PUBLIC ORDER
Public Relations
The Police Public Relations Branch (PPRB) plays an important role in explaining police work to the media and the public as well as strengthening relationships in order to enlist the public's support in the maintenance of law and order.
Police Community Relations Officers attached to different districts work closely with representatives from government departments and organisations to keep the public well informed on police policies and operational priorities.
During the year, the Secondary School Liaison Officers Programme and the Junior Police Call Scheme continued to serve as bridges between the police and youngsters. Membership of the scheme stood at 149 633 at year-end.
In conjunction with Radio Television Hong Kong, the Police Force produces two weekly television programmes, the 30-minute Police Magazine in Cantonese and the five-minute Police Report in English to keep the public informed of prevalent crime trends and to appeal for information that will help officers in investigations. These two programmes continued to enjoy high ratings throughout the year.
Police telephone hotlines and Crime Information Forms provide convenient channels for crime reporting. The force introduced a dedicated hotline for members of the taxi industry to report crime-related information and intelligence.
A total of 13 372 hotline phone calls (not including those made to the emergency hotline 999) as well as 2332 returned Crime Information Forms were registered respectively at year-end, resulting in 204 arrests.
To commend people's initiatives in helping in the fight against crime, the Police Force held two Good Citizen Award Scheme ceremonies in June and December, with sponsorship from the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce.
Information relating to police activities is disseminated to local and overseas media organisations round-the-clock. During the year, officers seconded from the Information Services Department (ISD) handled 297 470 media enquiries, issued 3 576 press releases, organised 246 press conferences and briefings and assisted media coverage at 302 serious crime scenes and other incidents.
Information Officers at PPRB also worked closely with their counterparts in the ISD and representatives from other government departments as well as the Fight Crime Committee in planning and implementing the Fight Crime Publicity Campaign 2002-03 which had two themes, 'anti-shop theft' and 'anti-burglary'.
In an effort to continue recruiting high-calibre men and women to join the force, the Police Recruitment and Publicity Campaign 2002-03 was launched with the slogan 'Honesty, Courage and Lifetime Commitment Determined to Ensure Hong Kong Remains the Safest City'.
To further publicise police-related information effectively, the PPRB continued to update the contents and improve the presentation of the wide variety of force publications, including the biweekly newspaper Off Beat, Police Contact Card, Police in Figures and Performance Pledges.
Officers from PPRB attended the first Forum on Police Public Relations held in Beijing in October. The forum, attended by some 60 delegates from law enforcement agencies from the Mainland, Macau and the Republic of Korea, heard about the Police Force's experiences in fostering better mutual understanding with the community as well as winning public support in maintaining law and order.
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