CONFIDENTIAL
3.
say that the Police detection rate remains satisfactorily high, at 76%: a very high figure indeed on which the Police can certainly be congratulated.
5.
The really disturbing fact is that the carrying of weapons, chiefly knives, sharpened files and other cutting weapons, is far more prevalent than it was, and there is a very unpleasant tendency towards a far greater readiness on the part of our younger criminals, who are proportionately on the increase, to use them hastily, needlessly and viciously. Two other features of criminal
tendencies in the last two years or so are a change towards robbery by more than two persons, and a sharp increase in the number of gang affrays between groups of young people. There were 69 gang fights in 1968, 195 last year and 153 in the first half of 1970.
6.
All this is, as I have said, causing wide- spread disquiet, and there is a marked surge of Chinese opinion in favour of much stronger measures being used against those who perpetrate acts of violence. The recent conviction of three youths on a charge of murder resulting in the imposition of the death sentence (yet to be considered in Executive Council) was greeted with widespread and undisguised approval. The public is deeply concerned about the prevalence of stabbings and violence generally, and is genuinely apprehensive of the growth of gangs, which, even if not technically Triad HKIL Societies, frequently ape the habits and callous attitudes
and practices of the Triad Society.
sel
(1968/9)
7.
In an effort to forestall crime of this kind, the Police have recently stepped up widespread stop and search operations at night on areas frequented by youths. These raids have resulted in the capture of a considerable quantity of dangerous weapons and have certainly had some effect, but the Commissioner is not confident that it will be more than temporary. Robberies in Kowloon, previously running at a figure of 6 or 7 daily, fell away