Old Bailey Street

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Old Bailey Street (奧卑利街) is a street in Central, Hong Kong.

The Old Bailey is a Crown Court centre (higher criminal court) in central London, United Kingdom on the site of the medieval Newgate Gaol.

The first prison in Hong Kong was built on Old Bailey Street and named Victoria Prison. While the population in Hong Kong had been escalating in its later days, a bigger prison with more room was badly demanded. In 1925, a larger jail was constructed in Stanley known as Stanley Prison, to where prisoners with sentences more than a year would be sentenced.

Prisoners in Victoria Prison were forced to parade in public in the early colonisation of Hong Kong. Their back might first be beaten with a cane, with their arms locked with a cangue on which their name and crimes-committed were penned in ink. An Indian policeman would grab prisoners and bring them to the plaza in front of the Man Mo Temple where the lawbreakers might be scoffed and condemned by the passers-by. After a few hours, a criminal was sent back to the jail. This form of punishment was abolished after World War I.

Victoria Prison still stands on Old Bailey Street but is no longer in use. It was closed in March of 2006 and the Hong Kong Government is deciding what to do with both the Prison - and the old Central Police Station which is at the intersection of Old Bailey Street and Hollywood Road.