Pang Sung Yuen worked in Victoria Prison twice over the years

Pang Sung Yuen joined the Prisons Department (now the Correctional Services Department) in 1971 and served there for over 35 years. He was appointed the Commissioner of Correctional Services in 2003 until his retirement. Pang worked in Victoria Reception Centre in 1973 for about a year; his main duty was to make assessment report of young offenders. Vitoria Prison was called Victoria Reception Centre in 1973; all convicted male offenders in Hong Kong were sent to the centre to wait for the court’s decision of their sentence. There were only 100 to 200 convicts in the centre because Victoria Prison was designed a long time ago and had not enough space. Pang mentioned the courts now have more choices for young offender sentencing other than imprisonment. Some will be sent to rehabilitation centres (after 2000) or the police will exercise Police Superintendent's Discretion (the number of youth crime cases is higher now than in the 1970s. According to Pang, some young people pick up bad habits under the influence of some twisted social values). Young offenders were housed separately from the adult offenders in Hall D for about 2-3 weeks. The other offenders in custody had to wait for the court to issue the date of trial. The one who faced charges in the high court had to wait the longest. The young offenders in custody were allowed to watch television or listen to radio, and they had at least an hour of exercise every day. As they were just waiting for the trial, they were not requires to work in prison.
Pang Sung Yuen’s second working experience in Victoria Prison was in 1980, as the acting prison superintendent as the superintendent was on sick leave. Victoria Prison had resumed its function as a prison by then since Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre was operational in 1997. Victoria Prison was thus used to house short sentence prisoners, foreign prisoners and illegal immigrants.