An exploratory study on the effectiveness on the police superintendent’s discretion scheme in juvenile crime prevention

Abstract

In Hong Kong, the Police Superintendent’s Discretion Scheme (‘the Scheme’) was implemented in 1963 by the Hong Kong government. The Scheme diverts the juvenile offender from the official criminal justice system (‘CJS’) and deals with the minor offences committed by youth being cautioned by way of caution and aftercare service. In this study, 10 persons with personal experiences in the Scheme and a scholar with expert knowledge in the area of Restorative Justice (‘RJ’) were interviewed. This study aims at exploring the effectiveness of the Scheme from the stakeholders’ perspective, and the ways in which to incorporate RJ into the CJS of Hong Kong, in particular the Scheme, in combating juvenile crimes. This study shows that the Scheme is effective in diverting youth being cautioned from the CJS, in particular those involved in minor offences, and also lowering the recidivism rate. Also, it was noted that the aftercare service provided to the youth being cautioned played a more important role in the prevention of further offending. Furthermore, the study shows that RJ should be incorporated into the Scheme on top of the original processes, by way of conferencing or mediation such as Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM). In this paper, recommendations are made to finetune the Scheme by incorporating RJ, developing standardised procedures, providing extensive and specialised training for practitioners, and enhancing the public understanding of RJ.