ABSTRACT
In the highly politicised climate of the post-1997 years, it was the criminal justice system, rather than crime itself, that grabbed the headlines. Hong Kong post-1997 experienced no great shift in its discourse about youth crime. By the new millennium, however, young people were subject to an ever more extensive network of social discipline, only some of which was directly connected to the criminal justice system. Youth organisations and welfare organisations have, however, become more closely aligned with criminal justice. In any event, the much-acclaimed success rate of the ‘boot camp’ regime meant that it continued in Hong Kong long after it was abandoned in the United Kingdom. Its retention may have reflected, as Gray hints, at a struggle between reformist and reactionary factions within Hong Kong’s criminal justice system. Ultimately, the ideal for delinquents was not that they be labelled or punished, but that they stop offending and become good, productive citizens of a new China.
