PART I
GENERAL REPORT AND SURVEY OF THE YEAR
INTRODUCTION
By the beginning of the year the Colony had returned to normal following the violence and disorder of the previous year and the Force was able to concentrate its attention once again on normal policing duties and training. With more policemen back on the beat, renewed efforts were made to combat crime and the detection rate rose to 77% as compared with 69% in 1967-68.
2. Perhaps the most striking feature of the year was the institution of the integrated training scheme. By 1967 the in-service training of police officers of all ranks up to Inspector had settled down into a satisfactory pattern, whereby they returned to the Police Training School at regular intervals for refresher training, and also attended a course at the Police Training Contingent, Fanling, as it was then called, as opportunity arose. At any one time there might be as many as 200 Rank and File and 15 to 20 Inspectors undergoing courses of various kinds at the Police Training School, Aberdeen, and in addition a Company at the Police Training Contingent.
3. By the beginning of the year it had become clear that a large proportion of the Force would have to be trained and then held for a time in Police Tactical Company formation, more or less divorced for that period from ordinary police work. This concept had the additional advantage that, if sufficient reserves of this kind could eventually be built up, it would in future not be necessary in times of emergency to detach the police officer doing his routine work in a Division and use him for internal security work. The emergency could be handled by the reserve force and ordinary police work could go on.
4. It had always been difficult to release the officers and other ranks from their regular duties to allow them to attend in-service training courses, even though these only lasted a fortnight. With the new concept, it was manifestly impossible to return to the old system of sending men back to the Police Training School on refresher courses
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