminal justice system. It also provides an introduction to some key areas of the Hong Kong legal system, including the judiciary, criminal law and legal assistance. The book will appeal not only to social and political science students but also those studying for a number of law courses.

This book is a full-length study of the agencies charged with the control and management of crime in Hong Kong during the final years of British rule. Discussing agencies such as the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Judiciary and the Royal Hong Kong Police Force this book provides a solid introduction to the current criminal justice system and a sound basis for comparative analysis of possible legal and organizational innovations within the post-1997 Hong Kong criminal justice system.

Standing close together in a compound overlooking Victoria Harbor, the Central Police Station, Central Magistracy, and Victoria Jail were a bastion of British colonial power and a symbol of security, law, and punishment. The magistracy administered a form of cheap summary justice heavily adapted to the needs of colonial Hong Kong, which led to well over a million predominantly Chinese people being sentenced between 1841 and 1941. In the overcrowded and unsanitary Victoria Jail, the regime vacillated uneasily between a belief in harsh deterrent punishment and an optimistic faith in reform and rehabilitation. Today, those monumental buildings still stand, forming Hong Kong's "Tai Kwun" complex, an international arts and entertainment hub. Richly illustrated and informed by a wealth of sources, Crime, Justice, and Punishment in Colonial Hong Kong revisits the Tai Kwun complex's past by offering a vivid account of those three institutions from 1841 to the late twentieth century and telling the stories of people whose lives intersected with them, including captains, superintendents, and magistrates, jailers and constables, thieves and ruffians, hawkers and street boys, down-and-outs, and prostitutes, gamblers, debtors, and beggars--the guilty as well as the innocent.

Containing a wealth of archival material and statistical data on crime and criminal justice, Criminal Justice in Hong Kong presents a detailed evaluation of Hong Kong’s criminal justice system, both past and present. Exploring the justice system and the perceptions of popular culture, this book demonstrates how the current criminal justice system has been influenced and shaped over time by Hong Kong’s historical position between ‘East’ and ‘West’. Jones and Vagg’s examination of the justice system not only takes into account geographical changes, like the erection of the border with communist China in 1950 but also insists that any deep understanding of the current system requires a dialogue with the rich and complex narratives of Hong Kong’s history. It explores a range of questions, including: How were Hong Kong's criminal justice institutions and practices formed? What has been its experience of law and order? How has Hong Kong's status as between 'East' and 'West' affected its social, political and legal institutions? Careful and detailed, this analysis of one of the most economically successful, politically stable and safe yet frequently misrepresented cities, is a valuable addition to the bookshelves of all undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Asian law.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this book provides a practical analysis of criminal law in Hong Kong. An introduction presents the necessary background information about the framework and sources of the criminal justice system, and then proceeds to a detailed examination of the grounds for criminal liability, the justification of criminal offences, the defences that diminish or excuse criminal liability, the classification of criminal offences, and the sanctions system.

Offers an accessible overview of Hong Kong's legal system and guides first-year law students in legal research and methods.