ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how, in the midst of the modernising changes, the civilian criminal justice system was re-established in the post-war period. Post-war, Hong Kong quickly established itself as an economic power, facing a range of taxing social problems along the way. Clearly, a programme of intensive modernisation of social institutions and infrastructure was commenced in a very short period of time, despite post-war shortages. Pennefather-Evans’s ‘Interim Report’ on the Hong Kong Police built on the recommendations of his Preliminary Report. When British control was re-established in 1945, policing was briefly taken over in an interim military administration by Colonel C. H. Sansom. Pennefather-Evans had a much wider perspective on the social and economic conditions that caused crime, and on the importance of good government. In place of immigration controls he preferred a more enlightened solution to the ‘problem of people’–and of crime.
