In real terms, Chinese objections to ��coercive�� penal policy were philo-sophical ones. It had little to do with harshness of punishment per se. Harsh punishment was objectionable because of the way it was deployed, and not its nature, to obtain obedience to British rule and culture. ��Coercive�� penal policy was also deemed objectionable because it was applied in a discrimi-natory way. In both instances, ��coercive�� penal policy was found wanting in coming to terms with Chinese culture, in its conception (why punish) and application (what to punish).
In equating decolonisation with liberalisation, the colonialists failed to achieve decolonisation because the imposition of ��liberal�� penal policy by the British was considered as objectionable the application of ��conservative�� penal policy to the Chinese. In both cases, they failed to respect traditional Chinese culture as the basis of deciding who, what and how to punish.
The ultimate issue in decolonisation is to what extent, how and why was the HKP decolonised? Depending on whom you ask, there is likely to be two answers to this question. First, it was decolonised to make policing more social service oriented (��Decolonisation and Social Service��). Or second, it was decolonised to making policing more Confucius like (��Confucianisation of Policing��).
Decolonisation and Social Service152
In 1935 and just before WWII, European and Chinese HKP officers started a Boys�� and Girls�� Club Association (BGCA) for the poor and deprived kids of Hong Kong, with the support of the Magistrate of Juvenile Court. By 1941, there were 595 girls and 648 boys in 21 clubs. The project was abandoned in WWII after a propitious start. The aim of the club was set forth in 1940 as follows153:
The object of the club is to provide a centre where adolescent children may meet together, and by engaging in a variety of activities, grow up into fit, happy men and good intelligent citizens. This work is urgently needed in Hong Kong where a very large percentage of the children have little or no education or opportunity for comradeship and recreation other than that provided by the life of the streets. It is a disturbing fact that through poverty many thousands of children are driven to work, for which they are not sufficiently developed and even to beg and to steal. If one considers the lives of children of poor families in Hong Kong one does not find evidence of juvenile crime in the least surprising. Their home life is a bed space shared with several others, their recreation hanging about the streets. Many have to earn their living and even to support their parents at an age, when, in other countries, they would not be beginning their education. It is impossible therefore to exaggerate the oppor-tunities for clubs in Hong Kong. The clubs have to fill almost the whole leisure of the children they cater for and provide education from the beginning, and indeed start their moral education from scratch. It is, nevertheless, remark-able how much can be achieved in a short time and at very little expense.
After WWII, there were frantic efforts to rebuild, including constructing infrastructure,154 training leaders,155 launching programmes156 and providing services.157 It was a phenomenal success. By 1960, there were 203 clubs cater-ing for 11,105 children. From this humble beginning, the BGCA developed into one of the major social service institution for youth development today.158
The establishment of the BGCA before and after WWII was telling of the Hong Kong Government��s support for more social services in Hong Kong. This marked a change in government policy, from a detached colonial rule to a more involved paternalistic administration.
In a similar manner, the HKP is observed to be changing in the same direction, from a predominantly law enforcement, crime-fighting and order maintenance agency to a more social-service- and community-oriented one. The era of social-service- and community-oriented policing in Hong Kong has just begun. This shift in the roles and functions of the HKP runs counter to the traditional image of the HKP as a hard-nosed and hardcore colonial policing agency, devoted to and obsessed with security and order alone.
Decolonisation and Confucianisation of Policing
In the study of colonial policing, much is known about what the Hong Kong colonial officials and police thought about policing philosophy, policy and strategy. However, little, if anything, is known about how the Chinese police officers felt and think about colonial policing. In sum, more is understood about the more formal aspects of colonial policing than the realities of street policing. It is thus important to hear from the Chinese officers about their experience with policing in Hong Kong, specifically to ascertain the role and relationship between the police and the public.
In the reform of the HKP, the feeling, thinking and action of the mem-bers of the HKP matters. If the British colonial authority was interested in decolonising the HKP, they needed to get feedback from the rank and file about: What is it that works? What is it that does not work?
In 1959, the HKP launched a ��Hong Kong Police Gold Medal Essay Competition 1959�� open to all Force members. The winner of the essay, Detective Police Constable 4726 Mui Wah Fuk (CID PHQ), discussed his understanding of the role of policemen and what the relationship between policemen and citizens should be.159
Peng started the essay by asking a simple, but important, question in policing and society: ��What is the relationship between policemen and citi-zens?�� To answer this question, Peng first asked the question: why did Hong Kong society need the police?
Here, Peng observed that if people were all perfect, there would be no need for police. Thus, police are needed to make sure that people do the right thing. How, then, could police make sure that people always do the right thing?
Peng observed that the police could make people do the right thing by guiding them with morality and deterring them with law. ��In view of this, gov-ernments, being instructed by the people, have no alternative but to use police-men to lead people along the right track and if necessity requires it, to deal with them according to the law��.160 In essence, police should act both as a moral as well as a legal agent of the state.161 The first is to inspire and the latter is to awe.
Between these two roles, the moral role is by far the more important, for the HKP. This is because people will try every way they can to avoid the law. The law itself is never perfect, and it is too complex and overly technical. Guilty people will be able to escape punishment by exploiting the technicali-ties allowed by law. Thus, the best way to make people do the right things is not by making them fear the law but by making people follow their moral at heart. According to Shavelle, law and morality both contribute to good behaviour, but do so with different means:
It is evident that both law and morality serve to channel our behavior. Law accomplishes this primarily through the threat of sanctions if we disobey legal rules. Morality too involves incentives: bad acts may result in guilt and disap-probation, and good acts may result in virtuous feelings and praise.162
To Peng, morality was also more effective than the law in settling con-flicts and resolving disputes. Once people internalise a moral compass, they will feel shame and be self-regulating. A moral person will avoid the law at all costs, as a manifestation of ��duty calls��. Alternatively, having the police enforce the law or getting judges to settle disputes would destroy personal relationships and generate animosity between people. Breaking relationship and alienating people would promise more, not less, disobedience, out of resistance or perhaps even defiance.
Turning to relationship between the public and the police, Peng believed that the public has a duty to respect and assist the police in the performance of duties. The failure of the public to cooperate with the HKP made polic-ing much more difficult. For example, riots (1954) in earlier years in Hong Kong would have been easily subdued if the public had been more coopera-tive and helpful, such as reporting on rioters and not violating curfew.
What does it mean by saying that police officers should be moral agents? This meant that police should set a personal example, to inspire and guide people to develop a sense of moral approbation.
Being a policeman, one��s fundamental duty is to cultivate a feeling of morality among citizens. During the course of his duty, the policemen must show his concern and must guide citizens, encouraging them to express their feeling of morality in their daily lives and their speech, as well as in their movements, so that they will, from deep within their own consciences, feel that doing some-thing the wrong way is a shameful thing.163
More controversially, Peng believed that policemen should be edu-cators and philosophers, not just law enforcers and crime fighters. They should guide people to stay clear of material goods in search of personal happiness.
It will cause them to believe that wealth can never bring forth real happiness and satisfaction during their lifetimes. The noble character will be respected and revered by others and to obtain this respect should be the highest aim of a person��s life.164
Peng��s essay was a timely and important essay. It was timely because the HKP was undergoing radical changes. The essay provided new ideas for the reformers and enriched the decolonisation process. Moreover, as a work, it is telling on the process and direction of the reform�Vdecolonisation process, in the mind of rank and file.
In terms of process, the essay competition serves decolonization in a number of ways:
First, the Hong Kong Police Gold Medal Essay Competition (1959) was designed as a high-profile consultation exercise. Its purpose was to show the staff and public that the HKP was changing its mode of operation, from an insulated and secretive organisation, to a transparent and open one.
Second, the Hong Kong Police Gold Medal Essay Competition (1959) solic-ited and welcomed submissions from all ranks, with a DPC winning the top prize. This was unheard of before in the old colonial days. In old Hong Kong, policing officers were to be seen not heard from, that is, the police serves with an ��obedient servant mentality���Xspoken to but not interacting with. Within the HKP, PCs were order takers, not opinion leaders. This showed that the HKP was trying to reverse the trend, by showing interest in the suggestions of its officers, even at the lowest ranks. The message included the following: (1) The HKP wants the best ideas, wherever they can be found. Ideas are judged by their merits, not rank; a scientific process. (2) The HKP wants ideas from its staff, a first principle in participating management; a democratisation move. (3) The HKP wants to engage its staff in the plan-changed process, to foster identification and promote buy-in. (4) The HKP wants Chinese people to play an active part in the building of a new HKP; a localisation process.
As to the content of the essay, it highlighted the following:
First, the essay ��Policemen and Citizens�� was based entirely on traditional Chinese jurisprudential thoughts and social control practices, that is, pro-mote Confucianisation of the law (morality before law, law promotes law); cultivate individual morality and personhood; pursue dispute resolution to repair and foster relationship; avoid litigation at all costs; and have officials act as junzhi.
The whole foundation of Chinese (Confucian) ethical order was based upon the ideal of self-cultivation. It was believed that ��self-cultivation alone could solve all political problems and usher in the perfect society��.165 More spe-cifically, ��wishing to govern well in their states, they would first regulate their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they would first cultivate their per-sons..Wishing to cultivate their persons, they would first rectify their minds�K��.166
The police officer, as a standard bearer of the ethical order, was expected to possess a strong ethical conviction and refined moral sensitivity, in thought as well as in action. Confucius said, ��To subdue one��s self and return to propriety, is perfect virtue��. This included sacrificing himself to promote virtue: ��The determined scholars and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue completely��.167
Lastly, to strive for virtue was a relentless pursuit and enduring affair. Confucius said: ��The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue��.168
For Confucian researchers, it is far-fetched to equate police officers in the twentieth-century Hong Kong to sage scholars (junzhi). Still, there was noth-ing to stop Peng to pursue Confucius ideals (i.e., self-cultivation) to become better than he really was. Such is the power of ideas and attractiveness of ideals.
As to the utility of law and punishment in bringing about a well-ordered society, Confucius has this to say:
Govern the people with regulations and organize them with penal law (xing), and they will avoid punishments but will be without shame. Govern them with virtue and organize them through the li, and the people will have a sense of shame and moreover will become transformed themselves.169
Parenthetically, Confucius observed that the rule of law, instead of set-tling conflicts generates more disputes and antagonism, as people are invited to and rewarded by unremitting challenges about the meaning and applica-tion of law, in every possible way. This corresponds to what Peng observed to be the technicality and complexity of the law.
In the end, the ultimate objective of any ruler is to resolve disputes by negotiation and prevent wrongdoing by cultivating a virtuous man, thereby doing away with contentious litigation altogether: ��In hearing litigation, I am not different from any other man. But if you insist on a difference, it is, per-haps, that I try to get the parties not to resort to litigation in the first place��.170
Second, the essay ��Policemen and Citizens�� provides a new script on polic-ing, away from the decolonisation narrative. Whereas decolonisation called for democratisation, legalisation, localisation, professionalisation and modernisa-tion, ��Policemen and Citizens�� called for Confucianisation of policing, a change in paradigm, vision and mission of policing. Simply put, Peng called for the transformation of Hong Kong society, people and culture from a British legal-istic and punitive orientation to Chinese moralistic and educational approach.
B: Localisation
Localisation of the HKP has most often been described as replacing British police officers with Chinese ones, in senior ranks,171 and staffing of all rank and file with local officers.
Localisation has been defined as a conscious process to adapt what is foreign to local conditions, culture and context:
Localization�K is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local ��look-and-feel��. Ideally, a product or ser-vice is developed so that localization is relatively easy to achieve�Xfor exam-ple, by creating technical illustrations for manuals in which the text can easily be changed to another language and allowing some expansion room for this purpose.172
As applied, localisation means different things to different people and in different contexts. In transplantation of law, this means customisation of foreign law to fit into domestic soil.173 In justice administration, this means conducting legal transactions in Chinese. In litigation, this means retaining of local lawyers, as strategists or as lead counsel. In technology, this means adopting local protocol.174 In scholarship, this means conducting research with indigenous theory and grounded data.175 In education, this means adopting teaching materials with local content and local context. In research, this means informed by indigenous theory as support by local data. In public service, this means providing services with local staff, conforming to local expectations.176
Historically, the localisation of the HKP moved in different directions and took up a variety of forms, from appointing a well-groomed cadet offi-cer as commissioner of police to hiring Chinese as Water Police to having Chinese Police Reserve units.
Over the years, in order to improve and perfect colonial governance of Chinese, the HKP sought to ��localise�� their ��colonial�� policing practices through strategies of ��disengagement��, ��delegation��, ��collaboration��, ��customi-sation�� and ��assimilation��.
Disengagement
The strategy of ��disengagement�� in colonial policing spoke of a ��targeted deployment�� of police resources, and in some instances exercising ��selective law enforcement�� as warranted by local circumstances and grounded situ-ation, for example, having direct British patrol versus supervised Chinese watchmen, depending on tactical needs. In the 1840s, this meant having British and Indian officers patrolling in Victoria and Chinese working under close supervision of British at sea.177 For the rest in rural Hong Kong, the outer islands (Cheung Chau) and Chinese communities (New Territories), the British would only intervene if and when they were needed. There self-help policing was the rule.
In this way, it can be said that the colonial government had ��local-ised�� their policing operations through selective (non)presence or, selec-tive policing. HKP officers were not being deployed on the frontlines, but were being held in reserve. Operationally, ��disengagement�� as ��localised�� policing manifested itself as graduated and guarded British participation in Chinese communal affairs or social activities, depending on exigen-cies, for example, emergency or crisis, such as riots or typhoon. The prime example of this type of elective presence was the policing of the Kowloon Walled City:
This was the last of government enforcement, the Chinese wanted rights to the city but didn��t have them, and the British just ignored it and focused on Hong Kong. It to all intents and purposes became an independent nation, an enclave of China. In this absence of governance the criminal underworld thrived. In just a few years the Chinese Triads, a very menacing group of criminals the equivalent to the American Mafia, had a stranglehold on the city, making it rife with crime and drugs. The only time the Hong Kong government had any jurisdiction there was to solve a murder and of course many attempted police raids on the many brothels, gambling parlors and opium dens operated by the Triads in the city.178
Delegation
��Delegation�� is the assignment of duties and responsibilities to others. In the context of policing in Hong Kong, delegation was when the HKP affirmative assigned ��colonial�� policing duties to other social control agents, for exam-ple, private guards or communal institutions, for example, District Watch Force (��m��). In theoretical terms, this meant the British devising policies (steering) with Chinese administering them (rowing). In the context of Hong Kong policing, this was the practice of ��indirect rule�� or ��rule by proxy��.
The District Watch Force Ordinance (29 April 1949) provides in perti-nent parts:
1. ��The functions of the District Watch Force shall be
a. To assist the Secretary for Chinese Affairs in the execution of the duties of his office;
b. To perform such duties as it may be required to perform in assist-ing to�X
i. Preserve the public peace;
ii. Prevent and detect crimes and offences��.
The district watchmen were under the direct head watchman but subject to the ��supreme direction and administration�� of the Secretary of Chinese Affairs, who ��may from time to time make orders to be known as ��District Watch Force Orders�� as he may think expedient, not inconsistent with this Ordinance, and District Watch Force Regulations, for the better control, management and regulation of the District Watch Force�� (Section 4).
When performing his duties, ��[a] district watchman shall, in relation to such duties as he may be required to perform, have all the powers and privi-leges of a constable of the police force�� (Section 5).
The District Watch Force came into being in 1887 to supplement the HKP in areas and with people the British had little control over due to the small size of the Force, inaccessibility to culture and lack of trust from the Chinese community. Over time, the District Watch Force took over much of the duties and responsibilities of the HKP, by delegation, and in fact were more effective and productive, especially in settling disputes and fighting crime, besides other duties as assigned:
The District Watch Force performed such tasks as acting as census enumera-tors, providing guides for census officials, tracing runaway girls for the Po Leung Kuk, intercepting young girls brought into the colony for prostitu-tion, and engaging in detective work in the Chinese quarters. The public also accepted members of the police as arbiters in disputes. Since the official police force was at first small and corrupt, the District Watch Force played a key role in maintaining social order.179
Collaboration
Collaboration is about parties with common goals working together for mutual benefits.180 Collaborative policing requires integration of organisa-tion and/or coordination of functions, such that policing is conducted jointly, from planning, decision making to operations. Whereas ��disengagement�� and ��delegation�� envisions that the HKP took a hands-off approach to crime prevention and order maintenance, collaborative policing contemplates the active involvement of both British and Chinese in the conduct of policing, such as community-oriented policing wherein the community worked with the police to set priorities and facilitate implementations.181 In the West, col-laborative policing has most often been associated with community policing, and in the policing literature referred to as ��co-production of law and order��.182
Historically and in colonial Hong Kong, collaborative governance and policing was achieved mostly with the co-opting of the political�Vmoral�Vsocial support, enlisting the personal�Vphysical�Vfinancial help, and relying (leveraging) on the private resource network of the Chinese elites in the run-ning of Hong Kong.183 The idea of collaborative political rule was a deriva-tive of collaborative commercial ventures�Xthe comprador system, first in Canton and then in Hong Kong:
The comprador system was soon imported to Hong Kong when British firms flocked to open their business there. It lasted until the Second World War; lon-ger than at any other Chinese coastal city. During the growth of early colonial society in Hong Kong, by the 1850s the Chinese community was beginning to develop leaders and most of them were successful compradors, merchants and contractors. Typical of this emerging Chinese middle class were Cantonese compradors like Wei Yuk (Wei Yu), Robert Ho Tung (He Dong), and Law Pak Sheung (Luo Bochang). They formed the core of leadership in the local Chinese community�KWei succeeded his father Wei Kwong who came from Choy Mei village near Macau as the comprador of the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London, and China in Hong Kong in 1879. In 1896, he was appointed an unofficial member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, being the fourth Chinese to this post (the first was Ng Choy [Wu Tingfang]). Wei held a lot of appointments in public and private organizations and represented Chinese interests in the government.184
The ��collaboration with Chinese elites�� strategy did not work well in the earlier years because no such elites could be found. Most of the people coming to Hong Kong were then economic migrants�Xsmall shopkeepers, labourers and coolies. More than a few were sojourns living in the margins of society, such as destitute, pirates and criminals. Overall, these people had little social standing, economic power and political clout to act for and on behalf of the British. This social reality led British colonists to adopt a farsighted and prag-matic approach in grooming future Chinese leadership through education in British schools, as potential collaborators.
Beyond cultivating elites, the British also relied upon traditional Chinese institutions to facilitate colonial rule, such as Kai-Fang for urban commu-nity, ethnic associations for various migrant groups (tongxian hui) and guild associations for different working groups.185
The most controversial aspect about collaboration as a strategy of colo-nial rule perhaps was the idea of collaborating with local community leaders and influential individuals who had less-than-sterling reputations, or even criminal backgrounds and associations. The understanding of collaborative policing holds much promise but has rarely been explored.186 The observa-tion here is that, more often than not, in order for the British colonial rule to work efficiently and effectively, it needed to collaborate with people and groups of all kinds, elites and popular, mainstream and marginalised, legal as well as illegal. In as much as colonial rule, in real terms, it was about con-trol and power, not legitimacy or morality; it mattered little to the colonial-ists whom, what and how they are collaborating, provided it was beneficial to do so.187 Below is a discussion of the potential utility of Triad rule is Malaysia under colonial rule:
There is a traditional practice in seeking triad assistance in the settlement of disputes and for private protection rather than the assistance of the police as Macau citizens have little confidence in the law enforcement agencies under Portuguese administration. Most people have difficulties in understanding the law because most legislation is written in Portuguese, and legal chan-nels for disputes settlement are often time consuming, expensive, ineffective and involve a complex chain of procedures. Furthermore, legal channels are unavailable to illegitimate business such as local sharking and bookmaking. Thus, triads provide real services and settle dispute among different gambling rooms and different chip roller teams in a more effective and efficient manner than the state.188
Given the origin of the Triad as a nationalistic organisation and a mutual aid group, with instinctive appeal and induced fear in the indigenous people, it would have been foolhardy for the colonial administrators not to take into account the Triad societies�� political and social influences, particularly in uncertain times, as in after WWII.189 Reluctantly, they did. For example, a 1993 study found that in District Board election in 1983, 10% of the candi-dates had connection to Triad societies. In 1984, Triads helped to come up with a ��vote planning�� scheme in Tai Po.190
In 1850, Assistant Superintendent Caldwell was openly using his connec-tions with the secret societies to obtain intelligence and effectual control with the underworld,191 with fellow British colonial officials cheering him on.192
A modern form of collaborative policing requires the HKP to reach out to the community (District Crime Fighting Committee) and NGOs to develop crime-fighting programmes. One such project is that of ��Guardian Angel�� programme:
The PCRO��s work in collaboration with social workers and through support offered by local authorities and businesses to create a so-called ��Household, Chain and Community structure�� network. Guardian Angel��s goal is to foster partnerships between the police and local community stakeholders to enhance local police understanding of community needs, and, to provide support and care to vulnerable families. This has been undertaken in a number of ways, including the provision of information and training on ��household security�� to help residents combat property crime, and, offering support facilities to vulnerable families. This community policing initiative has proved particu-larly challenging in relation to the organisation of a provider network and, by extension promoting trust and cooperation with the ��customer��. However, as set within the range of current community policing initiatives, the overall outcomes have witnessed a positive trend in relation to crime prevention and detection, and, winning the trust and confidence of the public (Lam, 2013).193
Customisation
Customisation is a make-to-fit process. In colonial policing, it is following local custom than following general law of the land,194 or, as applied seeking particular than universal justice.
In Hong Kong, it meant tailoring British policing theory and practice to fit with local culture and social conditions, for example, having colonial police commanders functioning as fuwu guan (��parental officials��) or decen-tralised police decision making to the local level. Alternatively, it involved appropriating British policing values and style by the indigenous Chinese, for example, promoting rule of law and natural justice in a disciplinary proceeding.
The issue of whether British common law or Chinese law and custom should have applied to Chinese nationals and Hong Kong indigenous resi-dents has been a major point of contention in the negotiation over the Treaty of Nanking (29 August 1842).
In October 1984, Governor Alexander Grantham appointed a committee chaired by George Strickland to make recommendations on the application of Chinese law and custom in Hong Kong.195
On 2 February 1841, after the formal possession of Hong Kong on 26 January 1841, Captain Elliot, the Chief Superintendent of Trade and Her Majesty��s Plenipotentiary in China, issued the following proclamation of rule over Hong Kong:
The island of Hong Kong having been ceded to the British crown under the seal of the Imperial Minister and High Commissioner Keshen, I has become necessary to provide for the Government thereof�KAnd I do hereby declare and proclaim, that, pending Her Majesty��s further pleasure, the native of the island of Hong Kong, and all natives of China thereto resorting, shall be governed accord-ing to the laws and customs of China, every description of torture excepted.
On 30 April 1841, Captain Elliot was appointed by the first Chief Magistrate of Hong Kong to be in charge of the execution and adjudication police laws. The warrant ��authorise and require (Cain) to exercise authority, according to the laws, customs, and usages of China, as nearly as may be (every description of torture excepted) for the preservation of peace, and the protection of life and property, over the native inhabitants in the said harbours thereof��.
It is apparent from the above two proclamation and warrant that the British wanted to establish a four-tier criminal justice system based on the offenders�� ethnic and residence background:
First, if a Chinese committed a crime in Hong Kong, they would be subject to Chinese jurisdiction and law. This arrangement was justified on two grounds. From the Chinese perspective, the Chinese Government had absolute jurisdictional claim over her own nationals, either for protection or punishment. Once a Chinese, always a Chinese. Chinese nationality cannot be divested, for protection or prosecution purpose. From the British point of view, since they asked for extraterritorial judicial treatment for British nations on Chinese soil,196 it was only fair that the same principle be applied to Chinese national committing an offense on British�VHong Kong soil.
Second, if Hong Kong (local) inhabitants committed a less serious crime (defined as under $400, under 100 lashes, or a non-capital crime), they would be subject to Hong Kong jurisdiction, but Chinese law, custom and usages, except-ing torture. This was based on the tried-and-tested colonial practice of indirect rule.197 In effectuating colonial rule, to the extent that it did not challenge British interest or values, it was best (more efficient and effective) to respect and follow indigenous customs and local usages, here Chinese law, such that local people were less inclined to obstruct, resist and rebel against the colonisers.198
Assimilation
Assimilation is to immerse in and transform oneself into another��s culture. This means remaking oneself into other��s image, for example, by way of over-seas education or cross-cultural marriages.199 All migrants have gone through a process of assimilation in the form of socialisation and acculturation, before being relatively integrated in the adopted country, calling it home.
In the context of colonialism, while the British argued for preservation of indigenous culture on the way to self-government as the end goal of colo-nialism, the French preferred the transformation of local culture, with total integration of others into one large Franco family of nations.200 ��Until the close of nineteenth century, French colonial theory was based on the idea of assimilation, which gave France the responsibility of ��civilising�� its colonies by absorbing them administratively and culturally��.201 The French argued for assimilation into French culture on grounds of universality of human rights and malleability of human kind through mutual association and cross-cul-tural education�Xa civilising project.
For much of its chequered political and cultural history, Hong Kong lived two worlds�Xone Chinese and the other British. There were ��six degrees of separation�� between the two, but separation no less. The Hong Kong official colonial policy was one of segregation, not integration, right up to WWII (and to some beyond); from living (housing), playing (socialising), procreating (marriage) and ordering (policing). There were few attempts to assimilate with the British or the Chinese. Both knew, defined and described each other in racial terms. To the British, Chinese were uncivilised. To the Chinese, British were foreign devils. This led to a Hong Kong-assimilated expatriate official to reflect on the post-WWII British versus Chinese relationship in the following way: ��In general, and on each side, the two people did not really want a closer acquaintance, I soon gathered that there were deep seated, long standings feel-ings that make each vastly prefer the social company�� of their own kind.
Take cross-cultural marriage for example. In Hong Kong, notwithstand-ing the fact that it was developed as an international port with a mixed popu-lation, inter-racial marriages were rare, and were frowned upon before 1950s. This resulted as much from racial segregation colonial policy since 1842 to just after WWII as from the lack of availability of eligible females. For the first 50 plus years (1844�V1900), Hong Kong was inhabited by males with no family. Married females came much later. As to local females, they usually stayed at home. If they ventured out, they were not supposed to mix with foreigners. The only eligible females were professional ones, of the Suzie Wong type�Xbargirls and prostitutes. These marriages between police and street ladies had their collective impact on policing in Hong Kong. These professional girls, hardly the mainstream, initiated many of the HKP officers into Hong Kong.
Localisation Efforts before WWII
A cursory reading of Hong Kong history informs that racial discrimination and segregation was institutionalised before WWII, and still lingered in sub-dued and subtle forms afterwards.202 In 1858, Governor Browning made the following frank admission about race relations in Hong Kong: ��We rule them in ignorance, and they submit in blindness��.203 Specifically,
At the present movement the separation of the native population from the European is nearly absolute. Social intercourse between the races is wholly unknown. A few Chinese speak a strange ��jargon�� �Kto convey their ideas to foreigners. �K(not) �K a single merchant or Tradesman in Hongkong who speaks or understands the native dialect, who has seen a Chinaman at his Table, or admitted him to the slightest confidential intimacy. The influence of the European settler upon the native mind many be said to be nil.204
With policing, there appeared to be little attempt to reduce racial dis-crimination and/or ameliorate its impact on Chinese community. However, on close inspection, through time, the Hong Kong colonial government with the HKP in the lead achieved localisation through a number of initiatives, programmes and practices, as intimated above, to promote effectiveness of governance. The following reviews some of HKP��s efforts to localise its organisation, operation and ethos:
First, in terms of localisation of personnel, since 1844 and before the rise of trusted Chinese elites, the Hong Kong Government always had at its disposal learned Chinese hands (sinologists) to make or advise on Chinese policy and to communicate with the Chinese community, in an informed, reflective, sophisticated and articulated way. For example, the early governors all had had long experience with Asia and came to know China while in public ser-vice (colonial office) or private enterprise (East India Company). Governor John Francis Davis (8 May 1844 to 21 March 1848) was a learned sinolo-gist205 and an administrator at East India Company and superintendent of trade in China. Indeed, because of his expertise in China and knowledge of Chinese customs, culture and dispositions, his policies were not well liked by European residents and expatriate traders. Hong Kong colonialists, at least in high places, were hardly ignorant about China and Hong Kong. Dr. Ernest John Eitel, a German missionary who was a sinologist and historians,206 served as Inspector of Schools and later Chinese Secretary to Governor John Pope Hennessy.
Second, in terms of customisation of British law and policy, starting with Captain Elliot proclamation of 2 February 1841: ��the native of the island of Hong Kong, and all natives of China thereto resorting, shall be governed according to the laws and customs of China, every description of torture excepted��. Successive governors were concerned with the impact and implica-tions of British law on Chinese customs, lest they impinged on the autonomy of the Chinese community and otherwise compromised the welfare of the Chinese people. For example, in 1844, Governor David set up the ti-pao sys-tem207 to settle disputes within the Chinese community. Later the Secretariat of Chinese Affairs was established (1913) to promote the welfare and protect the interests of Chinese, mostly in the rural areas. I.D. Lightbody described his experience as an administrative officer working at Assistant Chinese Secretary (ACS):
But the ACS does far more than just settle family quarrels. There are three or four Administrative Officers in the Department and it deals with an enor-mous variety of work ranking from the operation of Chinese temples to liaison with the Kaifang movement (local residents�� associations which do a great deal of welfare work in their own districts). It advises on effect of par-ticular schemes on Chinese opinion, and it is kept very busy nowadays ensur-ing that the many development schemes afoot in Hong Kong are not forced through without due regard for any old village in the areas of development.208
Third, in terms of British and Chinese officers integration, the Water Police (later Marine Police) showcased the first fully integrated HKP work force with British and Chinese police officers working, living and socialising together under one roof and for extended period of time, as a family, since 1844:
Considering the vast social and cultural differences between Europeans and Chinese in the early days they have got on together remarkably well starting with a wary co-operation which has matured over the years into mutual trust and respect�KHard conditions and close proximity over extended periods must produce either conflict or rapport; that it was the latter that developed�K209
The reasons why they were working (and socialising) are less important as the fact that they were, even in early Hong Kong. The Marine Police mixed British�VChinese work force offers valuable lessons about the true nature, organisation and function of Colonial HKP at sea.
This observation that the Marine Police worked as a team, survived as confidants and lived as a family is best documented by one HKP informant:210
The shift system for the Marine police is basically twenty-four hours on duty followed by forty-eight hour off duty. During their duty time, they remain onboard the police launch, including eating, working, sleeping. The causal contact between them changes the crew into a family. However, as the inspec-torate officers and station sergeants work on board the launch too, the dis-cipline aspect has still to be maintained. But the gap between the Inspector and the Junior Police Officers is much narrower in comparison with the Land Police. They love as a family and work in a group so that a subculture is formed to protect themselves from outsiders.211
Working at sea meant that Marine Police officers had little opportunity to ��shine�� individually, for example, making arrests. They also suffered from dam-nation for personal mistakes, which might have spelled the end of their career.
Since all Marine Police officers were in the same boat, literally and figura-tively, they learned to help each other out any way they could, for example, con-sulting with each other before making decisions and covering up for each other should there be mistakes and problems. They worked together as a team and had incentives to avoid mistakes, at least collectively to cover up their discovery.
The Marine Police also needed to work and stick together against outsid-ers, internal (Land Police), external (public) and above (superior). The Land Police looked down upon the Marine Police as not doing real police work. After all, Marine Police officers were merely sailors, inspectors and service workers. They were not competent in catching criminals and lacked knowl-edge in police procedures.
In truth, the Land Police were envious of the Marine Police work con-ditions and pay. To them, the Marine Police had less pressure, more leave time and extra pay, for example, O/T. As a result, the Land Police adopted a critical, non-cooperative and at times confrontational attitude towards the Marine Police colleagues.212 For example:
Normally, according to police procedures, maritime arrest cases have to be handed over to land police for further investigation. Marine Police Inspectors or Sergeants will usually accompany their subordinates to go to land station for processing. This is often necessary to prevent lack of co-operation with the Marine Police by the Land Police as a result of minor technical or procedural mistakes, as the junior ranking land police have to respect the senior ranking marine police officers.213
With the Marine Police, the most important lesson for this research proj-ect on HKP reform is perhaps the realisation that Hong Kong was not entirely and certainly not always under a colonial police in organisation (paramili-tary, foreign rule), function (security control and law enforcement) and style (coercive and repressive), awaiting liberalisation and localisation.
At the minimum, the evidence suggests that British colonial masters were known to be ready and willing to compromise colonial policing prin-ciple�Xracial segregation, to bring about colonising outcome, that is, law, order and security. Moreover, once individual racial prejudice was replaced with mutual understanding, trust and respect, the complete breakdown of colonialism was not far behind. It took the HKP land formations 100 years to start localising in major ways (1950s). It took the Marine Police no more than 50 years to come to achieve perfect integration as ��family�� (1900).
Fourth, in terms of assimilation, Caldwell was the first Assistant Superintendent to become a Whitefaced Chinese, the first of its kind in the 1850s.214 He was able to completely immerse in the Chinese culture. Caldwell spoke fluent Chinese, married a Chinese and commingled with Chinese people, including undesirables, with ease.215 This made him functionally a Chinese to the British, and an adopted son to the Chinese.216 In 1857, Caldwell was investigated for corruption and abuse of office.
The inquiry concluded that Mr. Caldwell��s long and intimate connexion with the pirate, Ma-chow Wong, was of such a character as to render him unfit to be continued in public service, and the Council recommended his dismissal therefrom.
There is little doubt that Caldwell was a corrupt official, but so were -others of the time. What got him into trouble is that he breached the silent, but deadly, racial segregation code by marrying a local Chinese, openly.217
Fifth, in terms of acculturation of colonial officers, perhaps the most ambitious and successful localisation�Vassimilation programme was that of Cadet Program,218 which turned out governors, Secretary of Chinese Affairs, police commissioners and district officers. These British handpicked, trained cadet officers�Xversatile in Chinese language and culture�Xformed the back-bone of the Hong Kong Government administration until 1997, with a sense of mission (paternal administration) and identity (��fuwun guan��) to match. These groups of British trained ��colonial�� officers, individually and collec-tively, did much to customise colonial policy to fit local circumstances, by cutting out objectionable features here and shouldering unintended impact there, thereby changing objectionable colonial policy to successful colonial practice. The leadership these cadets provided, the vision they promoted, the policy they made and the programme they developed changed the tone and pretext of Hong Kong governance from an alien and repressive colonial regime to a home-grown and progressive modern state. The police reform of 1950s was built upon that progressive mentality, doing what the people want than what the Colonial office desires.
At the end of the day, it is right to ask: is it the policy or the people that make for objectionable colonial rule? The same question can be asked of the HKP. Before the 1950s, the HKP suffered from wrongheaded219 colonial pol-icy of imposition, segregation and discrimination. After the 1950s, the HKP underwent a right-hearted reformulation�Vlocalisation of colonial policy, with the British meeting the Chinese as people not agents and subjects of regime.
V: Conclusion
This chapter describes the context of and proposes a framework to investi-gate into ��Hong Kong Police Reform in 1950s�� (Chapter 9). To further explore localisation, a separate discussion of legality, modernisation and communi-sation of the HKP after WWII is presented in Chapter 9.
Endnotes
1. For a competent, if all too brief, account of the makeover of Hong Kong after WWII, see Chapter 6: ��A New Hong Kong��, In: J. M. Caroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Latham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), pp. 140�V160.
2. B. Hook, From Repossession to Retrocession: British Policy toward Hong Kong 1945�V1997, In: pp. 1�V31, P.-k. Li (ed.), Political Order and Power Transition in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1997), p. 1. For British pol-icy towards Hong Kong, see pp. 4�V9.
3. Public Record Office, London CAB 129/35 CP(49) 120.
4 O. Marenin, Policing Change, Changing Police: International Perspectives (New York: Garland Publication, 2006). For political governance which implicates on policing, Vagg has divided Hong Kong into three periods, namely, colonial rule, administrative state and democratic participation. See J. Vagg, The Legitimacy of Policing in Hong Kong, pp. 107�V135, 125. Under this scheme, I surmise Vagg would collapse the first two periods (1840s, 1870s) into colonial and 1950s as administrative, and 1990s as democratic participation. Ibid.
5. This study does not include crisis-driven reform, for example, 1967 civil distur-bances. For 1967, riot and related social and political reform, see G. K.-w. Cheung, Hong Kong��s Watershed: The 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009). In the MacLeHose years (19 November 1971�V20 May 1982), Hong Kong society underwent fundamental changes in social policies: In housing, education, workers�� rights and medical services. Governor MacLeHose has taken a much more proactive and interventionalist approach to colonial administration.
6. The ��Formation Period�� was very first HKP reform period. It was launched by Captain Superintendent Charles May after he was appointed (3 September 1844) and took up office on 28 February 1845.
7. N. Vittachi, From farce to force to be reckoned with, SCMP, 10 October 1998, p. 7.
8. Chapter 8: ��Meeting the Challenges of Modernity��. p. 139. S. Tsang, Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the 19th Century to the Handover to China, 1862�V1997 (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 15 December 2007). During the first decades after WWII, Hong Kong experienced dramatic changes in population, politics, economy, housing and education. As such, education policy cannot be understood in isolation, but in historical and social context. Admiral Cecil Harcourt, the Military Governor, was quick to add his terms: Re-energising and re-forming the community with ��the 1946�� outlook, which helped to breach the gap between rich and poor, British and Chinese, looking forward to a new beginning or constituting the old.
9. There is an issue of whether the reversion of sovereignty necessarily means decol-onisation, calling for radical policy change. It has been observed in some quarters that China��s policy towards Hong Kong enshrined in the Basic Law�X��one country two systems�� for 50 years actually made possible, if not encouraged, the continu-ation of colonial rule by default. See ���D�h�ު��ʮu (1) �h�ު��ʮu (2) (��Absence of Decolonization��) �g�� 2007-06-22 and 2007-06-8. (The reversion of ruler is not about a change of colonial system of governance but a change of rule. China has no interest in HK political development. Hong Kong has little desire to ask for democratic change. The return of sovereignty has been completed, and the decolonisation process has yet to take place, e.g., there is no universal suffrage in Hong Kong). http://www.inmediahk.net/node/225772 and http://www.inme-diahk.net/node/226667, respectively. For English translation of �h�ު��ʮu (2) (The Absence of De-Colonization in Hong Kong�XPart 2. By Leung Man-tao (���D). 28 June 2007, see http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20070708_1.htm
10. To observe that HKP has an ��unchanged�� regime defence role with militaristic capacity is not to say that the ��role�� and ��capacity�� of HKP are not adjustable, or has not been adjusted, to social and political change in Hong Kong. Theoretically speaking, the regime defence role of HKP shifted from active pacification of rebels (1925 Hong Kong�XCanton Seamen Strikes) to passive monitoring of dissidents (1950s Nationalists and Communists). The HKP militaristic capacity shifted from replying to U.K. armed force (acting as police in 1840s) to the HKP replacing the armed force (after 1997). See Chung, Hung-fung, Harry (�鶯�p), An analysis of policing the border: A shift of responsibility, MPA Dissertation, HKU, 1994.
11. G. R. Sayer and D. M. E. Evans, Hong Kong 1862�V1919: Years of Discretion (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985).
12. S. K. Lau, Decolonization without Independence: The Unfinished Political Reforms (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1987).
13. G. E. Caiden, Innovation in administration, Hong Kong Journal of Public Administration, 4 (1): 15�V30, 1882.
14. For example, see Part Two: ��Reconstruction, Expansion, and Transformation, 1945�V1964��, In: A. Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong, 1941 to 2001: Visions and Revisions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 137.
15. L. Butenhoff, Social Movements and Political Reform in Hong Kong (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999).
16. A. Smart, The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires and Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1950�V1963 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006).
17. L. F. Goodstadt, Uneasy Partners: The Conflict between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005).
18. A. Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong, 1941 to 2001: Visions and Revisions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 137.
19. D. T. L. Shek (ed.), Advances in Social Welfare in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002).
20. S. Chan, Colonial penalty: A case study of Hong Kong��s penal policy and pro-grammes under British administration (1945�V1997). Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Social Science (Criminology), University of Hull, 2012. https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:7167; M. Adorjan and W. H. Chui, Responding to Youth Crime in Hong Kong: Penal Elitism, Legitimacy and Citizenship (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014).
21. A. Sweeting, Education in Hong Kong, 1941 to 2001: Visions and Revisions (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 137.
22. R. K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Method Fourth Edition (Thousand Oak, CA: Sage, 2009). (��A case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contem-porary phenomenon in depth and within the real life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident.�� p. 16).
23. See J. P. Kotter, Leading changes: Why transformation effort fails, Harvard Business Review on Change (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press, 1998), p. 2.
24. By police law and ordinances, I mean laws and ordinances that informs on police organisation, constitution, role, functions, powers and accountability.
25. http://www.hklii.hk/eng/hk/legis/HKHistLaws/
26. http://www.hklii.hk/eng/
27. Hong Kong Police Magazine (HKPM) (����ĵ�����x) (1951�V1968). http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HK/HKGS/21019060.pdf (1951). http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HK/HKGS/21019061.pdf (1956). http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HK/HKGS/21019062.pdf (1959). http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/HK/HKGS/21019063.pdf (1960). Source: University of Hong Kong Library (����j�ǹϮ��])
28. http://hkjo.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/hkjo/home
29. HKPM 10 (4): 1, Winter, 1960.
30. Impressions of Police Course in England, HKPM 1 (1): 5�V9, September 1951.
31. Ibid., Ballistics and the Police, pp. 16�V20.
32. Ibid., Chatter from the Stations, p. 24.
33. Ibid., Chinese Porcelain for the Beginner, p. 20.
34. Hong Kong population was growing before the war. Population in Hong Kong: 1891 (Total: 221,000); 1901 (283,274); 1911 (456,444); 1921 (660,645); 1931 (850,821). L. Butenhoff, Social Movements and Political Reform in Hong Kong (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999), p. 17.
35. These refugees included industrious Cantonese and business savvy Shanghaies, non-organised labourers, enterprising businessmen and capital-rich industrial-ists. Lest one jumps to conclusion that Hong Kong��s success is attributable to this or that group, Cantonese versus Shanghaies, it must not be forgotten that Hong Kong earns its keep because of its ethnic diversity and international con-vergence. For entrenched ethnic diversity in Hong Kong, see G. Evans and M. Tam, Hong Kong: Anthropological Essays on a Chinese Metropolis (New York and London: Routledge, 31 October 2013). For emerging cosmopolitanism, see C. A. Breckenridge, S. Pollock, H. K. Bhabha and D. Chakrabarty, Cosmopolitanism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), esp. ��Hong Kong and Shanghai��, pp. 209�V229.
36. M. Sing, Hong Kong��s Tortuous Democratization: A Comparative Analysis (New York, NY: Psychology Press, 2004). (A study of Chinese refugees in who came to Hong Kong between 1949 and 1952 did so for economic reasons. They wanted to avoid real or potential political persecution or otherwise loss of civil liber-ties. In 1977, a survey showed that 57.3% regarded the duty of government to be providing for stability, and only 10.5% wanted the government to establish democracy or equality.), p. 46.
37. A. S. Ku. Immigration policies, discourses, and the politics of local belonging in Hong Kong (1950�V1980), Modern China, 30 (3): 326�V360, 333, 2004.
38. K. Bolton and C. Hutton, Triad Societies: Triad Societies in Hong Kong (London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2000). IV: A Hundred Years of Triad Societies in Hong Kong, pp. 59�V92. (Upon the demise of KMT, the first wave of refugees arriving in Hong Kong was from the North and Central provinces, and with them came the Green and Red Pang, criminal groups. The Green Pang started organising themselves and reached out to the new immigrants, offering them support and assistance in a foreign land, including how to avoid deportation and providing protection from local criminal elements (pp. 76�V78).
39. KMT Lt. General Kot Siu Wong, a Triad leader, enlisted help from Hong Kong residents and Chinese migrants to facilitate the return of KMT rule. K. Bolton and C. Hutton, Triad Societies: Triad Societies in Hong Kong (London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2000). IV: ��A Hundred Years of Triad Societies in Hong Kong.�� pp. 59�V92, 80�V81. (Triad membership grew exponentially between 1951 and 1954, claiming 300,000 members (p. 83).
40. Hansard, 1967: 262.
41. Jawaharlal Nehru, Speech on the Granting of Indian Independence, 14 August 1947.
42. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
43. N. J. White, Decolonization: The British Experience Since 1945. (London and New York: Longman, 2014). (The British empire shrank from 7 hundred mil-lions before WWII to 5 millions after WWII (mainly in Hong Kong.)
44. Hong Kong needed ��to develop an active sense of citizenship and to become capable of openly expressing and giving piratical effect to the general desire of its inhabitants [if it were] to remain under British rule and to resist absorption by China��.
45. W.-B. Zhang, Hong Kong: The Pearl Made of British Mastery and Chinese Docile-Diligence (Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2006), p. 60.
46. The Hong Kong Planning Unit at the Colonial Office was responsible for draft-ing plan to rehabilitate Hong Kong and restoration of civil government, after military rule by the Japanese during the war and British immediately after the war.
47. Young to Creek Jones, No. 255, Secret, 7 February 1947. F) 371/63387.
48. Dr. Y. C. Wong, Public Policy on Local Administration: Past, Present and Future. No. 38 (10/96) CPPS, Lingnam University (1998), p. 8.
49. P. Kua, Scouting in Hong Kong, 1910�V2010 (Hong Kong: Scout Association of HK, 2011), Chapter Two: ��Reconstruction and Researching Out: 1945�V1964��, pp. 225�V283. The history of scouting in Hong Kong allows us to see the development of HKP from another prism (p. 16), for example, the development of Chinese identity of youth under colonial rule, which allows us to gauge the mentality, policy and implementation of British colonialism, at different times and in civil society. ��Hong Kong Scouting could finally lay claim to being a mass movement with a broadly-based membership which was representative of the postwar colonial community�� (p. 226). At the same time, there was a revival of nationalistic scouting, reminiscent of the 1935�V1940s era.
50. J. F. Tsai, Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842�V1913 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
51. E. Sinn, The strike and riot of 1884�XA Hong Kong perspective, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22: 65�V98, 1982.
52. C. Loh, Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010). (Zhou Enlai on Hong Kong police: ��China��s Hong Kong policy was part of the overall strategic plan for the East�VWear struggle.�� p. 80).
53. D. Akers-Jones, Feeling the Stones: Reminiscences by David Akers-Jones (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004).
54. 1st Battalion. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Hong Kong 1949�V1950. http://www.argylls1945to1971.co.uk/
55. Wm. R. Louis, Hong Kong: The critical phase, 1945�V1949, American Historical Review, 102 (4): 1056, 1997.
56. In 1947, the HKP evicted residents from Kowloon Walled City, under Chinese rule, and created an international incident, with the Chinese burning down the British Consulate in January 1948. Ibid., p. 1071.
57. HK Secretariat, FO371/69577.
58. R. Buckley, Hong Kong: The Road to 1997 (Cambridge University Press, 12 June 1997).
59. J. Hayes, The Great Difference: Hong Kong��s New Territories and Its People 1898�V2004 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012); A. Grantham, Via Ports: From Hong Kong to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012).
60. Hong Kong officially abolished opium trade in Hong Kong in August 1945, and a Narcotics Bureau was established to suppress and eradicate drugs. M. S. Gaylord, D. Gittings and H. Traver (eds.), Introduction to Crime, Law and Justice in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), p. 84.
61. Police History: The Modern Era 1945�V67. HKP. http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/01_about_us/ph_03.html
62. Ibid.
63. I. Ward, Sui Geng: The Hong Kong Marine Police 1841�V1950, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1991), p. 169.
64. J. T. F. Tang, From empire defence to imperial retreat: Britain��s postwar China policy and the decolonization of Hong Kong, Modern Asian Studies, 28 (2): 317�V337, 1994.
65. Lord Milverton, Colonial problem, Hong Kong Sunday Herald, 15 December 1949, p. 12.
66. D. Clayton, British foreign economic policy towards China 1949�V60, Electronic Journal of International History�XSection 6, 2000, para 10. http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3393/1/Journal_of_International_History_2000_n6_Clayton.pdf
67. Hong Kong population grew from less than 600,000 in 1945 to over 2 million in 1950, with many of them requiring education, medical and welfare support. Meantime, HKG suffered from a shortage of financial resources. In the first post-war budget, HKG faced a shortfall of HK$115,425,965.
68. A. Grantham, Via Ports: From Hong Kong to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965).
69. D. Clayton, British foreign economic policy towards China 1949�V60, Electronic Journal of International History�XSection 6, 2000, para 10.
70. Section on ��Invasion Scare�� in D. Bray, Hong Kong Metamorphosis (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001), p. 39. In 1950, with the onset of the Korean war, British intelligence estimated there were five Chinese army divisions, with two on reserve amassed at the border, ready to attack. The British military was poised for action, at moment of notice. The author, a cadet officer, had to be on standby, to assist Colonial Secret if and when there was an invasion from the North. All these were kept secret from the public.
71. Charles T. Cross, USIS, Hong Kong (1951�V1954), Consul General Hong Kong (1974�V1977). In Hong Kong�XAssociation for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Reader. http://www.adst.org/Readers/Hong%20Kong.pdf
72. ��Then came WWII; the West lost its extra-territorial privileges in the Chinese treaty ports. �KThen came the Korean war and the UN embargo. That barred Hong Kong from exporting goods that were made on the mainland; they had to be manufactured in Hong Kong itself. So it lost some connection with the PRC; but at the same time, it became a major exporter of its own wares to the rest of the world. Manufacturing increased sharply as Hong Kong discovered that its goods were in high demand, and that was really the birth of Hong Kong��s economic boom.�� Ibid.
73. Ibid., 51 B. U.K. Trade with China and Hong Kong.
74. Hong Kong Legislative Council. 30 March 1949. 95.
75. Alan Lennox-Boyd, 9 October 1958.
76. S. K. Lau, Decolonization without Independence: The Unfinished Political Reforms of the Hong Kong Government (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987).
77. S. R. Ashton, G. Bennett, and K. Hamilton, Britain and China 1945�V1950: Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series I, Volume 8 (London and New York: Routledge, 2013). CAB. 128/16: CM(49)2, p. 330.
78. Immigrants Control Bill (1949) and the Expulsion of Undesirables Ordinance (1949).
79. ���� (Ho Chong See), �����I��: ����ʺ��p�H�ɮ� (Behind the Wind and Cloud: Private Files of Hong Kong Prison (���� (HK): �ŤѹϮ� 2008).
80. By the end of 1946, the Hong Kong population was restored to the prewar num-ber of 1,600,000; by 1950, it increased to 2,360,000. By the end of 1956, it was estimated to be over 2.5 million, approximately one-third of which were refu-gees. A Problem of People, A reprint of Chapter I of the Hong Kong Annual Report, 1956 (Hong Kong, 1957); Meeting of 27 February 1957, Hong Kong Hansard: Reports of the Meetings of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Session 1957 (Hong Kong, 1957).
81. M. Houf, Protect Our Borders: Immigration and Identity in Post-War Hong Kong, World History Connected, 8 (2), June 2011. http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/8.2/index.html
82. Commissioner of Prisons, Annual Departmental Reports 1947�V48.
83. S. Wallace, Total Institution (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1971).
84. L. F. Goodstadt, Uneasy Partners: The Conflict between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), p. 10.
85. A. Smart, The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires and Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1950�V1963 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006).
86. C. Sui-jeung, ����� East River Column: Hong Kong Guerrillas in the Second World War and After (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009).
87. S. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007). See Chapter 9, Japanese Invasion and Occupation, esp. p. 119 (Japanese invasion and occupation destroy the myth of British invincibility.)
88. The status of ��British Dependent Territory�� was created by the BNA 1981.
89. ��Interim Report on Hong Kong Police�� October 1943 was briefly referenced in P. Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 201.
90. Ibid.
91. Pennefather-Evans joined the police in 1914, aged 20, as a Police Probationer of the Federated Malay States. During WWII, he became a POW in Hong Kong for three years. It was during the internment that Pennefather-Evans compiled the Commissioner Report for HKP reform after the war.
92. A. Burton, After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and Through the Nation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 29 May 2003), p. 297.
93. Enclosure to Governor Sir Mark Young to Secretary Lord Moyne, confiden-tial letter, 1 December 1941 (extracts) (source: CO129/588) Preliminary Report on the Hong Kong Police Force. See S. Tsang, Government and Politics: A Documentary History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1993).
94. I. Ward, Sui Geng: The Hong Kong Marine Police 1841�V1950 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1991). See ��14. The Reconstruction of the Fleet 1946�V1948��, pp. 167�V177, esp. pp. 169�V173.
95. Karen Fang, ��Britain��s Finest: The Royal Hong Kong Police��, In: p. 293, A. Burton (ed.), After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 297.
96. S. J. Chan, Democracy Shelved: Great Britain, China, and Attempts at Constitutional Reform in Hong Kong 1945�V1952 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. xvi�Vxvii.
97. The Police Review 1957 Address of H.E. the Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham (1947�V1957).
98. HKPM 7 (4): 32�V33, March 1957.
99. Colonial Reports Hong Kong 1946.
100. Hong Kong Legislative Council. 30 March 1949. 82�V118. (��An Ordinance to apply a sum not exceeding one hundred and seventy-nine million five hundred and eighty-six thousand nine hundred and seventy dollars to the Public Service of the Financial year ending 31 March 1950.��) http://www.legco.gov.hk/1949/h490330.pdf
101. Ibid., p. 92.
102. Hong Kong Legislative Council, 8 September 1948. 251�V261, ��Motion��, 251�V254 (��Hon. Sir Man-Kam Lo: �XSir, for at least two reasons, to-day��s sitting is an unique and will become a historic occasion in the annals of this Council. First I think I am right in saying that this is the first occasion on which an International Declaration has ever been referred to this Council, and if I may do so, I would like to congratulate Government on taking this step��.)
103. Membership: Australia, Belgium, Byelo-Russia, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Lebanon, Panama, the Philippines, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the U.S.S.R., Uruguay, Yugoslavia.
104. Hong Kong Legislative Council. 30 March 1949. 82�V118. The Council is much concerned about the plight of juvenile after WWII. Chau Tsun-Nin ��I see from the Annual Report that there are in the Colony an estimated 100,000 chil-dren between the ages of five and twelve, who are still receiving no education. This is almost half of the estimated 225,000 children in this age group in the Colony (p. 95)��.
105. Hong Kong Legislative Council. 8th September 1948. 252�V261, 252.
106. D. Akers-Jones, Feeling the Stones: Reminiscences by David Akers-Jones (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004). http://books.google.com/books?id=PnQAsA0oIPoC&lr=&source= gbs_navlinks_s A. Grantham, Via Ports: From Hong Kong to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012). http://books.google.com/books?id=LNNhhpkKJ10C&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s
107. HKPM, September 1951.
108. CP Maxwell, Farewell, HKPM, Spring, 1959.
109. Impressions of police course in England, HKPM, September 1951, 5.
110. ��Restructuring, reengineering, transformation, renewal, and reorientation are words that describe the same general phenomenon�XA change in how busi-ness is conducted��. See Lib.na Tetr.evova, Concept of Corporate Restructuring and Reengineering. Institute of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubic. https://dspace.upce.cz/bit-stream/10195/32208/1/CL655.pdf
111. Chapter 6: ��A New Hong Kong��. J. M. Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong (Latham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).
112. D.A.E. Peterson, Principal Probation Officer, The Policeman and Juvenile, HKPM 2 (2): 5, March 1952.
113. Ibid.
114. E. S. Scott and L. Steinberg, Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime, Juvenile Justice, 18 (2): Fall 2008. http://futureofchildren.org/pub-lications/journals/journal_details/index.xml?journalid.=.31
115. D.A.E. Peterson, Principal Probation Officer, The Policeman and Juvenile, HKPM 2 (2): 5, March 1952.
116. Ibid.
117. D.A.E. Peterson, Principal Probation Officer, The Policeman and Juvenile, HKPM 2 (2): 5, March 1952.
118. G. Ure, Governors, Politics and the Colonial Office: Public Policy in Hong Kong, 1918�V58 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012). (The Hong Kong government had limited policymaking capabilities, pre and post war.)
119. Richard Beckhard, Organization Development: Strategies and Models (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), p. 9.
120. R. H. Rouda and M. E. Kusy, Jr., Organization Development: The Management of Change (1995). http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~rouda/T3_OD.html
121. Leo F. Goodstadt, Government without Statistics: Policy-Making in Hong Kong 1925�V85, With Special Reference to Economic and Financial Management. HKIMR Working Paper No. 6/2006. http://www.hkimr.org/uploads/publica-tion/210/ub_full_0_2_128_wp200606_text.pdf
122. Ibid., p. 4.
123. C. E. Lindblom, The science of ��muddling through��, Public Administration Review, 19: 79�V88, 1959.
124. This is not to suggest that there was a total absence of policy making framework without constitutional, legal or administrative control over process or outcome. As a British Crown colony, Hong Kong Government was led by an all powerful appointed governor. The governor was empowered by Letter Patent, constrained by Royal Instructions and guided with Colonial Regulations. In practice, all these documents told the governor what not to do rather than what should be done. Senior civil servants, appointed by the Crown, assisted the governor. He also reported to Secretary of State on major issues affecting colonial administra-tion, for example, revenue and expenditure, appointment and dismissal of senior officials. Governor��s policy decision making is informed by Executive Council. Law established by Legislative Council runs the government. In both instances, British could and did intervene, through legislation of British Parliament or Privy Council or invalidation of Secretary of State. The traditional approach of colonial governance was by relying on the ��man of the spot�� due to lack of exper-tise, information, and knowledge of Hong Kong in Britain. G. Ure, Governors, Politics and the Colonial Office: Public Policy in Hong Kong, 1918�V58 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012), pp. 2�V3. At the end the day, it is fair to say that Hong Kong government enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in the running of Hong Kong. The best that can be said of the autonomy of Hong Kong govern-ment is that it enjoyed relatively free ��political�� autonomy, but near unchecked ��administrative�� autonomy. Ibid., p. 4. For a description of literature on colonial government policy making, see Ibid., pp. 8�V9.
125. E. Sinn, Power and Charity: A Chinese Merchant Elite in Colonial Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003), p. 2.
126. Leo F. Goodstadt, Government without Statistics: Policy-Making in Hong Kong 1925�V85, With Special Reference to Economic and Financial Management. HKIMR Working Paper No. 6/2006. Ibid., p. 2.
127. W. R. Louis, Hong Kong: The critical phase, 1945�V1949, The American Historical Review, 102 (4): 1052�V1084, 1053, 1997.
128. G. Kitson, Memo, The Future of Hong Kong, 28 February 1946, FO 371/53632.
129. Mao was not interested in taking back Hong Kong at the time.
130. G. Drower, Britains Dependent Territories: A Fistful of Islands (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company Ltd. 1992).
131. Hawksley, Charles Michael, Administrative colonialism: District administra-tion and colonial ��middle management�� in Kelantan 1909�V1919 and the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea 1947�V1957, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong, 2001. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/1732
132. See Hong Kong Police/Military Agenda (p. 98) to Georgina Sinclair, ��Hong Kong Headaches: Policing the 1967 disturbances��, In: R. Bickers and R. Yep (eds.), May Days in Hong Kong: Riot and Emergency in 1967 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), pp. 89�V103.
133. Ibid., p. 90.
134. J. W. Hayes and E. Sinn, Colonial Administration in British Hong Kong and Chinese Customary Law (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong, 2001). For a digitised version, see https://archive.org/stream/colo-nialadminist00jame/colonialadminist00jame_djvu.txt
135. Ibid., p. 69.
136. B. W. Wai-yuk, Village vigilantes�� 300-year patrol, SCMP, 18 August 1996. http://www.scmp.com/article/170956/village-vigilantes-300-year-patrol
137. Ibid., p. 98.
138. Panel on Commerce and Industry Meeting on 17 January 2006. Background Brief on Hong Kong��s Hosting of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization. LC Paper No. CB(1)682/05-06. http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr05-06/english/panels/ci/papers/ci0117cb1-682-e.pdf
139. 10 Impact of the 1967 riots, G. K. W. Cheung, Hong Kong��s Watershed: The 1967 Riots (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1 October 2009), pp. 131�V143.
140. R. Bickers and R. Yep, May Days in Hong Kong: Riot and Emergency in 1967 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), p. 100.
141. L. N. Giles, Wearing Red, Tracking Reds: What a Ride!: Policing and Counter-Espionage from Canada to Hong Kong (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Trafford Publishing, 8 April 2011), specifically see ��37: Hong Kong Liaison��, pp. 249�V314.
142. Ibid., 257�V258.
143. M. E. Page and P. M. Sonnenburg, Police and policing, Colonialism: An International, Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia. A-M. Vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003), p. 475.
144. See section on ��The lash and the noose: The deterrent approach to punishment, 1841�V1877�� F. Dikotter, A paradise for rascals: Colonialism, punishment and the prison in Hong Kong (1841�V1898), Crime, History and Society, 8 (1): 2004, Varia. http://chs.revues.org/515
145. During his short tenure, Governor Young��s signature achievements were in pro-posing increasing Chinese representation in Legislative Council, doing away with racial segregation at the Peak and promising opportunities and promotion for Chinese in government. It was Governor Young who, during the budget debate for 1946�V1947, stated that ��The policy of Government is to ensure that every opportunity shall be given to locally recruited persons not only to enter but to rise in the service of the public up to the highest posts and to fulfil the highest responsibilities of which they are capable or can be assisted to become capable��. Colonial Reports Hong Kong 1947, p. 6. For penal policy in Hong Kong, see House of Lords�� Debate on Corporal Punishment in Hong Kong, Hansard, 1 August 1951, vol. 173. cc. 166�V70.
146. Governor John Pope Hennessy is noted for his policy stances on ��native race craze��, ��grand-in-aid�� schools, ��separate cells in prison and long-term convict labour for unreformed prisoners. For his penal policy, see section on ��Stone and shot��: The redemptive virtue of prison labour, 1877�V1898��. F. Dikotter, ��A paradise for rascals: Colonialism, punishment and the prison in Hong Kong (1841�V1898), Crime, History and Society, 8 (1): 2004; Varia. http://chs.revues.org/515. ��Soon after arriving on the island, he tackled the question of corpo-ral punishment and ordered an investigation into the administration of the prison. Contrary to his predecessors, he emphasised the need for reformation in the treatment of criminals��. The Prison Commission he appointed however disagreed.
147. In the House of Commons on 26 July 1860, Hennessy urged a shift in colo-nial policies and rule in India: ��the military administration of India would be conducted with greater skill, with more economy, and, as a natural result of a higher educational standard, with a greater regard for the feelings and interests of the Native population. Indeed, recent events furnished us with the most con-clusive evidence that many of the British officers, entrusted with grave author-ity in India, had, from an ignorance of popular customs and a disregard of national habits and traditions, given great cause of complaint and encourage-ment to disaffection. As long as we send out officers to India who seem inclined to treat the Natives as slaves, who seem unable or unwilling to appreciate the noble qualities, of that unfortunate people, and who add the grossest military outrages and insults to the civil misgovernment and financial burdens we have imposed upon them, so long will our rule in India be a blot upon civilization��. House of Commons debate, 26 July 1860, Hansards, Vol. 160, cc. 231�V59, 235.
148. On political philosophy, see C. Patten, East and West: The Last Governor of Hong Kong on Power Freedom and the Future (London: McClelland & Stewart, 1998). The pattern was called ��whore of the East�� for introducing electoral reform in the Legislative Council (p. 69). On penal policy, see Samson Chan, Colonial penality: A case study of Hong Kong��s penal policy and programmes under British administration (1945�V1997). Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Social Studies (Criminology), University of Hull (2012). (��The political reform in Hong Kong during Governor Patten��s time in late 1990s had witnessed the increased participation and influence of the legislators in penal policy legisla-tion. In the legislative process for the Post-release Supervision Scheme, the initial proposal by the Correctional Services Department and the Government carried a much stronger disciplinary welfare principle with the involvement of a policeman in the supervision team.��) p. 310. https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/assets/hull:7167a/content
149. M. Alagappa, Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). Chapter One: ��Investigating and Explain Change: An Analytical Framework��, pp. 29�V69.
150. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Translated by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons; edited with introduction by Talcott Parsons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947).
151. Samson Chan, supra, Note 148, p. 209.
152. R.H.W., Boys�� and Girls�� Club of Hong Kong ����p���s�q�| HKPM X (4): 18�V22, Winter, 1960.
153. Report of the Boys�� and Girls�� Club Association for 1940/41.
154. In 1956/7, the Hong Government provided the land and Rotary Club donated the fund to build the first BGCA training centre at Jaffe Road and Lockhart Road. Ibid., p. 22.
155. In 1948, two leadership courses were organised. One leader was send to the United Kingdom for observation and training by the British Council. In 1949, specialised training in child psychology, first aid, leadership and games were provided for the Club Leaders. Ibid., p. 20.
156. In 1951, ��two Boy Scout troops and two Cub packs were formed and steps were taken to commence a Girl Guide Company��. Ibid., p. 20.
157. Chinese Medical Association and doctors offered free medical services for the clubs. Ibid., p. 20.
158. In 2013, there were 45,860 Integrated Children and Youth Service Centers, serv-ing 18,652 children. About Us�XVision and Mission. BGCA, 2013. http://www.bgca.org.hk/files/bgca/PDF/1213/p6-p18.pdf
159. Peng, Policemen and citizens. HKPM 1X(3): 3�V6, Winter, 1959. (In the Hong Kong Police Gold Medal Essay Competition 1959, the first prize of a gold medal and $100 was awarded to Detective Police Constable 4726 Mui Wah Fuk (CID PHQJ, who wrote under the pen name of ��Peng��).
160. Ibid., p. 3.
161. S. Shavell, Law versus morality as regulators of conduct, American Law and Economics Review, 4 (2): 227�V257, 2002.
162. Ibid., Abstract.
163. Ibid., p. 4.
164. Ibid., p. 4.
165. See Wm. T. De Bary, W.t. Chan and B. Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition Vol. I (New York: Columbia University, 1960), p. 28. (Sources of Chinese Tradition), p. 114.
166. Ibid., p. 115.
167. The Analects, Book XV, Chapter 7.
168. The Analects, Book IV, Chapter 5:3.
169. The Analects, 2:3.
170. The Analects, 12:11.
171. P. Tsang, HK police force nears ��localisation�� goal with exit of expat officer, SCMP 12 October 2009. (��At the most senior level, the proportion of overseas officers in directorate ranks has shrunk from 55 per cent in the 1980s to little more than 3 per cent last year. Natural attrition and language obstacles for new recruits are set to trim the number further, with the last overseas officer in the police force�Xthe largest department�Xset to retire in 2027��.). http://www.scmp.com/article/695108/hk-police-force-nears-localisation-goal-exitexpat-officer
172. http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/localization
173. Legal Transplant and Legal Culture. The World Bank. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTLAWJUSTINST/0, contentMDK:20759640
~menu PK:2035153~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:1974062,00.html
174. http://www.w3.org/2003/p3p-ws/pp/uld.html
175. https://www.gala-global.org/education-training-programs
176. ��The person who is closest to a problem, by impact or with resource, is the person to solve the problem��, In: Kam C. Wong, State Police Power as a Social Resource Theory (2000). a/k/a Expectation Theory of Social Control (2014). Discussed in K. C. Wong, Chinese Policing: History and Reform (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2007), Chapter 8.
177. The Hong Kong Water Police was the first localised and integrated HKP, por-tending things to come. It also debunks the myths that Chinese officers were all corrupt, disloyal and could not be trusted. ��See Old Hong Kong, water people and police 1952�� for ��staged�� photos of Europeans working with Chinese marine police officers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v.=.OI_CsgA_pTw @1.30
178. 102. Kowloon Walled City Most Odd�XFacts of Interest. http://mostodd.word-press.com/2011/05/02/kowloon-walled-city/
179. C. K. Chan, Social Security Policy in Hong Kong: From British Colony to China��s Special Administrative Region (Latham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), p. 67.
180. The rationale, idea, and practice of collaborative�Vindirect rule is best explained by Nantang Ben Jua, Indirect Rule In Colonial And Post-Colonial Cameroon, The Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing, University of Kent. http://lucy.kent.ac.uk/csac/lucy/Chilver/Paideuma/paideuma-Indirec-2.html
181. A. M. Hiatt, Holder and Donovan join New York police commissioner to discuss collaboration, Washington Post, 16 January 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/holder-and-donovan-join-new-york-policecommissioner-to-discuss-collaboration/2014/01/16/9e072906-7ea4-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html
182. B. C. Renauer, D. E. Duffee and J. D. Scott, Measuring police-community co-pro-duction: Trade-offs in two observational approaches, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 26 (1): 9�V28, 2003.
183. L. Pomerantz-Zhang, Wu Tingfang (1842�V1922): Reform and Modernization in Modern Chinese (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1 August 1992). Chapter 2: ��Hong Kong Barrister 1877�V1882��, pp. 41�V71.
184. P. T. Lee, Business networks and patterns of Cantonese compradors and mer-chants in nineteenth century Hong Kong, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 31: 1�V39, 9, 1991. shttp://hkjo.lib.hku.hk/archive/files/c606bc91afb7cfc0c8aebafd36b8dac2.pdf
185. Between 1885 and 1900, a total of 1,830,572 Chinese emigrants embarked at the port of Hong Kong.
186. 9. The Place of Secret Societies in the Problem of Colonial Administration, In: K. Bolton and C. Hutton (eds.), Triad Societies: Western Accounts of the History, Sociology and Linguistics of Chinese Secret Societies, Vol. 5 (London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 2000), p. iv.
187. The framework for the student of colonial rule inter-penetration black soci-eties is that of PCN (political�Vcriminal nexus). PCN studies the relationship between political elites and criminal understood, for mutual benefits. Political elites get money and control. Underworld gets license and tolerance. The result is order and stability, at the expense of legality and morality. It is commonly recognised that in the 1950s, Hong Kong was by and large stable and secured, in spite of onslaught of migrants, tension between political factions, discon-tent with labours, and growth in criminal elements of all kind. At that point, the PCN was justified, some say inevitable, because it was good for economic development. But there was a high cost for such stability, as there were perva-sive corruption and institutionalised collusion between HKP and Triads, for example, in the supply of illegitimate services and need for illegal protection. R. Godson, Menace to Society: Political-Criminal Collaboration around the World (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003).
188. M. C. Howard, Transnationalism and Society: An Introduction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 28 February 2011), p. 180.
189. K. Chin and R. Godson, Organized crime and the political-criminal nexus in China, Trends in Organized Crime, 9: 5�V44, 2006.
190. T. Wing Lo, 8. Minimizing crime and corruption in Hong Kong, In: R. Godson, Menace to Society: Political-Criminal Collaboration around the World (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), p. 231.
191. T. C. Anstey, Crime and Government at Hong Kong, a Letter to the ��Times�� (1859); Thomas Chisholm Anstey, Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham Clinton (Duke of Newcastle), Case of Hong Kong. Correspondence between T. C. Anstey, late Attorney-General of Hong Kong, and the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies. 3�V29 July 1859 (London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1859).
192. D. R. Caldwell and T. C. Anstey, A Vindication of the Character of the Undersigned from the Aspersions of Mr. T. Chisholm Anstey, Ex-Attorney General of Hongkong as Contained in His Charges, His Pamphlet, and His Letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Wellington Street, Hong Kong: Noronha��s office, 1860). http://books.google.com/books?id=jwsTAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=
A+Vindication+of+the+Character+of+the+Undersigned+from+the+Aspersions+
of+Mr.+T.+Chisholm+Anstey,+Exattorney+General+of+Hongkong+as+
Contained+in+His+Charges,+His+Pamphlet,+and+His+Letter+to+the+
Secretary+of+State+for+the+Colonies+%28Noronha%27s+office,+1860%29&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9uF7VMugAu_msATw54HYBA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
193. Community Policing in Hong Kong; ��Engaging�� the Lantau Island Community (CAPPLEX, 2014). http://capplex.com/news/2014/4/7/community-policing-
in-hong-kong-engaging-the-lantau-island-community
194. Ihekwoaba D. Onwudiwe, Chapter 4: ��Community Policing: The Case of Infor-mal Policing in Nigeria��, pp. 103�V125, In: D. Wisler and I. D. Onwudiwe (eds.), Community Policing: International Patterns and Comparative Perspectives (CRC Press, 8 June 2009). (Decentralised police allows for customisa-tion of police service to meet with local needs, instead of centralisation law enforcement.)
195. B. F. C. Hsu, The Common Law in Chinese Context (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1 January 1992), p. 17.
196. M. W. Ma, Foreign jurisdiction in China, The American Journal of International Law, 18 (4): 676�V695, 1924.
197. A dominant narrative portrays British colonial presence as one of ��indirect rule�� by a political neutral state pursuing a lazier-fare policy. T. W. Ngo (ed.), Hong Kong��s History: State and Society under Colonial Rule (London and New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999), p. 3. Indeed, with this account, British rule over Hong Kong would not be possible without the active collaboration of Hong Kong��s elite and tacit approval of the populace, p. 5. Viewed in this light, Hong Kong is less a British colony as it is a market place for all sorts of people to pursue their own interests, of which seeking adventure and making money are com-mon denominators. Then as now, different actors, chasing their own dreams, make Hong Kong what it is.
198. The Christians were appalled and abhorred at how indigenous natives such as the aboriginals were treated at the hands of the settlers, that is, taking their land and enslaving them. They objected to British colonialists meddling with the lifestyle of the indigenous people, for example, sailors corrupting the local with alcohol and sex. They were critical of hypocritical liberal elites denying autonomy and destroying culture of the people overseas, in order to liberate and enlighten them. Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes (British settlements) (1837).
199. V. Lee, Being Eurasian: Memories across Racial Divides (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1 August 2004), p. 14.
200. There are other ways of handling multi-cultural relationship, such as American��s ��melting pot�� theory.
201. R. F. Betts, Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890�V1914 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). ��Origins and Growth of French Doctrine of Assimilation��, pp. 10�V33.
202. L. F. Goodstadt, Uneasy Partners: The Conflict between Public Interest and Private Profit in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1 January 2005). Chapter 1: ��The Colonial Culture and Its Siege Mentality��, pp. 19�V31. (From the earliest days, British administrators (AO) enjoyed unsurpassed privileges in Hong Kong, in terms of service, including salary, pension, housing, education, and medical. In 1950s, there were 42 of them running a city of 2.5 million Chinese.)
203. C. Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841�V1880 (New York: Psychology Press, 2001), p. 2.
204. Ibid.
205. J. F. Davis, Chinese Novels, Translated from the Originals, etc. (London: John Murray 1822); J. F. Davis, The Chinese: A General Description of the Empire of China and Its Inhabitants (London: Charles Knight, 1836); and J. F. Davis, Sketches of China; Partly during an Inland Journey of Four Months between Peking, Nanking, and Canton; With Notices and Observations Relative to the Present War. (Charles Knight & Co., Ludgate Street. London. 1841). In two volumes.
206. E. J. Eitel, Europe in China: The History of Hongkong from the Beginning to the Year 1882 (London: Luzac & Co., 1895); E. J. Eitel, A Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese dialect, Vols. 1 & 2 (London: Trubner and Co., 57 & 59, Ludgate Hill. Hong Kong: Lane, Crawford & Co., 1897).
207. A. R. Sweeten, T-PAO as bottom level bureaucrates: Evidence from local criminal cases from south China: 1860�V1877, Modern History Research Center Journal, 7: 627�V658, 2002.
208. I. D. Lightbody, An administrative officer in Hong Kong, pp. 82�V84, In: Anthony Kirk-Greene (ed.), On Crown Service: A History of HM Colonial and Overseas Civil Services, 1837�V1997 (London: I.B. Tauris, 12 June 1999).
209. I. Ward, Sui Geng: The Hong Kong Marine Police 1841�V1950 (HKU, 1991), pp. xvi�Vxvii.
210. Lau, Yat-hung. (�B�鶯) An assessment of the historical origins and role of the marine police in contemporary Hong Kong. M.Soc.Sc. (Criminology) Thesis. HKU (1988). Lau, Yat-hung (�B�鶯), SSP retired (2012), B.S. Cuhk (1982). I used informant because in his research into Marine Police, he was more inter-ested describing the HKP as he knew it, not by any independent research.
211. Ibid., p. 39.
212. Ibid., p. 40.
213. Ibid.
214. C. Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841�V1880 (New York and London: Routledge, 16 December 2013). Finding an Equilibrium, pp. 255�V373.
215. S. Heaver, Flagrant harbour: The sordid affair that cemented Hong Kong��s reputa-tion for vice and corruption, SCMP Magazine. http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1431060/flagrant-harbour-sordid-affair-cemented-
hong-kongs
216. Daniel Richard Caldwell was born in 1816 on an East India Company island. His father was a common solider in a local militia. In 1834, Daniel Caldwell worked on opium-smuggling ships in South China Coast and mixed freely with pirates. There he learned to speak Chinese fluently as a native. Caldwell then served as an interpreter in the First Opium War. In 1842, he worked for HKG as court inter-preter and head of detective. There he made a name for himself for helping the Royal Navy and ran down pirates as well as catching crimes on land, through informants. In 1855, he left HKG to work with Ma-Chow Wong, who had a god daughter (��qi nui��) whom Caldwell treated as a mistress or concubine. In 1851, Caldwell married Chan�Xapproved by the Anglican Church. With Caldwell��s access to the government and Royal Naval, Wong was able to control the pirates with the help of the RN. C. Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841�V1880 (Routledge, 16 December 2013). Finding an Equilibrium, pp. 255�V373, 307.
217. Ibid., pp. 322�V323.
218. S. Tsang, Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the Nineteenth Century to the Handover to China, 1862�V1997 (London; New York: I.B. Tauris; New York: In the United States of America distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
219. Whether a right-hearted colonial policy could have saved the day for the British is still up for debate. But without being right headed, the British did not have a chance.
Table 8.1.Colonial Development in Governance Philosophy and Penal Policy
Coercive
Consensus
Penal
Colonial: 1840s�XCaptain William Caine144
Late colonial: 1950s�XGovernor Young145
Remedial
Early colonial: 1880s�XGovernor Hennessy146 (1877�V1882)147
Decolonisation: 1990s�XGovernor Pattern148
342
Policing in Hong Kong
343
HKP Reform: The 1950s
341
9
HKP Reform: The 1950s
The complete break with old Hong Kong caused by the war is a unique oppor-tunity to start afresh.1
HKP Police Commissioner John Penneather-Evans (1947)
Introduction
This final chapter investigates HKP reform and development in the 1950s�V1960s, as compared with HKP reform in the 1840s and after the 1990s.
This chapter makes three claims:
First, HKP modernisation reform began in the 1950s. It was substan-tially completed by the 1960s. There were two objectives to the reform, that is, making HKP less colonial, a liberation process, and making it more modern, a professionalisation exercise.
Second, of all the HKP reforms, past and present, the 1950 HKP reform counts as one of the most ambitious and transformative. It created HKP in its modern form, with a brand new structure, functional process and progres-sive ethos to match. It gave birth to HKP as we know it today, as a legalised, modernised and communalised force, all be it in an embryotic state. The 1950s reform also laid the foundation and provided the platform for future police reform in HK, such as 1997 reform.
Third, the much-hyped 1997 HKP reform2 is neither new nor innovative, in conception, process or outcome. It is built upon an old (though not worn) reform platform, with much continuity amidst gradual changes, from the past (1950).
This chapter follows on the heel of Chapter 7, which provided us with ��Contexts and Framework�� to illuminate and analyse the HKP reform. This chapter is organised as follows: Section I is on ��Localisation�� of HKP. It is followed by ��Legalisation�� (Section II), ��Modernisation�� (Section III), ��Communalisation�� (Section IV) and ��Organisation�� (Section V). Section VI ��HKP Voices�� informs us of what some HKP officers think about HKP reform and policing in HK. Section VII is a ��Conclusion��, which compares and con-trasts police reform efforts between the 1840s and 1950s, from a frontline perspective as a fitting ending to this book.
I: Localisation
Localisation
The most conspicuous and consequential change to HKP in the 1950 reform period is that of localisation. It happened organisationally, for example, more Chinese officers, as inspectors and constables, operationally, for example, more collaboration with locals and culturally, for example, more acceptance of interracial marriages. The espoused purpose of localisation is to make HKP more representative of and attuned to HK demographics, conditions and concerns. It tries to be responsive to Chinese sense and sensitivity,3 with-out formally decolonising or legally democratising the HKP. This is a tall order. But the HKP has been successful.
The observation here is that, after WWII, HK colonial administration sought decolonisation without democratisation, with the shelving of the Young plan for constitutional reform. Instead, the HK government launched a robust localisation campaign.
For the HKP, a street-level bureaucracy in the service of the people, local-isation measures are perhaps more important than a democratisation pro-cess. Localisation improves police performance. Democratisation attracts political dissention and invites social disorder. Chinese traditional attitude and HK people��s pragmatic mindset prefers performing than talking. This is certainly true with HK people who are aversive to politics. If HK people are giving a real choice, they would prefer ��finding eat�� (making money) over ��blowing water�� (discussing issues), every time.
From its inception and until the 1950s, HKP has been a predominately British colonial force, in constitution, organisation, ethos and style. It is organised in a very British way and operated with a colonial policing style. All aspects of ��Chineseness�� were missing. The Chinese police played a sub-sidiary, for example, translator, perfunctory, for example, watchman and marginalised role, and only as an afterthought. Chinese were distrusted and never taken seriously as a respected member of the HKP. This is not surpris-ing. Historically, HK�VChinese were treated as Chinese subjects to be con-trolled, not HK citizens to be served and respected.
There are exceptions. At various times, due to practical necessity, for example, liaison with the community, or progressive sentiments, for exam-ple, ��native race craze��, there had been repeated calls for localisation of HKP.4 For example, during his tenure, Governor John Hennessy (22 April 1877�V30 March 1883), has pushed for more egalitarian treatment of HK people, com-patible with the then prevailing social and economic influences.
In 1844, the year HKP was formed, under the stewardship of Superintendent May, there were 78 European (48.7%), 34 Indians (21%) and 48 Chinese (30%) officers. In 1865, there were 610 police officers, made up of 76 Europeans (13%), 368 Indians (60.3%) and 65 Chinese (11%).5 In 1898, the HKP was made up of 630 policemen, with 112 Europeans (17.7%), 292 Chinese (46%) and 226 Indians (35.9%). In 1909, there were 1050 officers, of which 128 were Europeans (12.2%), 511 Chinese (48.7%) and 411 Indians (39.1%).6 In 1939, HKP boasted 306 Europeans (14%), 774 Indians (35%), 884 Cantonese (38%) and 296 northern Chinese (13%).
By 1950, HKP was predominately a local force. There were 3084 Chinese officers (83%), which included 2861 Cantonese (77%) and 507 northern Chinese (13%). There were only 266 Europeans (7%), 107 Indians (3%) and 31 Portuguese (<1%).7
In terms of command and control, in 1999, there were 37% (176/473) Chinese superintendents and 27% Chinese commissioners (6/22). By 2000, it was 67% (253/380) and 77% (17/22), respectively.8
HKP did not have a Chinese Commissioner of Police until 1989, with Li Kwan Ha (Tables 9.1 and 9.2).
Colonial Policy of Localisation
Post-war HKP is not the only government agency to be localised. In fact, localisation is the standing policy for HK government after WWII, includ-ing all the disciplinary services. For example, at the HK Prisons Department before the war, prison officers were all Europeans recruited from the military, while prison warders were entirely filled by Pakistanis and Sikhs. Chinese were not allowed due to loyalty and security concerns. In 1938, there were more than 230 Pakistani and Sikh staff.9
Prison-staffing policy changed after the war. Chinese were hired to replace foreign staff who were retiring and resigning. However, the locali-sation effort was not successful in recruiting locals. Prison officers were paid too low and their social status was not high. Chinese were aversive to joining as prison officers. In 1948, with the increase in salary and later improvement in training, the quantity and quality of warders improved substantially:
The situation improved since 1947 when the Salary Commission increased the salary of the local prison staff to be in line with that of the police. Arising from this financial improvement, better quality local Chinese were attracted to join as Warders. Proper trainings were arranged for the newly recruited Warders since 1950. A month long training covering foot-drill, weapon train-ing, Prison Rules and duties of a Warder.10
Localisation after WWII
WWII is the watershed in HK colonial history. It precipitated the transfor-mation of HK from a colonial enclave to a global city. HK was not returned to China (KMT or PRC), as envisioned. It did get a makeover of HK con-stitutional order, as promised. However, HK did not start a long and ardu-ous journey to return HK to the HK�VChinese, beginning with removing all conspicuous signs of racial discrimination, for example, with the removal of segregation law (��An Ordinance to repeal the Peak District (Residence) Ordinance, 1918�� and ��An Ordinance to repeal the Cheung Chau (Residence) Ordinance, 1919�� in 194611) and adopting an explicit localisation policy by the HK government.12
The decolonisation at HKP took a number of forms:
First: The installation of first de facto Chinese police chiefs
HKP has a de facto Chinese police force beginning in the 1950s under the charge of the four Heads of CID.
In the 1950s�V1960s, Detective Sergeants13 had a lot of powers. Their power came from three sources: First, formal powers as Detective Sergeants. Second, personal powers as go-between to British senior officials and Chinese junior police officers, sometimes even Inspectors. Third, informal powers because they could get things done, that is, ��problem solving�� with Chinese characteristics, known as �d�}.14
The CID Heads kept the British boss happy by maintaining discipline within, for example, getting rid of trouble makers, and fighting crime with-out, for example, solving high-profile cases and posing high clearance rates. They also catered to the British boss��s every fancy and whim, over and beyond the call of duties, for example, servicing their personal vehicles. In those days, expatriate commanders, Sub-Division Inspector (SDI) and Division Superintendent (DS) lived like a king.
The CID Heads kept the rank and file happy by helping with their pro-motion, for example, influencing paddling, and protecting them from their misadventures, for example, bribing off complainants. (Acting as a police welfare officer, Chinese style in the image of a Godfather.)
The CID Heads kept the community happy by delivering what they wanted, that is, pursuing street justice and providing Chinese order, some-times for a price (tea money). (Doing true Chinese-style community policing [CP].) They kept the shopkeepers, businessmen and Taipans happy by doing their bidding, for example, keeping an undesirable off their back and pro-viding them with face. (Doing effective HKP�Xpublic relationship, Chinese style.) In that, CID Heads were treated like a ��Godfather��.15
The Heads of CID were able to do all these and more with their organisa-tional power, police knowledge, language skills, work experience, social net-work, underworld contacts, problem-solving skills and above all else being resourceful and entrepreneurial, as a ��cop merchant��.16 One blog account described the CID status, role and power as follows:
There were three or four staff sergeants at any one time, and they were in charge of all the rank-and-file officers in their areas. Unlike today��s division by districts, they were responsible for huge geographic areas�XHong Kong Island, Kowloon�XYau Ma Tei had its own sergeant�Xand New Territories. A sergeant major lorded over them. Notionally, the staff sergeant ranked below an inspector, but even senior inspectors had to show them respect. This is because these powerful sergeants knew the pulse of the street, and effectively controlled gang activities and the territories each was allowed to operate�Xall the while taking a large chunk of commissions.17
In doing so, the Heads of CID became the de facto police chiefs running the HKP police operations, by and for the Chinese. The CID Heads were able to command and control most junior officers and some senior ones at will, in line with unspoken but well-recognised police code of conduct. They did so through bribe, promotion, appointment, assignment, posting and discipline; above all doing favours for others.18 On one hand, the CID Heads offered police officers protection from bureaucratic blunder and professional indis-cretion. On the other, the CID Heads provided them with welfare support when in need.
Once the CID Sergeants were in place, they were able to fight crime and maintain order by collaborating with Triads, a new form of CP.19 Triads as a community group has an incentive to work with the HKP in keeping their community secure against internal strife, for example, gang fights and exter-nal interference, for example, police raids, and overall stability and order for Triad business. Working with the HKP would help them to secure their busi-ness model. Triads as new ��deputised�� policing agents in town, turned colonial policing and later CP on their heads. Instead of the colonial master controlling the Chinese, the Chinese were controlling the colonial master. Instead of hav-ing community-fighting crime in collaboration with the HKP, the HKP was collaborating with criminal elements in keeping the community in order.
It is not unfair to observe that in the 1950s�V1960s, there were two HKP forces, one in the front (British) and the other behind closed doors (Chinese), down to having its own unofficial office, administrative structure and case-processing system. For example, this author lived in Shamshuipo (SSP) as a child in the 1950s. In an upscale commercial�Vresidential building (J/O Taipo Road and Nam Cheong Street), there was a CID unofficial office on the third floor. Detectives came and went 24/7. The office was used as a duty room for investigation and interrogation. CID came to work on their cases, worked on the suspects or just chilled out. The office has a set of report books, which recorded all the criminal cases CID officers have worked on. These include cases that were not reported to the main police station, for a variety of reasons, for example, cases with little leads or witnesses, more generally unsolved, and unsolvable cases. This way, the CID could manage their case-load, such that only those cases with a realistic hope of clearing found their way to the main police station.
The era of authentic HK�VChinese policing has begun, with the appoint-ment of Detective Sergeants, acting effectively as police chiefs of their tufts.20 According to a version of an ��unofficial�� historical account about the power of CID Sergeants, which comports with HKP insiders�� knowledge:
There were four Heads of CID in HK in the 1950s�V1970s, being Hon Sum (����), Lui Lok (�f��), Nan Kong (�C��) and Ngan Hung (�ŭ�).
Lui Lok (�f��) was promoted to Chief of Head CID�XNT in 1958. He joined HKP in 1940 as a police constable. He earned his rank through hard work, distinguished performance and professional achievements and above all else not rocking the corruption boat. In one way, Lui was dedicated to fighting crime. In another way, he was not different from any black society people, doing whatever needed to get what he wanted. He would bribe the boss above and collect bribes from below. He used his power to obtain money from people in his jurisdiction to provide for a protective umbrella (�O�@��). ��Lui Lok maintained complicated relationship above and below. He has a lot of brothers eating off his plate and depended on him for survival. He could not ignore them. He wanted them to live a good life��.
The other Head of CID is Nan Gang (�ŭ�). He was well respected within the HKP and the four Triad families ���|�j�a�ڡ� (�s�q�w�B��{���B14K�B�M�өM). He need not do anything, the Triad families would help him with solving the crimes and deliver to him the culprits, including confession.
��When a new Commissioner of Police is appointed. They need to first visit with these four heads of CID, as a matter of courtesy, otherwise Hong Kong law and order would deteriorate and HKP could do nothing to be maintained a safe society��.21
Second: The grooming of Chinese Inspectorate officers
Increasingly, Chinese Inspectorate-grade officers were given important command posts, and were excelling at them. For example, at the 5th Annual Police Review held at Happy Valley on Wednesday, 28 November 1951, Inspector Tsui Po Ying won an award as the first Chinese Inspector in charge of a difficult division, that of Shau Ki Wan in 1948 for 3 years. Another high-flyer was Sub-Inspector Fong Yik Fai22 who was given an award for playing a leadership role as a senior Chinese officer at PTS in the training of 2000 police recruits from 1945 to 1948. Since 1948, until he departed for 6 months training at Hendon Police College, U.K., he was responsible for the building of the Railroad Police.23
Grooming of locals officers was not without its attending security risks. Senior HKP�XChinese officers working for the Chinese government�XPRC or KMT, was a distinct possibility and a real concern for HKP senior man-agement at the time. As such, Chinese officers were less trusted. The worse security breach within Chinese senior ranks happened in 1961. In 1961 (6 October 1961), Assistant Superintendent Tsang Siu-Fo (���L��),24 Deputy Commandant PTS and then the highest-ranking Chinese officers, were arrested for being a Communist China spy, and later deported after 58 days of interrogation by British M16 agents (21 December 1961).25
Third: Chinese police officers placed in high-profile international leader-ship position
One way to promote localisation of staff is by way of showcasing Chinese officers who were elected by peers to lead police international professional organisations. This has two effects. First, it establishes a role model for other Chinese officers. Second, it changes the image of HKP as a British-dominated police agency.
One such case was with the formation of HK Section (5 July 1958) to the International Police Association (IPA). IPA was established in Great Britain in 1950, to promote international exchanges between offi-cers from different countries and across cultures. The motto of IPA is ��SERVO PER AMIKECO��, an Esperanto term which means ��SERVICE THROUGH FRIENDSHIP��.26 Besides professional association and social exchanges, IPA also consulted with international bodies�XUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and enter-tained heads of state.
At that time, HK was the only Chinese city police force to have joined IPA. Others were Great Britain, Holland, Belgium, France, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Chile, Germany, Federal Republic, Eire, Spain, Austria, Canada and Finland. The President of the IPA (HK) organisa-tion was Li Fuk-ki27 and Vice President D.R. Harris. The Honorary President was the Commissioner of Police Heath. For IPA-HK, Chinese and European officers joined under the IPA�XBritish section.
Inspector Li got the idea of setting up the IPA-HK section when he was under training at Police College�XRyton�Xon�XDunsmore in the United Kingdom in 1956.28 SIP (Detective) Li retired from HKP and is now a secu-rity consultant.
The establishment of IPA-HK section is significant in understanding HKP development as an institution. IPA-HK was the first-time HKP that allowed a Chinese officer to represent itself, internationally, as the head of a professional organisation, with full endorsement of the HKP Commissioner of Police. From an institutionalisation point of view, it sent a clear message, and in the most conspicuous way; HKP was coming of age as a professional and international organisation. As such, HKP made clear that as an organ-isation, it embraces an international norm, sending the message that as a policing agency with global reach and international presence, it preferred professionalism over colonialism. In this regard, HKP preferred not to be known as a colonial police organisation. Witness the fact that HKP was not joining as IPA�XU.K. but on its own terms, zips�XHK. Chinese officers were not subservient, and were much less discriminated by the British; witness the fact that the IPA (HK) was headed by a Chinese official with a British deputy on the side. In one masterstroke, HKP has been decolonised, at least symboli-cally, to its members and with the world community.
Fourth: The standardisation of promotion process
The promotion process of local police officers has improved much after the 1950s. By and large, the process is based on merit, with detailed uni-form criteria, standard professional examination, objective assessment, mul-tiple evaluators and time-in-grade requirements. All officers are treated the same, in principle, with structured paper tests and final interview boards. For example, since 1961, in order to advance from probationary inspector to Inspector of Police, the candidate must have
1. Successfully complete 3 years of service in grade
2. Completed Standard I Professional Examination upon completion of initial training at Police Training School
3. Passed Standard II Professional Examination
4. Passed the first colloquial Cantonese Examination (overseas officers only)
5. Recommended by the regional/branch commander based on overall performance reports
6. Accepted by the Commissioner
However, the HKP promotion system is not flawless.
In 1982, a Chinese HKP senior officer, Tsui Yiu-Kwong conducted an empirical study of the fairness of HKP promotion system, with internal recruit-ment to promotion data. The data and analysis tentatively showed that HKP promotion process is discriminatory against Chinese. Specifically, controlling for maturity, education, experience and performances, Tsui found that expatri-ate police officers were promoted faster and disproportionately against Chinese officers.29 The findings could not be satisfactorily explained, on merits alone.
For the study, the study examined a sample (33%) of Chinese versus expatriate officers inducted between 1961 and 1974.30 The study shows:
First, ��if age were used as an indicator of maturity and as maturity is likely to affect an officer��s promotion.�K.locals are older and therefore more mature�� (p. 51). However, the author considered the marginal difference in maturity between Chinese and expatriates is too small to be deemed signifi-cant as a discriminator.
Second, ��If education were used as an indicator for knowledge and intel-ligence, which are important qualities for promotion it would seem that expatriates are more knowledgeable and intelligent as they generally received more education than local�K�� (p. 51). Again, the author discounted this slight difference in education favouring the expatriates on account of the fact that HK education system is not comparable with the expatriate systems.
Third, ��Previous working experience, especially that in discipline ser-vices, would be expected to enhance work performance and subsequent promotion, however, the previous working experience of the two groups of officers was similar at entry�� (p. 52). Tsui failed to find actual difference in the training performance between locals and expatriates (p. 52).
Fourth, ��The time taken to achieve confirmation to Inspector and advancement to Senior inspector was roughly the same for locals and expa-triates. There is, therefore no significant difference in this aspect of their work performance�� (p. 53).
Fifth, the author concludes that the findings could only be explained by differences in terms of services between expatriates and Chinese, specifically promotion within the expatriate stream is sped up based on political neces-sity of keeping more expatriate officers on top as a ��right balance��:
Instead, the promotion system in the officer cadre of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force is based on the principle of ��right balance��. By this it is meant that the Force maintains an appropriate ratio of expatriates to locals at various levels within the officer cadre (p. 56).
This research was and is the only empirical research bearing upon pro-motion discrimination in the HKP, singling out the British administration for constructive criticism. One can certainly challenge the methods, for example, how various dependent variables, such as performance, is defined and measured, or the validity of the findings, that is, the author attribut-ing non-significance to differences in age of entry (Chinese ahead) or com-parability between educational attainments (expatriate ahead), between expatriates and Chinese. Notwithstanding these and other methodological and interpretation flaws, there is no denial that the expatriate officers were promoted faster and more often than Chinese officers. This made for a HKP top command structure with disproportionate expatriate presence.
For our purpose, the sole question that needs to be asked is why the dis-parity in promotion in favour of the expatriate officers, in the first place. Is this a blatant case of discrimination to keep a ��right balance�� or a justifiable case of ��right merit��? Or, are there any other explanations?
Whichever the interpretation, the differential promotion prospect is likely to be accepted or rejected based on one��s personal experience on account of his ethnic identity. For the losers (Chinese), they would object to the disproportionate representation of White officers at the top, whatever the reasons. For the winners (expatriates), they would approve the promotion system as being fair, notwithstanding disproportionate representation. The truth possibly lies somewhere in between.
From my investigation into HKP reform, it is clear that there was struc-tural discrimination in favour of the expatriate officers in the 1950s, for example, nearly all sought-after posts, for example, operational commander (DDI, SDI and DS) at key police stations (Yamati, Mongkok) and high-profile positions, for example, Editorial Board of HKPM, were held by expatriates.
Before we jump to the conclusion about racial discrimination, let us con-sider four plausible explanations for such noted racial disparity at key places:
First, the locals were less experienced. The localisation process has just started and yet to take roots. The locals were less seasoned and not yet pre-pared to take up key/high command. For example, in the later issues of HKPM, I found more Chinese in command and HKPM provides more space for Chinese officers�� reporting.
Second, the locals ��naturally�� do not mix well with the expatriates, for example, they do not hang out with the expatriates in the officers mess or at the bar downtown after work and into the late hours. They have a home and family to return to. In essence, it is observed that there are personal, social and cultural distances between the expatriates and Chinese. Thus, Chinese were not professionally connected and socially bonded with the expatriates, sufficient for them to know each other. Validation of this observation can be found by comparing Marine officers versus police tactical unit (PTU) officers versus uniform branch (UB) officers, with Marine officers most bonded and UB officers less bonded. The thesis being, professional bonding is a function of police assignments, and promotion is contingent on bonding.
Third, since promotion decision makers (gatekeepers) need informa-tion to make sound decision, and they are not limited to information on the file before them, it is likely that they will fall back on their personal knowl-edge of candidates, expatriates or Chinese, to make a decision. Since most of the gatekeepers at the time (1950) were expatriate officers, the personal information is likely to be from their social interaction with the candidate, that is, mess night or bar talks. This gives the expatriate officers a distinct advantage over the Chinese.
Fourth, after WWII, many high-ranking officers were hired overseas to replenish the stock. These overseas senior appointments limited promotion opportunity from below to high places, such as a Gazetted officer, even if the promotion prospect for Chinese and expatriates was the same.
The above discussion is not to deny that there is a lot of racial animus, institutionalised (legacy), imported (African officers) or personal (big-otry�Xboth Chinese and expatriate) within HKP, at the time. But such an assumption, while valid to a point, cannot be generalised across the board. In essence, subtle personal favouritism (Chinese as well as expatriate) did exist, institutional racism, perhaps did not exist as much.
Quite apart from personal favouritism and institutional racism, this research finds that HKP promotion system was getting better at regularis-ing promotion on meritorious grounds. More pointedly, even if there was an ��unspoken�� rule in favour of the expatriates, it is tempered by the newly adopted HKP promotion SOP: all candidates must compete on meritorious grounds, before the final decision was made. When all things were consid-ered, race factor was given extra consideration, but not in the manner (arbi-trary) or to the extent (dominating) people believed it existed, after WWII. In essence, there are ample evidence showing social familiarity turning into professional bias, for example, Chinese did not speak Queen��s English. Invidious discrimination, for example, Chinese should not be promoted, no matter what, rarely happened.
Still in all, for expatriates and Chinese alike, the 1950s rule-bounded promotion system was much fairer than the old one, where promotion was based on personal bias of the superiors. The introduction of a more stringent and exacting promotion system is in line with other HKP developments, that is, legalisation.
Legalisation of HKP is needed because HK is fast moving to be an inter-national city with a global community at its base. This calls for transparency, consistency, predictability and formality in negotiating differences between multinationals. The same applies to HKP, with an international work force�XChinese (Hakka, Shandong, Shanghainese and Cantonese), Indian, Sikh and expatriate (British, Africans), with different cliques (��horse stable��) organised around senior officers as a mentor or protector (��tai lo��) or factions based on ethnic affinity or philosophical bent. The most important point is, once HKP decided to localise, the expatriates want more assurance that they will not be discriminated against, in reverse by the Chinese.
Back in August 2001, the Overseas Inspectors�� Association (OIA) has already persuaded management to bring greater objectivity and wide dimensions into the promotion process. OIA also addressed that members continue to express grave concerns that over the apparent biases. Many feel that the time is right for the management to undertake a thorough reform of the promotion system.31
This is most evident with the all-pervasive disciplinary code.32 The con-cern with reverse discrimination by Chinese officials is real and personally felt by ��Bob��, an expatriate chief inspector of police (CIP) after 1997:
[O]f course promotion is still done on merit and through the promotion boards �Ka dead man��s shoes as one goes the next one goes up and it is done on merit and not necessarily on seniority �Kthe only thing now is that unless you are a Chinese national or of Chinese origin you cannot become a com-missioner or deputy commissioner�Xthe top three posts you cannot hold �K.. [however] I am sure it does help if you do know the Chairman of the Board or something like that who is familiar with your work. The Chairman of this Board is a gentleman that I have known for a number of years [gives a Western sounding name] voted through the ranks and I have worked with him �Kit must be an advantage.33
The fact that the promotion process is getting more objective and fairer goes to show that the HKP is interested in providing an equal opportunity for its officers, with the objective of integrating the expatriate and Chinese officers under one roof, ever so slowly, for progressive as well as self-serving reasons.34
Fifth: The open embrace of mixed marriages
The best way to bridge the gap between East and West is through mixed marriages. Before the war, colonial policy disallowed inter-racial marriage; a professional death sentence. Socially, mixed marriage is a taboo, and very much looked down upon.
Although there was no law against miscegenation, inter-racial marriages were rare and with people engaging in paying a heavy price, personally, pro-fessionally and socially, for example, Europeans who violated the colonial etiquette jeopardised their career and risk ostracism. Vicky Lee reported:
Kenneth Andrew, who came to Hong Kong in 1912 to join the Royal Hong Kong Police, recalls the first document he has to sign was a promise not to marry a Chinese female. Governor Henry May (1912�V1919) boasted that under his administration no European police officers or prison officers were married to Chinese or Eurasians.35
In 1947, HKP Police Commissioner John Pennefather-Evans has an occasion to comment on mixed marriages of Europeans and Chinese and was very much against them based on two reasons, one moral and the other practical. Morally, Europeans should not marry Chinese women because they have ��low standards of morality�� typical of lower-class Chinese women. Practically, it was considered ��difficult to have mixed marriage partners liv-ing in European quarters without causing dissatisfaction��.36
To demonstrate HKP conviction in and commitment to breaking down the racial gap, it publicised marriages between expatriate officers and local maids, just like any other marriages. For example, in 1951 HKPM, there were five police marriage announcements; two of these were mixed marriages:
On 2nd May 1951, Sub-Inspector A. B. Harteam was married to Miss Chan Po Lin, at the Registry, Supreme Court.
On 14th May 1951, at St. John��s Cathedral, Sub-Inspector J. H. Eees was married to Miss J. B. E. Halkon.
On 19th May 1951, at St. John��s Cathedral, Sub-Inspector M. Todd mar-ried Miss E. A. McNaughton.
On 24th May 1951, at the Supreme Court Registry, Sub-Inspector David Lam married Miss Lo Chun Chu.
On 15th June 1951, Sub-Inspector A. J. Deveraux married Miss Lily Chin Ping Lain.
On 20th July 1951, Sub-Inspector G. P. Tebb was married to Miss Cheung Wai Lin at the Supreme Court Registry.37
Again, in December of 1951, HKPM reported another five pairs of police weddings, of which one was a mixed marriage.38
Sixth: Promoting cross-cultural awareness
One of the many ways to localise is to increase language competency and cultural awareness, thus bridging the gap between the European colonialists and HK�VChinese subjects. It has been observed that Europeans know of their Chinese subjects by their amah from poor families and wife as bar girls,39 and Chinese know of their colonial masters by their pompous ceremony and drunken mannerism.40 ��Cultural assimilation in a true sense is impossible and meaningless if education is not spread��. 41 This is taken to heart by HKP reform-ers with the publication of HKPM, such that effective cross-cultural exchanges in knowledge and sentimentality can be achieved by exposing the Europeans to Chinese culture�Xcustom and festivities,42 arts and crafts and vice versa.
To this end, HKP has published multiple articles on Chinese and European culture, such as ��Collecting Chinese Porcelain for the Beginner�� in the first issue of HKPM.43 The author painstakingly but masterfully explained the history, categories, and assessment of porcelains, with dos and don��ts and pictures to match. It ended with a light-hearted reminder: ��For the humble beginner sheer beauty should be his objective; the significance of antiquity, technique, and history will have to be left to scholars and archae-ologists, but a successful collector does require to exercise keen discernment and immense patience��.44 The same can be said of cross-cultural appreciation and assimilation, of all things Chinese.
Beyond seeking Chinese knowledge in high places, British colonists see the need to bridge the gap through language training, first with the cultiva-tion of Chinese elites and then with preparing of English administrators.45
Reflection
There is little question that the British colonialists were trying to ��reach out�� to the Chinese or ��customise�� their policy to fit with the HK conditions. Contemporary scholars can debate on the intent (discrimination vs. pene-tration), impact (subjugation vs. empowerment) and merit (benevolence vs. dictatorial) of such efforts, but few could argue that there were many efforts to close the cultural gaps between the two races since the 1950s. This obser-vation, and others to follow, allows us to assert with confidence that in the decolonisation of HK, localisation is not an afterthought. The follies of those who argue against the existence of localisation in all its multifaceted mani-festations, from strategic collaboration to cultural assimilation, suffer from too much ideological blinder and too little sociological imagination.46 Such denials ignore the utility of localisation in ameliorating the discriminatory impact of the colonial rule, for both the ruler and the ruled.
II: Legalisation
As used here, ��legalisation�� means the empowerment and regulation of HKP by law for operational, accountability47 and legitimacy reasons.48 When British colonial officials first arrived in HK, they promised HK residents the rule of law. In 1848, Chief Justice John Hulme, told the Chinese:
As inhabitants of a British Colony, one of the greatest privileges you enjoy is the right to a due and even-handed administration of the English laws, and I am satisfied that the more you become acquainted with these Laws, the more you will learn to love and respect them.49 The promise was not kept, until late in the game, and well into the 20th Century.50
In spite of a sincere motive and honourable intent, the sanctity of British rule of law never materialised in HK, for many reasons.
The Chinese have very little understanding of and identification with the British legal system. Otherwise, Chinese have limited access to the legal process, structurally and economically. From the British perspective, the Chinese did not appreciate, respect, honour or otherwise were not deterred by the majesty of British law. The cultural superiority of British and social inferiority of the Chinese was taken for granted. As a result, the rule of law, characterised by independency of the judiciary and accountability of police, applied to the Chinese in name only, if at all.51 Some argued that the discriminatory law and abusive legal process only applied to the indigenous Chinese, structurally poor and displaced marginal (migrants, sojourns), who lived and worked within foreign communities (European hongs, Victory Peak), for the protection of the Europeans. Otherwise, indirect rule and col-laborative administration helped in ameliorating much of the adverse impact of such legal practices, for example, District Watch Force and self-help social control in NT.52
It is the argument in this chapter that ��rule of law can provide an effective instrument of legitimacy for strong executive governments��.53 Thus observed, post-WWII ushers in a new chapter for HKP with the promulgation of police laws (such as Police Force Ordinance) that are more detailed and specific, thereby making HKP more accountable to the rule of law.
The legalisation of HKP after WWII serves to kill three birds in one stone: First, the HKP is living up to the ideal of British colonial administra-tion; with law and justice as the moral foundation of its rule. Second, HKP is acting more responsively and responsibly to the stricture of the law in pro-tecting and serving the people, even handedly. Third, rapid HK economical and social development after the war requires a predictable rule of the law regime, in settling disputes and enforcing expectations.54
The HKP formally turns a new page with the introduction of the Police Force Bill, on 28 July 1948: ��An Ordinance to amend and consolidate the law relating to the Police Force��. The bill promised to do away with the old Police Force Ordinance, 1932, before WWII, and replaced it with ��a new Ordinance which has been drafted in the light of experience gained not only in this Colony but in other Colonies��. This means an ordinance better suited to ��changed conditions�� in HK and was in line with ��best practice�� of other colonies abroad (most of them independent by now).55 For HK, it recognises the importance of the role of HKP in facing up to the myriads of social and criminal challenges after WWII, from influx of refugees to prevalence of Triads, as it rebuilds step by step, from building�Xrefurbishing police sta-tions to crafting jurisdictions to streamlining recruitment and training. The most pressing challenge is how to realise the objectives of ��decolonisation��, for example, democratisation in politics, localisation in staffing and liber-alisation in policy, with an ever-watchful eye towards providing for internal security56 and heightened sensitivity towards external threat across the bor-der from China. As observed by David Anderson and David Killingray, such law, order, security and stability issues are foremost in the minds of retreat-ing colonialists, now serving as progressive reformers:
But whatever the social or political circumstances of particular territories, the colonial police forces played a major and increasing role in the attempts to maintain the authority of the colonial state and in upholding law and order during the process of disengaging and transferring power to the new rulers.57
As intimated, the challenges with the transfer of power and recalibration of control are many, pressing and uncharted in HK. These included the tam-ing/containment of incipient nationalism, defusing of communal conflicts, strengthening of political surveillance, changing of policing philosophy and militarisation of police.
In the context of HK, the biggest difficulties are with an orderly transfer of power without losing control, threatening order and disturbing stability. The British Colonial Office and HK government took a number of legislative steps to achieve local administrative autonomy without lessening of politi-cal control. They found it with absorption of politics with administration, for example, consultation with elites, localisation of policing, for example, Chinese controlling CID, and legitimacy through performance, for example, keeping criminals at bay.
If we were to look at other colonies undergoing decolonisation, we will find the following prominent issues that need to be addressed:58
1. If police should change, what should they be changed into?
2. How fast and far should the process of change take place?
3. Which part of colonial policing should change and why certain aspects of it should stay?
4. In what way should the police change: in terms of philosophy, mis-sion, organisation, role, function, style and culture?
5. Should the police change their leadership?
6. Should the police change their organisational structure?
7. Should the police change their composition?
8. Should the police be expanded?59
9. Should the police be militarised?
10. Should policing be localised?
11. Should policing be civilianised?
12. Should police be communalised?
13. How should the police be held accountable?
14. Should police morph into the British mode and style, in leadership, organisation and style?
15. What is the role of Home office versus HK government in the transi-tional period?
Such and other reform issues can be addressed with the development of policing laws in HK. As used here, policing laws means laws that define, organise, empower and regulate HKP, such as Police Force Ordinance, and policing in HK, such as District Watch Ordinance. The research focusses on how such laws have changed over time from 1844 to 1950. The comparative study of the legal regime tells us how efforts to reform and transform HKP and policing in HK took shape. The observation and proposition is that 1950 is the beginning of a new phase in HKP reform and a different type of polic-ing in HK. As for periodisation, I have limited the research to laws of HK in the 1850s (beginning with 1844, the year the HKP was established by law) and the 1950s (beginning with 1946, the year civil government returned after WWII). Here, we see a growing maturation and sophistication in how HKP is organised and regulated. The year 1840s is the beginning of HK rule, and the 1950s witnessed the total and comprehensive rebuilding of HK society, and with it the HKP. We also observed a change of mindset towards gover-nance, in general, and policing in particular.
The resource used for this research includes Historical Laws of Hong Kong Online (1 May 2012) which covers 1890, 1901, 1912, 1923, 1937, 1950, 196460 and associated Hong Kong Legislative Council archived materials bearing on the legislative process of relevant laws.
HKP started to re-organise itself with the promulgation of an all new Police Force Ordinance (Cap. 232) on 20 August 1948 (41 of 1948, amended 50 of 1949 and 20 of 1950) (hereinafter PFO). While building upon the skel-eton of the old, it is not a revision or extension, but a totally new formulation.
This PFO is distinguishable from the past versions in the following ways:
First, it is a comprehensive and stand-alone police law. The PFO is organ-ised into seven parts (60 articles) namely: ��Preliminary�� (Part I); ��Constitution of Police Force�� (Part II); ��Disciple and Duties�� (Part III); ��Welfare Fund�� (Part IV); ��Unclaimed Property and Interstate Estates�� (Part V); ��Procedure�� (Part VI) and ��Miscellaneous Provisions�� (Part VII); provides for the structure, organisation and operations of the HKP. Some of the most important provi-sions are the following:
Coverage of PFO: Article 2 makes clear that the PFO applies to all per-sons who work for the HKP, without exceptions, from the Commissioner to the Police Cadet to the Inspector to the clerical staff. However, PFO, HKP regulations and Civil Service Regulations provide for a different treatment of different rank and staff, for example, police constables can be fired summar-ily by the Commissioner but Inspectors are entitled to due process hearing. As it worked out, PFO disciplinary proceeding is disposed in favour of com-mander informal dispositions, avoiding the disciplinary code all together, for example, extra duty watch on Marine launch. That is to observe that PFO has the effect of personalising discipline, instead of formalising it, especially with minor transgression.
Command and control: Article 4 details the chain of command at the top level. The Commission of Police is charged with the ��supreme direction and administration�� of the HKP only to be subjected to ��orders and control of the Governor��. This makes clear that the HKP is an executive arm of HK govern-ment, reporting only to the Governor, with the Commissioner holding the position at his pleasure. In practice, the Governor has to consult the Foreign Secretary and Colonial Office before acting. Throughout the years, there is only one Commissioner of Police, Edward Tyler (19 December 1966�V21 July 1967), who was suspected of having been replayed because of his refusal to take order from the acting Governor Michael Gass to suppress the riots on 21 July 1967, against his better professional judgement in the field.61
Limitations of power: Article 6 provides that police should exercise pow-ers and perform duties according to colonial law, police regulations and supervisors�� orders.
This Article and Oath of Office (Schedule) makes clear that HKP officers are legal agents serving the interest of the HK colonial government. It also makes sure that prospective police officers do not operate outside the law, which only protects the interests of the colonial rule, and not in serving the Chinese people��s interests, rights and welfare. In the past, this kind of provi-sion has proven difficult for Chinese officers to follow. For much of the time, the Chinese harboured an attitude of nationalism and anti-foreignism. This is especially the case for economic migrants from China or indigenous residents living in NT, who find British rule alien, abusive, distasteful, and above all else contrary to local custom or Chinese culture. After the war, things change for the better because many migrants from China are politi-cal refugees seeking the protection from the British government. For them, they are more willing to go along in order to get along, building a new life in a foreign land. Still, there are many cases of obeying the police code in the breach.
Sociologically speaking, the promulgation of more comprehensive and stringent police laws has the effect of making HKP and policing in HK more colonial than Chinese. This is so because colonial law in the book reflects and reinforces British philosophy, values and interests, while policing on the street gives expression to Chinese tradition, culture and custom. The legali-sation of HKP, while intending on restricting the unlimited and unguided HKP abuse of power against Chinese rights, also has the unintended effect of limiting the judicious, paternalistic and benevolent exercise of police dis-cretion in accommodation of Chinese ways and means. The former is dis-ciplining the Chinese (police), ��making Chinese more like British�� kind of colonisation process. The latter is empowering the Chinese (police), ��making British more like Chinese�� kind of decolonisation project. More problemati-cally, legalisation of policing, if successful, centralises police decision making in the hands of the British colonial officials in search of legal justice, at the expense of decentralising police decision making in the hands of the Chinese police and public in actualising street justice. This is a reversal of fortune for the decolonisation of policing in HK.
No unionisation: Article 7 makes it ��unlawful for a police officer to be a member of any trade union��. Given a long history of industrial strikes and civil unrests in HK in the years by, HKP is fearful of any industrial action on the part of the HKP. In addressing concerns of police workers, HKP has conducted active consultation and sought systematic feedback through the chain of command or staff associations. It otherwise tries to prevent indus-trial actions by increasing salary and benefits, such as housing for family and education for kids, after the war.
Article 9 specifies the ��duties of the police force��. These include
1. Preserving the peace62
2. Prevention and detection of crime63
3. Protecting life and property64
4. Apprehending people65
5. Public order policing66
6. Traffic control and obstruction clearance67
7. Keeping public order68
8. Assisting in carrying out any revenue, excise, sanitary, conservancy, quarantine, immigration and alien registration waters69
9. Preservation order and enforcing law in colonial waters70
10. Executing legal papers, for example, summons, and process, for example, commitments71
11. Conducting prosecution72
12. Safeguarding lost and found property73
13. Dealing with stray animals74
14. Protecting life and property in fire75
15. Protecting public property76
16. Attending courts77
17. Escorting prisoners78
18. Executing other legal duties79
Article 9 defines the role and functions of the HKP in specific terms. It makes clear that, as envisioned, HKP after the war is less a law-and-order, crime-fighting agency, than a protection and service organisation, from protecting life at fires 9 (o) to impounding stray animals 9 (m) to direct-ing traffic 9 (f) to processing lost and found 9 (l). This makes HKP a social service agency par excellence than a prototypical colonial policing agency, more in tune with the development of civil society than fortifying the impe-rial empire.
Ultimately, the charge of the HKP is in maintaining order and keep-ing peace as enabled and restricted by law�XHKP is to perform ��such other duties as may by law be imposed on a police officer�� 9 (r) and do so by ��lawful measures�� (9). For example, the specific delineation of police duties allows citizens and police officers80 alike to hold the HKP to account, challenging its (non) exercise of duties as required.
Part II ��Constitution of Police Force�� of the PFO set forth the details of how the HKP is to be established.
Article 10 provides that the overall constitution of the HKP is to be decided upon by the Governor and Legislative Council. But the ��payment and maintenance�� of the same is to be charged to the general revenue by the Legislative Council (Article 11).
In terms of appointment, promotion and termination, the -process is -different between Gazetted police officers81 as provided in Article 12�X appointed, interdicted, suspended or dismissed in accordance with Reg-ulations for His Majesty��s Colonial Service and General Orders of HK government, Inspectors provided in Article 13(1)�Xappointed and promoted by the Commissioner, dismissed in accordance with Article 14(2).
The HKP legalisation reform movement has its intended effect, belatedly. One of the ways to ascertain the impact of legalisation of HKP is to document the utilisation of law to settle police disputes, from abuse of power to illegal performance of duties. This can be achieved by analysing HK court cases in the 1950s and 1960s. A search of electronic Hong Kong Legal Information Institute, with ��All Case Law Databases�� (from 1947 to the present) with the key word ��police�� uncovered 18,260 cases, of which only two cases82 preceded 1960. Police-related case started to grow after the 1960s. For the current research, I will be looking at three cases before 1970, to inform us how people of HK use law to vindicate their claims against the HKP.
Shum Hung vs. Tam Fun (1961) HKCA 1; CACC338/1961 (11 November 1961)83
A Magistrate, Mr Sanguinetti,84 decided the first successful legal complaint against an HKP officer acting in the line of duty by a Chinese hawker on 30 June 1961.
The case was denied on appeal, and reversed, by the Supreme Court of Hong Kong on 11 November 1961. The case involved the arrest of a street hawker by a Police Corporal with 15 years of service, in KLN.
The Police Corporal, Shum Hung, was convicted by a Magistrate, Mr Sanguinetti, on two counts of ��causing willful and malicious damage to property and using abusive language in a public place�� towards a female hawker, Tam Fun. Shum was ordered by the court to pay $15 fine and $1 as compensation for the first charge. Otherwise, the Corporal was discharged without a criminal record upon posting a bond of $250 for 3 months, against personal recognisance. Shum appealed on facts and findings of his conviction.
The facts of the case are rather simple and straightforward. But the pro-cess, findings and decision making in the case is very instructive on the issue of accessibility of the law to the street people. One of the major lessons offered is that the majesty of colonial law in the book rarely catches up with the administration of street justice by the HKP.
On 23 June 1961, hawker Tam Fun, pleaded guilty to hawking without a licence. She was discharged with a caution. At the hearing, Tam complained of police misconduct during her arrest. The Magistrate asked whether she wanted to file a formal complaint, solicitously. Tam welcomed the invitation. Upon lis-tening to the complaint and satisfied that it is ��bona fides��, the Magistrate issued summonses to the police officer for a hearing on 30 June 1961.
At the hearing, it was learned that hawker Tam Fun was hawking at No.72 Fa Yuen Street outside Victoria Theatre, KLN at mid-day, 22 June 1961. The Police Corporal Shum Hung was on hawker clearance duty. According to Tam Fun, during the arrest, Corporal Shum Hung kicked over one of her kerosene tins and broke two eating bowls. He then further picked up two drinking-water tins and poured it on the ground. When she tried to reason with him, he swore at her. There was no corroborating witness, and she told the court: ��In a place like Hong Kong, it is very difficult to get wit-nesses. Even if one hears or sees one does not come forward to be a witness��.
The Corporal Shum Hung denied the charges. Instead, he claimed that the complainant refused to leave and was arrested. His testimony was cor-roborated by that of P.C.1485. Two hawkers at the scene were also called as witnesses. One testified to Corporal Shum Hung shouting to them. They observed that the complainant yelled back and was arrested. He did not see the ��appellant kick over the complainant��s tins, hear him abuse her, or assault or attempt to assault her��. The second witness gave a similar testi-mony. Several police officers testified to not hearing any complaint filed by the complainant.
The Magistrate believed the uncorroborated evidence of the female com-plainant and found it against Corporal Shum Hung.
The grounds for appeal were two: (1) The Magistrate took over the pros-ecution and became a party to the case. This raises issues of objectivity of the hearing officer and conflict of interest; (2) The Magistrate��s conduct at trial, that is, aggressive interrogation of defence witnesses, showed that he was biased. According to the defence counsel, Mr Bodilly, ��the Magistrate had allowed his sympathy to run away with him and that he was determined to convict the appellant��.
The Senior Puisne Judge for Corporal Shum Hung set aside the convic-tions with the return of fine and compensation:
On a consideration of the whole record I am impelled to the conclusion that in his anxiety to ensure that justice was done to this illiterate female hawker, unrepresented by counsel, he unconsciously identified himself with her case and that that fact clouded his judgment in a proper assessment of the evidence given before him and of the very considerable weight of that evidence, much of which was based upon the testimony of two independent witnesses, which negatived the truth of the complainant��s testimony or at least, ought to have raised a very real doubt as to whether her allegation had been proved with that certainty required to substantiate a conviction in a criminal charge.85
Analysis
This case�Xin process and disposition�Xtells many stories.
The first story is about the working relationship between street people (hawkers, taxi drivers, hookers and homeless people) and the police. Police manage the street, while street people live (homeless), work (pimp) and play (juveniles) on it. Since street people need to survive on the street, they have to do go along with the street cop, in order to get along. People on the street have to learn when to shut up (being discrete about what they observe and know) and put out (paying cops, with information or money). Thus, it is most unlikely for street people to complain about or bear witness against the street cops. In order to survive the street, the street people learn not to cross the street cop. This has few things to do with the sanctity of the colonial law, that is, being discriminatory against locals, or the culture of the Chinese people, for example, being deferential to the authority. In as much as most of the people in HK at the time are in one way or another street people, from home-less poor, to listless refugees, to street workers and to godown labourers, they are at the mercy of the street police, who is their protector and squeezer. In post-war HK, the relationship between the street people and police is best understood by street identity, relationship and culture, than colonial narra-tive and repertoire. Revisiting the facts of the case, it is highly unlikely that hawker Tam Fun, as a streetwise person, unless being desperate, would yell at a Police Corporal (a supervising authority) on the street in front of fellow officers, and expect to get away with it. In essence, Tam was not arrested for hawking per se but for not reenacting the role of a compliant street worker, knowing her place on the street. She was also punished for ��reasoning�� with or ��yelling at�� the officer which is one step beyond the lack of compliance into defiance of authority.
This is a teaching moment for all. Tam has to be taught a lesson of respect to the authority, a venerable Chinese custom and habit. Other hawkers have to learn to obey and respect police authority, that is, pack up and leave before the police arrive, and never talk back to the police. Police constables around also need to learn how disrespect to the HKP is properly dealt with forcefully, and resolutely.
The second story is about accessibility to the law. The common refrain about inaccessibility of (British) colonial law to the (Chinese) people is that it is opaque (language, culture) and discriminatory (racial, financial). The antidote is to make law more transparent, objective and free. The case shows that British language and legal cultural barriers and racial and financial obstacles aside, the British legal system is inaccessible to the Chinese for a different reason. Chinese prefer to resolve disputes differently in style and mode. In terms of process, Chinese prefer negotiation, mediation and rec-onciliation, over litigation, trial and confrontation. In terms of outcome, Chinese prefer substantive justice over procedural justice, moral justice over legal justice, particularise justice over universal justice and personal jus-tice than impersonal justice. In this case, substantive justice requires that an abusive police officer be punished. Police Corporal should not be able to avoid punishment because the Magistrate has erred pursued justice for the hawker in seeking the truth. Moral justice means that the police officer should be condemned, less so for being abusive, and more so because he is not acting the role of a ��fu wu guan�� in being solicitous to the welfare of the hawker. The same moral compass should apply to the appellate Senior Puisne Judge who appears to care more about the nicety of the law, than the perversity of the police, in person and conduct. Particularised justice means that the plight and harm of the crime victim more so than the over-all legality of the adjudicative process or the universal integrity of judicial norm should be made the focus of justice quest. Finally, personal justice means that all those who seek justice must identify and empathise with the victim to the point of hating the criminal, as did the Magistrate. The reason being, in Chinese thinking, the more one hates crimes, the more one loves justice. The difference between British versus Chinese over justice is not best expressed than a first female Magistrate in HK Marjorie Chiu in 1992:86
Righteousness to the Chinese is somewhat different from Justice in the Western sense. It includes a sense of morality, apart from adherence to the letter of the law. The concept is personified by the legendary Pau Kung (�]��), who for centuries has served as a model of wisdom and righteousness for the Chinese, similar to King Solomon in the West.
The third story is about the relationship between decolonisation of policing by law and re-colonisation by the judge through justice. This story line requires us to look at judicial philosophy, as personified by Magistrate, Mr Sanguinetti.87 From what we can gather from the news account88 and personal interview,89 Mr Sanguinetti is an honourable, compassionate and principle-minded jurist, who strongly believes in the power of (British) law in creating a more just (HK) society. This is the reason why Mr Sanguinetti reached out and invited the hawker�XTam to file a complaint against the HKP Corporal, against all odds, in a colonial judicial system known for protecting the police and consolidating colonial rule in dispensing with British justice. This qualified him as a good British judge and an effective HK reformer, vin-dicating my earlier assertion that not all colonial officials are equally oppres-sive and abusing (Chapter 3: ��Assessing Colonial Policing��). Indeed, there are many Mr Sanguinetti-like HKP officers who can be trusted to do right by the Chinese, as in this case.
However, if we were to reflect on this and other cases, where colonial judicial officials come to the rescue of colonized locals, humbly or lowly, we soon realise that the willingness and zealousness of the Magistrate Sanguinetti to do justice is not without condition and agenda, the chief of which are a chivalrous attitude and paternalistic mentality, institutional and personal. These self-centred sentiments and others regarding disposition, if unchecked, promise to subvert, or at least contaminate, the lofty ideal of the helper, consciously and unconsciously.
In the eyes of Magistrate Sanguinetti, the hawker needs help because she is not able to do so as a powerless Chinese under colonial rule. Magistrate Sanguinetti is willing and obligated to help because he is a British national, colonial judge, dispensing universal justice, according to British jurispruden-tial principles. In the ultimate analysis, it is the British, not Chinese, law and justice principles that inform upon who is deserving of legal help, that is, pow-erless Chinese in the hands of the oppressive British colonial HKP, and who, what and how is legal help to be provided, that is, a British ��blind�� judge, deliv-ering ��universal�� justice, in an ��independent�� process and ��even-handed�� way.
Once people in HK�Xthe hawker in this case, accept British law and jus-tice, they accept ipso facto the legitimacy and merit of British (colonial) rule as superior than Chinese (indigenous) rule. British colonial government in HK has now domesticated another willing alien ��subject�� on account of social contract of the West, in the guise of benevolence returned or ��reciprocity of kindness�� (bao en .��) from the East.90
The colonisation process has completed, and will move on to other domestication projects; call this a battle of ��hearts and mind��, one person at a time.
Before we move on, a caveat is in order, lest we fall into the same kind of unreflective mental trap, with blinders to our mind,91 (essentialism as over-drawn criticism) that all ��colonial�� agencies, process and practice are ipso facto, inevitably and equally, repressive and abusive of locals, thereby making colonialism objectionable, without exception, and affording no redemption. Colonial law is subject to individual colonial officer discretionary application as fitting with the individualised treatment of colonised subjects and local conditions.
Re Yeung Lam (1968) HKCFI 40; HCMP135/1968 (18 September 1968) 92
The greatest impact of PFO is perhaps in making the HKP a legal organ-isation, that is, a police agency that is empowered by and limited with law. Failing that, its policies, procedures, decisions and actions are subject to challenge. In this regard, the biggest beneficiary of PFO is not the external clients, that is, the public, but the internal ones, that is, the police officers. With PFO in place and over time, entrenched traditional norm, for example, loyalty, and incestuous para-military ethos, for example, discipline, will be tested against the law. If successful, HKP will be governed by legal rule, that is, legalism, and civil culture, that is, professionalism. For example, before PFO, no HKP members dare to or can afford to challenge the HKP leader-ship, high or low. Beginning with 1960, if not earlier, first with the manage-ment cadres and then the frontline officers, HKP increasingly looks towards the PFO to secure its interests and vent its dissatisfaction.
Coming 20 years after PFO, the court case below, titled ��IN THE MATTER of An Application by YEUNG LAM for leave to apply for An Order of Certiorari and An Order of Mandamus etc.�� best exemplified the emerging trend of a police officer testing the limits of HKP discipline with law. Once PFO legal challenges starts, it cannot be stopped.
In this case, Staff Sergeant Yeung Law (SS Yeung) petitioned the court for an Order of Mandamus calling into question the justification and legality of the Commissioner��s decision to demote him from SS to PC.
SS Yeung joined the HKP in 1946. He was promoted to Sergeant in 1954 and further to SS in 1965. He served with Traffic Office, KLN from May 1966 to January 1968 before being transferred to the Central Police Station, Hong Kong Island on 20th of January 1968.
On the 11th of April 1968, SS Yeung was interviewed by the SOP, Personnel Department. SS Yeung was told that there was a corruption racket at Traffic Office, KLN while he served. Since then, many officers have been dismissed (PC) or reduced in ranks (Sergeant). SS Yeung was faulted for not being forthcoming with corruption information at Traffic Office, KLN at the time. As a result, the Commissioner of Police was consider-ing reducing him to the rank of PC for not reporting corruption. He was asked to resign, or be treated to a reduction in rank from SS to PC as an alternative. SS Yeung was promised an audience with the Commissioner of Police over his resign�Vdemotion treatment. However, on 16 April 1968, SS Yeung was asked by the Superintendent in charge of personnel whether he wanted to resign or be demoted. He chose to stay in the HKP as a PC. On the same day, he was issued with a Memo dated 16 April 1968 signed by the Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr Wright-Nooth per Commissioner of Police.informing him that he was demoted effectively from 18 April 1968 based on Section 14(4) of the Police Force Ordinance. Since then and on 10 May 1968, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr Wright-Nooth has issued another Memo signed by him reverting SS Yeung��s rank, in lieu of the Police Commissioner��s Memo on 16 April 1968.
SS Yeung retained Mr Mayne as his solicitor who accepted that the Commissioner of Police has absolute power to revert in rank all junior police officers under 14(4) of the Police Force Ordinance. However, the Commissioner of Police decision to revert must be compatible with natural justice. Particularly, SS Yeung challenged the order of the Commissioner dated the 10th May 1968 on two grounds: first, the order-reverting rank of SS Yeung was ultra vires; second, the order was based on a judicial or quasi-judicial inquiry into complaints on SS Yeung��s wrong doing, thus its conduct and process must comport with the rule of law and natural justice.
The court�Xthree Justices�Xagreed in principle that it is against natu-ral justice for the Commissioner of Police to summarily revert the rank of SS Yeung from SS to PC, after 22 years of meritorious service to the HKP, without giving him a hearing. Still, Section 14(4) of PFO provides that an N.C.O. ��may be reverted in rank by the Commissioner�� unconditionally, and the court conceded. As to the denial of natural justice claim, the Justices were of the opinion that natural justice principles did not apply to Section 14(4), since it is an administrative and not a judicial act.
In support of its decision, the court reasoned:
It is to be observed that Section 14(4) provides that an N.C.O. ��may be reverted in rank by the Commissioner��. Section 31�Xthe punishment section�Xprovides for ��reduction in rank or class��. In various other sections, both in the Ordinance and in the Police (Discipline) Regulations, the expressions ��reversion�� and ��reduction�� in rank are indiscriminately used. Mr. Mayne addressed an interesting argu-ment to this Court that the expression ��revert in rank�� used in Section 14(4) only enabled the Commissioner to revert the Applicant to the rank he had held immediately preceding his substantive appointment as a staff-sergeant, and not to reduce him in rank to that of a police constable. In view of the conclusion I have reached that Section 14(4) is a purely administrative power conferred upon the Commissioner of Police, and that whatever misuse or abuse of that power there may, or may not, have been made, this Court has no jurisdiction to interfere, either by way of certiorari or mandamus, it becomes unnecessary, and perhaps undesirable, to consider and determine Mr. Mayne��s argument as to the proper meaning to be attributed to the words ��revert in rank��.
Analysis
In the annals of HKP and in a Chinese society, this case is an anomaly at the time for one reason: in the HKP, subordinates never dared to challenge the superiors, particularly those at the very top, and Gazetted officers. This case changed it all.
HKP officers rarely if ever challenged their superiors for cultural, organ-isational and personal reasons.
First, culturally, Chinese society and HK culture taught the young one to be obedient to the authority and deferential to the boss. A disobedient per-son violates all cultural rules and hierarchy boundary. It makes you a poorly disciplined (by parents), socialised (by others) and adjusted (by self) person. It reflects poorly on your family and self.
Challenging the authority and being disrespectful to the boss is frowned upon, even if the authority and boss are wrong. But the authority�Vboss has a right to do so because of their elevated position. In essence, they have earned their keep to make a mistake, or more likely do whatever they like, and still be right.
Second, organisationally, HKP was a very well trained and disciplined force, with a strong tradition and in-grained culture of doing things in the HKP way. Recruits were trained at PTS and socialised by peers not to ques-tion the authority. ��Yes sir, no sir, no excuse sir�� was the mantra, attitude and routine. Obedience and respect was also rewarded. Asking a question and talking back was punished. The obedience to order and respect for senior cul-ture while having its genesis with Chinese culture, are reinforced by a British-run para-military colonial police force that demanded complete and absolute obedience and loyalty. The Chinese promoted it on moral grounds; obedience, loyalty and respect of authority are good unto themselves. The British justi-fied it on functional grounds; obedience, loyalty and respect make control of colonial subjects easier. This is especially the case with British not trusting Chinese integrity and loyalty. It was accepted by the British that Chinese were resentful and defiant of colonial rule. Well running of the HKP organisation and effective ordering of Chinese society required a disciplined police force.
Third, personally, in Chinese society and HK culture of the time, people are taught to face up to adversity in life in a stoic manner. Accepting reality�Xobstacles, setbacks�Xas presented�Xtolerance in the short term, working around it in the medium term and over and above it in the long term�Xis drummed into the head of many young people and workers, as the way to survive and thrive.
Moreover, obedience and respect in the HKP, while intrinsic to the Chinese culture and fundamental to British rule, was also endearing to the HKP Chinese force members, for two reasons. It validated their self-worth, as senior members of an organisation. They have learned to obey, loyal and respectful, as young recruits and now they expected the same from the younger generation, as a ��reciprocate�� duty. The justification being: ��I have earned my keep. Now it is your turn��. This mentality still survives in today��s HKP. For example:
Historically, HKP has a highly effective system of breaking young police officers into the HKP making them well-adjusted members of the HKP com-munity. This breaking-in process entailed introducing the new officers to the ins and outs of policing�Xskills, attitude and relationship, such that now they could become an insider.
��Elder learned brother ��(�j�v�S)����,93 is usually an experienced member of the HKP. They are well-regarded seniors for their years of service and insights into how things are being done, past, present, situation, local and more importantly, here and now. His personal relationship with the young officers resembles that of the elder brother towards younger ones. If they are older in age, the relationship is one of father and son. His role is one of a mentor, advisor and friend. The functional relationship is that of ��master vs. apprentice��.94 Of late (2001), there were discussions in some quarters inside HKP whether senior �j�v�S still deserves respect and demands obedience:95
Ten odd years ago, I got out of PTS. The original TPC was on leave, another PC46XXX took me to walk the beat during night shift. After we took the mid-night snack, signed in duty roster, we closed the gate. After a while, we have tea at the police station. No sooner, he said he was still hungry and asked me to buy food at 7-11. He said: ��4XXXXX�v�S wanted to eat chicken��. I said: ��OK. You want to eat. You buy it yourself��. After this, the fucker told everybody that I was new and acted like VIP. Have no idea of big and small, etc. After that I was being treated badly by his friends and colleagues. After a long, long time, after and all his buddies went to camp before I can have a new life. I never forget this.96
The blog entry tells us a lot about �j�v�S system, and in turn its current status and historical evolution. �j�v�S was once a functional and powerful system to train the young officers, and now, it is falling into disuse because time has changed.
In the 2000s, HKP and with a newer generation of officers, that is, the post-1980s kids, police learned more from a book than from the street, that formal training counted more than informal socialising, technical know-how was treated as more useful than implicit knowledge. It also tells us that obedience and respect is slowly, but surely, disappearing, to be replaced by following of rule and responding to law.
This discussion on Chinese cultural attitude towards obedience to authority and seniority and HKP traditional discipline on the respect for ranks immediately raises the issue of legal rights of officers versus cultural norms of China and organisational tradition of HKP. Legal rights empower as they liberate the HKP officers from the straight jacket of Chinese culture and HKP tradition. This is exactly what SS Yeung did, suing in court to pro-tect his own well-being at the expense of viability of Chinese culture and sus-tainability of HKP discipline structure. We need not judge the merits of the policy debate, but we need to understand the impact of legislation on culture and tradition. Coming to the impact on police administration, legalisation of HKP spelled the demise of personalised command (effective telling) and control (instinctive obedient), since the 1840s, and ushered in the institu-tionalised rule-bound management (rational reasoning) style of administra-tion after the 1950s. The change in command and control to the management and administrative style of organising�Xleading the HKP is not of its own making. In the end, HKP changed its style of management because HK soci-ety has changed from an inward-looking society to an outward-looking one. (See Chapter 8: ��Context and Framework��). If that is true, HKP ways of doing things�Xhere legalisation, is not running up against old Chinese culture, but it is in fact trying to catch up with HK emerging culture, a step behind.
Wong Ching Yuen vs. the Queen (1900) HKCA 13; CACC278/1972 (Judgement Date Unknown)97
This is an appeal against conviction on a charge of robbery. On 2 February 1972, a student was robbed of his watch at J/O Tin Kwong Road and Sheung Shing Street at 4.00 p.m. Two police officers came along and upon complaint arrested the defendant for robbery (now appellant). The appellant claimed that he was first arrested at KLN City smoking heroine. One of the officers offered him $600 to rob and admit guilt, after.
The Puisne Judge P.F.X. Leonard found the case of paid for robbery, if true, to be incredulous. Still, he sided with the Magistrate because he could not make out what happened in the lower court due to lack of clear state-ments of facts and findings. ��I have, however, had to read the entire record in detail to discover what that story was. The learned magistrate��s statement of findings was terse to the point of being useless to me.��
Analysis
The case is telling in a number of ways, about police, law and justice admin-istration in HK.
First to observe is that, at the time�Xthe 1950s�V1970s, HKP officers, par-ticularly CID, was known to have created crime in order to get credit for arresting criminals. While the Judge P.F.X. Leonard found it hard to believe, it actually happened, as a way to manage police case load and enhance per-formance. For example, HKP�VCID Sergeants have been known to pay crimi-nals arrested for robbery to confess to other robberies to clean up the cold cases. The common inducement is ��Now that you have committed one rob-bery, admitting to others would not make you less a criminal. If you admit to more, the CID promises you a light sentence, and your family will get monthly payment from us��.
Second, there was a tendency for the frontline Magistrates98 to turn a blind eye to police malpractices so as not to disrupt the justice process99 in handling increased criminality after the war.100 Otherwise, the Magistrates considered the Chinese lower class not deserving of British justice.
III: Modernisation
The Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century gave rise to the Idea of Progress, becoming an ideology by the end of the nineteenth century associ-ating itself with industrialisation and colonialism.101
Idea of Progress is the idea of doing away with old thinking and doing, replacing them with something new, that is, modernisation. Modernisation is the process of using technology and science to improve the efficient and effective social organisation.
The sociologist Robert Nisbet offers five ��crucial premises�� of Idea of Progress:
1. Value of the past,
2. Nobility of Western civilisation,
3. Worth of economic/technological growth,
4. Faith in reason and scientific/scholarly knowledge obtained through reason,
5. Intrinsic importance and worth of life on earth.102
In the 1950s, for the first time, HKP sought modernisation through sci-ence and technology, for example, crime scene investigation (CSI). It also includes other new and progressive ways of doing things, for example, integrating females into HKP and changing the treatment of juveniles. Modernisation ushered in a new era of policing in HK.
A: Modernisation through science
In September 1951, the inaugurate issue of HKPM leads with an article on ��Ballistics and the Police��.103 The article begins with the following observa-tion as an introduction:
A new departure in crime detection in Hong Kong introduced during the past few months has aroused considerable interest amongst members of the Police Force and the general public. This has to do with the Identification of Firearms, or ��Ballistics��, which is described as the science of firearms and their projectiles.104
The article then proceeds to explain in detail the science of ballistics and how and why it might be of use in helping with investigation and solv-ing crime problems. The article ends appropriately with this invitation: ��It is hoped that this article will enable those interested to follow the intricacies of this kind of work, and also gain some understanding of a complex problem from new angles every day��.
The reason and purpose of publishing such a piece is made abundantly clear with an added separate note: ��Take notes on the spot; a note is worth a cartload of recollection�� (R. Emerson). In essence, experiential lessons remembered and rote learning should be replaced by scientific knowledge on paper. HKP is coming of age and a learning organisation with instructions of science and technology leading the way.
The scientific investigation of crime, involved more than ballistics. The next.article in the series is one on forensic science, namely: ��The Police Laboratory��.105 The article informed the readers on the nature, functions, organisation and utility of a police laboratory, in historical and comparative terms.106 For example, at the end of the article, the author, a servicing HKP officer informed his readers the importance of knowing about police laboratory:
It is only by knowing the kind of results a Police Laboratory can submit that a police officer would be able to know intelligently what kind of material, how much of it, in what manner he should remove it, pack, and handle it for sending to a Police Laboratory for examination. In serious cases, an expert from a Police Laboratory can always be requested to visit the scene of the crime to give sug-gestions and assist in any way possible in obtaining evidence and clues. Thus a Police Laboratory, or sometimes it may be called, a Forensic Science Laboratory, is a valuable asset to modern law enforcement and public tranquility, and when properly used, provides yet another important tool to modern police work in the interest of peace and justice for the members of the community.107
B: Modernisation through CSI
With the 1950s HKP reform, modernisation means using knowledge, resourcefulness, discipline and CSI to solve crime. This is clearly demon-strated with the successful solving of a murder case in 1952. The case was prominently published in HKPM to show how ��modern�� investigation is con-ducted and can achieve. The Commissioner of Police introduced the case, thus: ��This was an outstanding case in which the Police effort reached a level unexcelled in my thirty years Police experience��.108 Scientific criminal inves-tigation is also going to be a trend of the future.
The facts of the case are complicated. The investigation is complex and tedious. A farmer discovered a Chinese female lying in a ditch dead at Fung Shu Au near Ta Shek Wu Village, on Route 2, NT, at 20.15.h on 23rd December 1952. There was no eyewitness. The HKP CID was able to solve the case through systematic and scientific investigation process. Preliminary investigation showed that:
1. The decease was not a local.
2. She was killed and transported there.
3. The murderer was suspected to be a military person or Indian.
The HKP mounted one of the largest manhunt at the time in search of the murder culprits. All available resources were deployed. No effort was spared.
To carry out the enquiries, all available inspectorate officers were moved into the New Territories to check on the movements of military and civilian per-sonnel stationed at the Army camps in the vicinity. This alone entailed the checking of ten to fifteen thousand persons. Chinese detectives were set to checking all villages and cycle shops in an effort to establish a history of the deceased and a complete laboratory staff was moved to Shek Kong where they set up Headquarters. The Military authorities were requested to co-operate and they mustered all transport and log books, all personnel and kits and made all their civilian personnel available for questioning.109
The HKP was able to crack the case and successfully prosecuted the three soldiers for murder after a lot of hard work and careful analysis, with the help of CSI.
First, the CID was able to identify the deceased and soldiers involved through tracking down key witnesses (taxi cyclist who picked up the deceased,110 cycle shop who rented cycles to soldiers111). Then the police surgeon was able to ascertain the time of death (by estimating the lag time between coma and death)112 and instrumentality of murder with forensic sci-ence and a pair of handcuffs used by the military.113 CID then reconstructs the crime scene and process, to pinpoint the time of death (having soldiers riding a bike to the crime scene to ascertain the bike time).114 Then the CID interrogated the suspected soldiers on their whereabouts at the time of mur-der, to find out conflicts and discrepancies (three suspects gave different sto-ries of their travel at night/time of murder).115
This sort of methodical and scientific investigation could not have hap-pened as little as 30 years ago, as recounted by a retired CIP detective, Mr Reynolds who served between 1910 and 1932:
I have often been asked since my return, what I think of the Police of to-day compared with those of my day. Making comparisons are generally in my opinion a waste of time and mean nothing�KWhen you have a highly efficient police force as of today, supplied with all the latest scientific and medical aides and experts on various subjects to help and who deal in hundreds, what com-parison can be made with the police force of thirty years ago or more who only dealt in tens and where every dollar spent on improvements was queried�K. The bringing in of witnesses and evidence was one of the biggest bugbears, as without immediate contact with the witnesses and without transport to bring them in, days often elapsed before they were forthcoming�K
C: Modernisation with communication technology
Communication is important for policing.116 Without communication devices and electronic linkages by phone, fax and in a teleprinter, police work suffers; from lack of information to make a decision to the inability to call for support when needed.117
Police Boxes, which were introduced thirty years ago, were then claimed to be the solution to many Police communication problems. However, the advancement in two-way speaking radio has provided even better means of communication and has ensured that regular contact can be maintained with the rural policeman and the mobile patrol, as this is not always possible by telephone�K. It is hard to realise in this modern age, that our present means of communication in the form of radio networks, teleprinters and�Xmore recently�Xtelevision, which are now taken for granted, have been developed only in recent years. One wonders how a police force could have functioned effectively without them. One also wonders what would have been the reaction twenty years ago to the idea to directing traffic, on important occasions, by the use of radio from helicopters.118
Communication technology also has transformational impact. Overall, it allows for better management and deployment of police resources, for example, just-in-time policing (JIT). Administratively, communication technology helps with keeping track of people/events, in providing for com-mand and control, facilitation and coordination. Operationally, communica-tion makes possible the integration of diverse functions and availability of resources, in the service of a common goal. Finally, organisationally, com-munication allows joining of disparate parts of an organisation into a whole.
Then (the 1950s) as of now (the 2010s), advancement in communication technology prominently figured in the modernisation of HKP. Beyond the need for Special Police operations in HK at the time, such as crisis man-agement in fire and typhoon, the improvement to communication is driven by advances in communication technology worldwide. A Communication Branch in HKP was long overdue in achieving strategic control at the border, JIT response to citizens, 999 calls or as required by emergencies.
In 1952, HKP formally established its Communication Branch, allow-ing it to communicate interactively, in real time, with police stations, Marine launches and mobile units in the field.119 This is a far cry from earlier days when stations have to work independently. Beat officers could only be reported and checked by Lock Box. Marine launches communicated with Morse code.
As described in a 1952 HKPM article on the history of ��Community Branch�� establishment:
Before 1946, HKP has no communication network between police stations, nor 999 call system, nor radio for patrol cars. There were Morse code between Marine boat and Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station�KIn 1946, two S.C.R. 610 radio sets were obtained and field tests were carried out. These tests proved successful and, subsequently, in 1948 all stations including those in the New Territories and on the Border were equipped with radio. Radio was also fit-ted to four patrol cars and a 999 emergency call system was instituted. The harbour and cruising launches were also equipped with radio and were able to maintain contact with Radio Control and their Marine Headquarters. �KAt this time, the Communications Branch was known as the Radio Section and was a part of the Traffic Division. The control room was situated in an upper room at Central Police Station �K the Radio Section became known as the Police Communications Branch �Kfacilitate the rapid distribution of crime information, a teleprinter network was installed with a transmitter at control and receivers at all the Hong Kong and Kowloon Stations. A receiver was also installed at Tai Po Police Station in the New Territories, making the total of twenty two receivers in all�Kto bring Divisional Stations into a Command radio network and this was achieved with the aid of the S.C.R. 528.10 channel push button sets�KHowever, in 1952 these sets were replaced by more modern radio sets obtained from the Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Company. These were installed in all Stations, with additional sets fitted to the Divisional Land Rover cars and Marine Harbour launches�Ka new Police Headquarters was under construction and in 1954, the Communications Branch moved once again, this time to Police Headquarters which will be our permanent home�K 999 room �K has five emergency telephone lines and also direct lines to the Fire Brigade and to the Hong Kong Telephone Company. On the wall are alarms for the principal banks and for various Government buildings.120
D: Modernisation through methodical traffic accident investigation (TAI)
TAI is an important step to reconstruct what, how and why an acci-dent happened. It answers the question of who is at fault, if any, to posit liability and support prosecution. Such an investigation requires many skills, one of which is the precise reconstruction scene of accident, through measurement.
In December 1951, the HKPM published an article: ��The Constable with a Tape Measure�� instructing HKP traffic officers on how a traffic accident scene should be processed, through precise measurement and detailed documenta-tion to be used later in judicial proceedings or insurance claims process. For this purpose, the two parts of the article were written up as an instruction manual and investigative guideline.
E: Modernisation through professional training
Modernisation requires keeping up with best practices in the field, worldwide. Overseas training helps to improve performance by exposing the officers to the latest development in the field.
In 1950, HKP Inspectors were trained alongside with U.K. police offi-cers and other colonial officers around the world, in all aspects of policing, from CID (Scotland Yard) to UB (Metropolitan Police Training School). On 25 September 1950, Sub-Inspectors Hung Hung Heung and Fong Yik Fai were sent to the United Kingdom for 6 months of ��Colonial Officers Course�� with participants from all over the world, including ��2 Superintendents from Cyprus, 2 Superintendents from Trinidad, 2 Inspectors from Barbados, 2 Inspectors from Tripolitania, 2 Superintendents from Malaya, 5 Inspectors from Kenya, 1 Inspector from Grenada, 1 Superintendent from Mauritius, and 1 Sergeant Major from British Honduras��.
The pair of Inspectors were housed in the Metropolitan Police Training School with 300 recruits undergoing a 14-week basic training course. ��The recruits had no connection with Colonial class in training, but good relation-ship was established in daily and social life, i.e. at dancing parties, concerts, boxing matches, etc.�� (p. 5). The course was a general policing training course covering CID, ��beat duties, traffic accidents, protection of children and young persons, prevention of cruelty to animals and the use of pocket-books�� with visits to police districts, Army, Parliament, Old Bailey and police.
What is the impact of such kinds of overseas training on the HKP police officers? The pair finished the course with this observation:
It not only increased one��s knowledge in police work, but also broadened one��s outlook in many other ways. �KEqually praiseworthy are the policemen in London who are extremely polite and helpful to the public, and always appear to be ��steady and sure�� under all circumstances�K. The women police are a remarkable feature of the Police Forces in United Kingdom. Their smartness and ability compare favourably with the male police officers. (p.7)
The pair was particularly impressed with CP. They were attached to Metropolitan Police District for 3 days and saw what it is like to be a police officer in the United Kingdom:
I saw information requested by the public, such as ��Where could I get some ice in the City?�� ��What is the time of the flood tide today?��, ��My baby has no milk and refuses to stop crying. I cannot find any milk in the City, could the Police help?�� and ��What is the result of the football match yesterday?�� etc. All these questions were appropriately answered. This shows the confidence the public have in the police, and that the police are really public servants.
This attests to the fact that the Colonial Office that organised the training is not interested in making HKP more colonial, that is, militant and imperi-alistic, per se. Rather, it is to make HKP more professional along British civil policing line.121 In fact, except for a brief visit to ��School of Chemical Warfare at Salisbury for instruction in the use of Tear Smoke��, the whole course was meant to impress upon the young Chinese officers what best practices in modern and professional policing are all about.
To be complete, HKP officers were also sent to other specialised ��militant�� training courses with SB, bomb squads, and army command schools. We do not know the relative distribution of training resources and availability of opportunities in various overseas assignments. Still, the suggestion that U.K. Colonial Office or HKP was only interested in turning out colonial police officers of the menacing kind rather than service types should be questioned, if not put to rest.
The same kind of observation can be made about institutionalisation of colonial�Vmilitary policing in HK, by dint of para-military formation, PTU training and internal security deployments. This crude institutionalisation thesis based on conventional wisdom (myths), personal bias and incomplete research, underestimated the impact and over-determined the influence of some salient HKP features over others, for example, civil policing functions versus public order policing role.
Why is PTU training being singled out and elevated as an evidence of institutionalised colonial policing, while overseas LMP orientation being underplayed as a compelling evidence of institutionalisation of civil polic-ing? The simple fact is that HKP has a lot of traditions (Officers Mess Night vs. CID Guandi worship) and practices (public order exercise vs. anti-smug-gling campaigns), and still more experiences (28 February 1918 Happy Valley Racecourse fire, 25 December 1953 Shek Kip Mei fire) and memories (1937 Great Hong Kong Typhoon, 1962 Typhoon Wanda). By accentuating the mil-itaristic over social aspects of HKP role, capacity and duties, the proponents of such a thesis have failed to recognise that HKP has many traditions to spare and still more diverse experiences to share. Such traditions and experi-ences, individually and in their totality, mean many things to many people; a truly kaleidoscope experience. They cannot be bottled up in a small jar, called colonial policing, without mislabelling its content.
F: Modernisation through university education
In 1950, the HKP sought HKU help in developing courses for HKP officers.
University education is not the same as PTS training; the first opens minds and the later imparts skills. University education also allows the police to look at policing from a different and many perspectives, as informed by multiple academic disciplines. Successful university education will change how HKP sees the world.
An extramural studies course was held at the Hong Kong University in December, 1959. The course, under the heading of social and psychologi-cal background of crime, was of two weeks duration and twenty four police officers, both Gazetted Officers and Inspectors, and three Probation Officers attended.122
The course lectures included: The conflict between Chinese attitude and British law; problems of youth and psychological aspects of crime�Vcrowd behaviour.
G: Modernisation by way of new thinking on juvenile crime
The change in thinking over juvenile crime and punishment in HK speaks to two concerns, that is, change of HKP role as an enforcer of law (��bogey man�� syndrome) to a helper of children, and reform of juveniles through social services, instead of punishment.
Two articles in the HKPM addressed the above two issues. The issue of police role visa via the juvenile was addressed by Inspector J. D. Adams of West Riding of Yorkshire Constabulary article on ��Police and Youth�� in 1956.123 The issue of rehabilitation for youth was dealt with by Miss Dorothy Lee, Assistant Director (Youth Welfare) Social Welfare Department, on ��Youth Welfare in Hong Kong�� in 1959.124
Differences of focus aside, both ��street-level�� bureaucrats sought to change the image and role of HKP from one of law enforcement to one of social ser-vice. As Inspector J. D. Adams proposed, with British policing in mind:
The role of policeman has gradually changed from that of the ��bogey man�� to that of the ��children��s friend��, functions which may roughly be described on the one hand as repression and on the other as persuasion. These two roles are diametrically opposed. Both have their strength and their weakness and it is as well to pay some little attention to these at the outset.125�KThe power to deal with children and young persons who are deemed to be in need of care or protection offers to the police a practical means of saving children from cruelty and from drifting into a life of misery or dishonesty.126
As to why the all-mighty police officer should be the one to save the child from a lifetime of misery, Inspector J. D. Adams advanced three reasons:
First, the police have the obligation and power to help the children to develop in the right direction. ��The power to deal with children and young persons who are deemed to be in need of care or protection offers to the police a practical means of saving children from cruelty and from drifting into a life of misery or dishonesty��.127 In essence, with greater power (capac-ity) comes greater responsibility.128
Second, police have the power to make a difference, particularly when the children look upon the police as a role model, or superhero. In this way, police pass on positive and negative lessons, influencing the children for life, in many ways. In treating the children in a rough and tumble manner, the children will do the same to others, besides pushing them into a life of crime and delinquency, through labelling and rebellion. On the other hand, if chil-dren are treated in a fair, understanding and humane way, they will grow up to be model citizens.
Young people are naturally hero-worshippers and the policeman, armed with the full panoply of the law, is often regarded as something of a hero by the local children. ��Unwittingly (but not unconsciously) the child evaluates the adult and is impressed either favorably or unfavorably. The success of a plan of discipline�Xdepends upon the adult personality.�� So it is important, when dealing with youth, that the police should always conduct themselves in the best traditions of the service.129
Third, the police works on the street and with the children. He knows the conditions of the home and history of the children, besides the circum-stances and situation of the child��s offending. In some instances, he might know even more than the parents. The police also have made available to him the legal power and social resources to help the child to go straight. The police are the best persons to intervene because he has more information to analyse, he has more experience to judge, he has more resources to deploy, he has more legal power to act and he is more available to sanction or monitor the child��s conduct. In essence, the police are the ideal persons to steer the child from misconduct to upright personhood, and do so in the most efficient and effective manner:
It is the police officer who, in the first place, sees the home conditions and the background of the youthful offender and who is in a position to assess fairly accurately the probable cause of his behaviour. Much useful work can be done by the individual police officer in helping to reclaim youths who have made mistakes.130
Inspector J. D. Adams��s article is a sobering piece of advice. It earned him the Queen��s Police Gold Medal Essay Competition (1955). It is also in line with what the HKP was thinking in seeking to reformulate the vision and mission of HKP.
To date and for all too long, HK has taken a stern law and order approach to policing, with little tolerance for deviance, adult or children, notwithstand-ing mitigating circumstances or compassionate consideration. For example, on 29 March 1882, a 14-year-old Chinese boy was arrested and convicted for pickpocketing. The Magistrate sentenced him to 1 year of imprisonment with hard labour, 12 strokes with rattan and the last week in solitary confine-ment.131 In sentencing him, the Supreme Court Judge, Honorary F. Snowden justified the sentence as follows:
[H]e had already been found guilty of picking pockets, and that it was quite clear that he was under the control of a set of men, who sent him to com-mit the crimes, and then obstructed any attempts that were made to arrest him�Khe was not over sixteen years of age else his punishment would have been heavier; but as it was, a severe sentence would have to be imposed in order to teach him to reform his ways.132
The above is instructive on the philosophy, policy and application of punishment at the time in the following ways:
First, this is a minor offence, that is, pickpocket.
Second, the offender is a fairly young person, that is, 14 years old.
Third, this is case with extenuating circumstances, namely, the young offender was pressed into criminality and later obstruction of justice because as the court opined ��he was under the control of a set of men��. In essence, the young offender acted under duress and otherwise not being able to resist control of others (the circumstances of which have not been fully disclosed).
Fourth, we were told that in another case ��the punishments given to the children took account of their age and circumstances, their offence, the val-ues of what they had stolen�Kand their means��.133
Fifth, the young offender was not spared for severe punishment ��in order to teach him to reform his ways��.
The above attitude towards Chinese offenders, including children, resulted as much from the ignorance of Chinese culture as it is from indul-gence in the British way. Ignorance bleeds contempt, of all Chinese con-ducts. Indulgence elevates the sense of righteousness, of all British ideas. When righteous meets ignorance, the heavy arm of the law falls heavily and blindly. Classical jurisprudence stands ready to spare any residual doubt on legitimacy of punishment, that is, if you do the crime, you do the time, and provides an antidote to sporadic guilt on the nature, extent and degree of punishment, that is, harsh punishment deters. Neither arbitrariness nor cru-elty of punishment deserves a second look. Such is the certainty and certi-tude of colonial thinking on crime and punishment; basically a re-enactment of British sense of orderliness�Xif the skin is not white, he is damned, and if the person is yellow, he can do nothing right. Chinese must be punished for not being British (like). This is colonial criminological thinking at its best:
The dichotomy of European and Other have seen non-European peoples rel-egated to inferior status�Xtheir culture and laws subservient to the universal claims of western civilisation. �KThe racialized construction of offenders not only defines the offender in terms of race, it also constructs the apparent non-racialized vision of the normal, respectable and responsible citizen�KWhen we see criminology as a racialized discourse, as a system of meanings that pro-duce knowledge and practice about crime and race, we can begin to under-stand how the discipline controls both the mode of representation and their meaning. The discourse controls the process through which we understand crime and deviance (e.g., the legitimation of statistical representations of, for example, juvenile crime and its causes) and the symbolic meanings we attach to those representations (for example, black youth as crime-prone). In the case of racialized criminality we see simultaneously the offender as racial and the racialized individual as criminal. As Fanon once remarked, ��not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man�� �K134
In 1959, Miss Dorothy Lee, Assistant Director (Youth Welfare) Social Welfare Department, published an article in HKPM appealing to the HKP to adopt a new way of thinking and dealing with Chinese juveniles, as victims of society than instigators of crime. The article made the case that youth crimes in HK, from hawkering to gang fights, were not a serious crime problem, but a pressing social issue. The purpose is to change the police officers�� perception of and reaction to youth offenders of all kinds, that is, treating youth offenders as victims more so than villains. Given the children��s life circumstance and attending social conditions they were found in, the police should reach out to them, to help them with assistance from other government agencies (Social Welfare) or NGO, such as Boy and Girls Club. The approach to be taken is one of task force, a collaborative approach, proactively seeking to prevent the crime than react to situations of crime. There is also a bit of pre-emptive prob-lem-solving policing there. This requires the police to reach out and work with communities, not as a legal agent, but as a social reformer.
We have often heard of complaints about many children who roam the streets begging, fighting and gambling. These street children are unloved, and so they become good haters; they are hungry and badly clothed and so they steal; they are starved of the normal experiences of a child and so they seek self-glorification in gangs and self importance in contempt for authority. They can only be helped by discovering what their needs are and meeting those needs with love, friend-ship, under-standing and good example.135�K Some of us who were here soon after the Liberation may recall the young toughs who roamed the streets of the central district and posed quite a problem for the Police. However, some of them were collected to form the first post war club in this district. Through the club, these lads learnt something of give and take, of what is good and what is not so good. Gradually these children were able to influence some of the other street gangs and today several of them are earning a respectable living in restaurants, as office boys, shop fokis, etc. Some return to the club regularly to give a helping hand, to give to the younger ones some of the things they have learnt in the club.136
Director Lee��s paper came as the HK government tried to adopt legisla-tion to reform the juvenile justice system. For example, in 1959, the Attorney General moved for the first reading of Industrial and Reformatory Schools (Amendment) Bill (1959).137 The existing Industrial and Reformatory Schools Ordinance (Chapter 225), reflecting British practice, is to imprison young people only as a last resort, and only over 14 years of age.138 The normal prac-tice is to place the youthful offender under the supervision of the Probation Officer or parents. The bill allows the court to sentence the offender to be detained for a minimum period of 2 years but not longer than 5 years or until such time as he reaches the age of 18, whichever is the earliest. The Director of Social Welfare may take the offender back before the court, which will be empowered, after inquiry, to send him to a training centre or even to prison.
In time, the HKP would be playing a critical role in the diversion of troubled youth from the formal criminal justice system, thereby giving them a second chance. Under the Police Superintendent��s Discretion scheme (1 January 1963),139 the HKP has the discretion of prosecuting a juvenile or placing him under supervision of the HKP:140
a. ��When a juvenile under the age of 18 has committed an offence, and there is sufficient evidence to charge him/her with the offence, Police may take prosecution action like a normal case and take the juvenile offender to the Juvenile Court��.
b. ��Another way to deal with the case is for a Police Officer of the rank of Superintendent or above to exercise discretion to issue a caution to the juvenile offender, instead of taking him/her to the Juvenile Court. The juvenile offender to whom the caution was administered must be put under Police��s supervision for a period of two years or until he/she reaches the age of 18, whichever is earlier��.141
The eligibility of Police Superintendent��s Discretion scheme has changed over time, for example, only apply to kids 4�V14 years in 1963 but extended to 16 in 1967 and 17 in 1978, and topping off at 18 in 1993.
The HK ��child saver�� movement above championed by Director Lee and Inspector Adams tells a larger story of political, social and economic trans-formation of HK, with HKP very much in the play.142
Drawing upon science of all kinds�Xpolitical (legitimacy), social (Darwinism) and medical (pathology), Lee and Adams move us beyond colo-nial criminological tenets to a post-colonial corrections narrative, calling for helping juveniles (rehabilitation and re-integration) than condemning them (punishing and labelling).
As to the importance of science in penal measures, HKP pointed to the professor of criminology in Mainz University, A. Mergen, who promoted positive criminology and with it evidence-based policing in understand-ing crime and punishment.143 In his article, ��Values in Penal Theory and Scientific Criminology��, published in International Criminal Police Review, Number 103, December 1956 and abstracted in HKPM, he made the follow-ing pronouncements, which captured the HKP thinking of the time:
The present crisis in positive criminal law is due to trickery of a methodological order. There has been a mixing of these axiological systems, which, from the point of view of the theory of knowledge, are incompatible. All penal theories are useless, if they are not based on an exact knowledge of realities, as Hans Gross has already pointed out. This requirement cannot be fulfilled unless the method of investigation is suited to the biosocial object, and this object, of course, is the offender, who is in a socialsphere, which is essential to him, but which he does not accept without conflict and to which he should adapt himself. Because, of this, the delinquent is situated, not in the axiological sphere of the normative and abstract rules of law, but on the ontological plane (which is acces-sible to the natural sciences) of socio-biological interdependence, which cannot be violated and which necessarily provokes the reaction of self-defence.144
In one small step, and with the help of science, the likes of Professor Mergen, Director Lee and Inspector Adams, have decolonised the juvenile justice system, in a huge way.
The decolonisation of juvenile justice administration is achieved in three ways. (1) It has straightly delimited the scope and severely limited the reach of the British rule, exercised through the instrumentality (police) or intermediar-ies of the state (NGO�Xreform school), that is, for social control purpose, a juve-nile is no longer a jural but a social subject. (2) It has weakened the nature and changed the style of British power, that is, a juvenile is to be saved (rehabilitated), not wasted (punished). (3) It has returned the ��problem�� child rightfully to the Chinese civil society, allowing it to determine the nature and remedy to address the child��s ��problem��,145 with the help of Western science and British philosophy.
In this way, the HK social control agents�Xparental, social and legal�Xdeparting from Chinese cultural norms, influenced by British philosophy and guided by Western science, are being challenged to develop a different, hybrid approach, to tending (the heart), mending (the soul) and disciplining (the body) of the juvenile; commonly referred to in Chinese jurisprudence as the ��qing�Vli�Vfa�� approach.146
This hybrid approach would likely involve considering such juvenile delinquencies as a failure to take individual responsibility (Confucius duty to others) and acting out of personal impulsivity (Hobbes�Xindividual right), both of which require inculcation of the right attitude (Confucius�Xself-cul-tivation) and administering tough love discipline (Bentham�Xmoral calcu-lus), failing that a heavy dosage of familialism understanding and communal tolerance is required to save the child for another day. At all times, the family, community, society and government needs to take responsibility in creating a more moral and just world.
The change in scope and style of British rule and power is going to have an impact on the political control of British government, and future of colo-nial rule in HK.
From henceforth, juveniles are the ward of the Chinese civil society, to be studied by a social scientist, helped by the social agency, rehabilitated with help from medical profession and supervised by socialised police. While all of them work for or report to the colonial authority, they are otherwise inde-pendent professionals, moved not by colonial rules but scientific principles in trying to ��save�� and not ��punish�� the child. While it is true that ��child saving�� movement has a net-widening tendency for juveniles, which just means more Chinese watching over Chinese, at the expense of the British rule.
For the Chinese, decolonisation by way of ��child movement�� emboldens the young, who are full of ��zest�� (a liberating exercise), and weakens the old, who are fond of the ��best�� (a disciplining routine).147 It registered an intergen-erational, cross-cultural struggle between the East and West, on a dear-to-heart project, how to bring up our next generation. The struggle renews itself, even today.148
Eighth: Modernisation through integration of Woman Police Constable/Officer (WPC or WPO)
In the 1950s, females rarely work outside the home, except perhaps as labour hands and in sweat shops. In 1961, only 5.2% females worked in the production line, 3% as clerical workers and 8% were in administration. Those who worked outside home were pressed to do so for economic reasons.149
Formation
On 1 December 1949, the first Woman Police Sub-Inspector, Ms. Kimmy Koh (���ج�)150 (1949�V1961) was appointed.151 She was born in Borneo. Koh came to HK from Singapore to seek medical treatment (malaria) in 1947. She then joined HKP as a Sub-Inspector because ��Being active and outgoing, I wanted something challenging and so joined the Force instead of working as a civil-ian��.152 In her 12 years of service, Koh served at Police Headquarters, Kowloon Regional Crime Headquarters and the Police Training School. Her major duties were clerical, for example, taking statements or acting as an interpreter, with occasional assignments to vice duties�Xprostitution, gambling and drugs, commonly referred to ask for ��moral duties��. During the time, Koh rec-ommended the hiring of more WPCs in order to support frontline male HKP work, such as tending to lost and found children or in station administration.
Two years later in May 1951, the first training class of 10 WPCs was inducted. WPC then were numbers from 5001 to 5010. Of the 10, most of them served a short sting. The rest passed away, got married or resigned. �L�G�� (#5010�X ��Sister Ten��) served the longest. She was the first authorised gun-car-rying female officer, for investigation (a murder case) needs.154 Since then, she moved on to investigate many drugs and fraud cases. She also served in the Witness Protection Unit (WPU).155
Kimmy control: Sub-Inspector Koh leads another batch of recruits pass-ing out in the 1950s.156
In 1956, Sub-Inspector Margaret Clarke, with 10 years of police expe-rience in the United Kingdom joined HKP to help assess and improve the WPC programme:
In January 1956, I arrived in Hong Kong to join the Women Police. Basically my task was to utilise my experience of 10 years as a woman officer in the UK, to help re-evaluate conditions of service, recruitment and training, and to co-ordinate the employment, supervision and welfare of women police.157
Leadership
By December of 1960, a short 10 years after the WPC was first inducted, the WPC corps are fully established as an integral part of HKP.158 The final organisational touch was with the appointment of Mrs M. E. Lovell, as the Assistant SOP, December, 1960.159 Mrs M. E. Lovell began her police ser-vice with St. Helens Borough Police Force in June 1949 as a beat officer, and later a detective, before she was seconded to Cyrus British Police Unit as a woman police inspector in May of 1957. She achieved Woman Assistant SOP in November of 1957.160
Training
There were 10 WPC recruits in the first training class in August 1951. The training lasted for 3 months. They were trained alongside male recruits at the PTS, fully integrated. They have to be familiar with the drill and muske-teer, such as formation drill and firearm nomenclature, together with police routines, such as criminal law court procedure, general orders, police regula-tions, miscellaneous ordinances and statement taking.
In addition, WPC needs to be knowledgeable about a variety of social ser-vice resources and functions in the community, for example, the work of the Probation Officer or the work of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children. They also need to know how to take care of women and children in need, such as community relief and social hygiene, women and girls�� welfare and emergency childbirth.
To complement their classroom lectures, the WPCs visited with ��Lai Chi Kok Prison, Stanley Training Centre, The Home of the Good Shepherd (young prostitutes) and the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children nursery at Shaukiwan (where mothers are advised about feeding, and given food for undernourished infants)��.161
Role and Treatment
The first batch of 10 officers was all assigned to work in plainclothes in vari-ous police formations in KLN or Hong Kong Island. They undertook charge room duties, guarding and fingerprinting of women prisoners and assisting in the inquiries of women and juveniles.162
Female officers were first recruited as a necessary complement to an all-male HKP, in carrying out its role and mission, that is, administer (Report Room, clerical duties), protect (female and juvenile) and serve (social service). At first (the 1950s and 1960s), they were hired to do what the male officers could not do, for example, searching females, or unwilling to do, for example, traffic duties, or not good at doing, for example, consoling kids and medi-ating conflicts. Female qualities and maternal instincts define their police duties and confine their policing career. For example, without a side arm, they were less likely to be assigned CID duties and without PTU training, they were limited to office-support functions. Without CID and PTU train-ing and experience, they were less likely to be promoted to a high command and control or important operational posts.
Later (the 1970s and 1980s), female police officers were fully integrated into HKP, including public order policing. They excelled at crowd control because crowds seemingly react to female officers in a less aggressive way. For example, in 1962, all 274 of the women police officers were deployed to handle illegal immigrants at the border. Finally, women police gained the same status with males in pay in 1970. They were allowed to shoot arms in 1973. They were allowed to join PTU in 1997. From then on, women police are treated equally in every respect.
Retirees�� observations:163
HKP retirees are some of the best sources of grounded information for policing in the 1950s. The following are some of the more lasting impressions and penetrating insights into the WPC the retirees served with from recruit-ment, to training, to assignment and to role:
1. On stereotype: Before 1947, HKP has been an all-male profession. There were a few female staffers to do female jobs, for example, search female prisoners. In earlier times, HKP officers were called, fondly, as �u�k�l�~�v (Man of Man). They look down on women police officers (WPOs) as marginal, that is, ��non-regular, appendage�� (�u�D���W���B���ݪ��v). They think that WPOs are not made for police work. They should be deployed as support staff and not during an emergency.164
2. On recruitment: In the 1950s, WPO was managed differently than with males, that is, separate command. The recruitment standards however were basically the same. Then HK did not accept women joining police, that is, ��good girls do not work as police �u�n�k�����t�v�� much more so than males. �u�n�J�����t�v (��good boys do not work as police��). Thus, very few applied. In the 1960s, whenever there were recruitment activities at police stations, there would only be 40�V50 applicants with four to five selected. This is because most girls have only primary education and do not know how to dictate �uŪ�q�v, part of the qualification process.165
3. On training: During the 1950s and 1960s, WPOs were trained along-side with males because of its small number. This raised a number of problems, for example, WPO has to adjust to the male in marching, stepwise. WPO also picked up bad language and habits from male officers. At that time, WPOs were not armed, but have to be trained and certified. They only have to shoot three times.166
4. On assignment: After passing out of PTS, many WPOs signed up for Marine duties. But they soon quit because of the long hours and social isolation. A fair number applied to be traffic officers and was assigned to directing traffic. WPO-directing traffic has different hours then, 8�V10 a.m., 2�V4 p.m. and 6�V8 p.m. No night shift.167
5. Terms and conditions of service: In the 1950s and 1960s, WPO entered HKU with a different set of terms and conditions. First, WPO was paid less than male officers. Before 1970, male officers were paid $220 and a WPO was paid $180, $40 short. Second, WPOs were entitled to a lump sum $3000 marriage dowry (�����O), if she married a civilian. Third, WPOs have no pension, because policing was not considered a career for them.
6. Role and function: WPOs were ��all-purpose officials�� (�u�q�Ѧѭ��v). WPO was an independent force. They served at the will of the male commander. As such, they were often discriminated, as well as protected. They would not be assigned dangerous duties. But they also would not be promoted. However, they were con-sidered indispensable still, for police operations and administra-tion. According to official documents, WPOs were supplemental staff. They were not intended to be frontline officers, only support staff. These included court duties, escorting prisoners, conducting searches, taking statements, logistic coordination, community edu-cation, public relations and crowd control. WPOs were ��all-purpose officers�� helping HKP to complete its mission, for example, they would be assigned to take care of women functions. WPOs take statements in sex crime cases. WPOs attend to abandoned babies when found�Xpick up, get a birth certificate and work with social work organisations.
.WPOs were not assigned night duties. If they were so assigned, they did not go on patrol unless in the company of male officers. WPOs started to do patrol with the issuance of two-way beat radio in the 1970s.168
Frontline Observations
Every effort was made to properly orientate and integrate female officers into operational roles and duties. The following were two reports from the field, reported in HKPM:
From Central Police Station in 1952:
For the first time in our history, we welcome two very smart, and attractive young Police-women. Their first assignment, a rather formidable one, is to learn the ��ins and outs�� of the Charge Room, and in doing so, they have quite uncon-sciously caused quite a stir here, from the Sub-Divisional Inspector down.169
From Eastern Police Station 1952:
We welcome our two young women police constables Nos. 5022 Chan Kwai Hing and 5023 Wu Chun; they do look a smart and capable pair of constables. The first day W.P.C. 5022 Chan Kwai Hang did patrol on No. 5 beat on Hennessy Road, we had a slight accident: it appears that a young blood driving his sleek roadster, ran into an ��inert object�� and on being questioned, said that his atten-tion was ��distracted�� by the appearance of the Woman P.C. on the beat.170
From Academic Studies
There are very few academic studies on women policing in HK. For a long time, the only research output available were graduate papers from HKU.171
The earliest one is by Lai-sheung Ho, a HKP WPO, who investigated into the treatment of WPO in the HKP.172 The latest to enter the field is A.H. Chan and Lawrence Ho��s ��Women police officers in Hong Kong: Femininity and policing in a gendered organization�� on gendered relationship with the HKP.173
Since Lai-sheung Ho��s work is closest in time to this research (the 1950s) and it offered up personal views of HKP officers, it helps us to understand the impact of integrating female police with male police, in 1988; 40 years from the first appointment of women officers.
Ho was interested in finding out whether there was direct (formal or informal barriers in law, policy or programme) and indirect discrimination (disproportionate the impact of law policy or programme) of WPO in terms of recruitment, deployment, attitude and roles.174 The study was based on four data sources: (1) Interview with HKP informants�X10 females (includ-ing the author) and four male police officers. The interviews were conducted to ascertain HKP officers�� personal experience with and opinion of treat-ment of WPO. (2) The author��s personal experience as a WPO commander. (3) Official HKP documents on recruitment, deployment and promotion (1987�V1988) of WPOs.175
The author found discrimination in the following ways:
First, Ho found the recruitment standards and training requirements to be discriminating, for example, the age of recruitment for WPC was 19�V25 years old and for male police constable (MPC) it is 17.5�V30 years old. Females must be single and males could be both. Both needed to be trained at PTS for 32 weeks away from home. This created hardship for female recruits who have to tend to a family (p. 37).
Second, in 1987, Ho found under representation of WPO in every rank: Gazetted 11 (2.6%), Inspector 284 (12.6%) and JPO 2004 (8.4%), for an overall of 2299 (8.8%) (p. 39).
Third, in terms of ��Objective selection criteria��, the WPO range is smaller and lower. This resulted in selection out of a number of otherwise interested or eligible candidates (p. 39).
Fourth, in terms of ��Selection interview��, WPOs were successful in 9/83 or 0.9% cases (with 611 applicants). This according to Ho was too low. But there was no comparable data, other than to argue that the decision was pos-sibly based on male subjective criteria.
Fifth, in terms of deployment, Ho found that at the Inspector and Gazetted rank level, WPO deployment to UB versus CID was nearly the same: WPO: 1638 (78.4%) versus 507 (23.6%) and WPO: 205 (78%) versus 58 (22%) (Table 9.3). However, when it comes to JPO, WPOs were assigned to more UB duties: Male Police Officer (MPO): 14,887 (69.8%) versus 6744 (31.2%) and WPO: 1700 (84.8%) versus 304 (15.2%) (Table 9.4).176
Sixth, it was common knowledge within HKP that certain police depart-ments and functions were off-limit to WPO: traffic, dog, firearm and scene of crime units. So much so that WPOs were advised not to apply to those departments. It was also understood that the ��mark of affinity�� would attract only MPO and WPO officers to those departments, and WPO would not be discriminated by Sgt supervisors, on assignment or promotion.177
Seventh, when asked, three of the MPOs thought that WPOs would have a better chance of serving as CID due to their specific capacity to investigate specialised crime, for example, domestic sexual abuse. But to the author, this too was a form of discrimination.178
Eighth, when asked, 10 female informants confirmed that WPOs were always asked to do back-office administration work, such as routine police station duties.179 In one case, a WPO was assigned a Special Duty Squad and ended up doing administrative work most of the time: ��Even I am now work-ing in the Special Duty Squad, I find myself staying in the station over 90% of the time with the remaining 10% is the time for going out for dinner and tea. They just called me administrative WPC��.180
Ninth, as to why the WPOs were assigned indoor duties and in desk job, it is because the supervisor thought that street duties were not safe. The author, a WPO PSU commander explained that the decision to exclude WPO for outdoor duties was a spontaneous one. This is because street duties were more interested. In this regard, commanders like to play it safe, that is, they did not want to explain to the superior when WPO got into trouble or sus-tained injury while on the beat.
Tenth, as to beat patrol, the supervisor would like to keep WPC off the beat, as much as possible. If need be, WPCs would be kept close and closely monitored, so as to avoid less risky and less busy beats.181 Some of the WPCs were afflicted. WPCs wanted beat duties but they were also afraid of getting hurt. WPOs were risk adverse.182
Eleventh, as to beat assignment, it is a common practice to put a WPO on beat with two other MPOs to keep the female safe.183
Twelfth, as to routine duties,184 WPOs were always assigned to female-related jobs: escort female prisoners, court duties, interviewing women and juveniles and petty crime. WPOs were also asked to handle ��traditional women duties��, that is, juvenile, sex crimes and vice duties.185
Thirteenth, WPOs got fewer promotions because of lack of command, control and supervision skills, with little male officers�� experience.186
Issues
One thing is for sure, when first introduced, WPOs have to earn their keeps as a separate but equal member of the HKP, professionally (competency) and personally (sociability), once they have worn out their welcome as a novelty. There were issues of sexual stereotype and favouritism, office romance and politics, family jealousy and infidelity, professional competence and liabili-ties, would be sure to come, and go, in time.187
The biggest issue is perhaps objections from MPO about WPO joining HKP, as Susan Martin observed from other parts of the world:
The incursion of women into traditionally ��male�� occupations has been opposed, resisted, and undermined wherever it has occurred. In few other occupations, however, has their entry been more vigorously fought on legal, organizational, informal, and interpersonal levels than in policing.188
HKP MPO objected to WPO working mostly because of strong male ver-sus female cultural role in traditional Chinese society. There are three objec-tions, namely: the role of male versus female; nature of femininity versus masculinity and nature of police versus other work.
First: Role of male versus female. In traditional Chinese society, the male masters outside the family (�k�D�~) as a bread winner (economic pillar) and the female lords over the inside of the home (�k�D��), as a care taker. It is con-sidered appropriate for females to stay at home and take care of the husband, kids and household, making it a perfect home. For females to go out to work is a violation of entrenched social role and neglect of traditional family duties.
Second: Nature of femininity versus masculinity. Males should act like a male, that is, being masculine. Females should behave like a female, that is, being feminine. Police is a muscular job, that is, strenuous, risky and cor-rupting work. Female has no place in HKP, lest it makes the female less femi-nine and undesirable for males and an inappropriate role model for female and children.
Third: Nature of police work. Policing work is physically demanding, emotionally stressful, morally corrupting and personally dangerous. Policing is a high pressure and distressing vocation.
In the end, the three objections boiled down to one: Females are not act-ing like female, in a male-dominated world that is HK, and HKP at that. According to Carole Jones, male domination of sexual politics is dominating in HK, perpetuated by the economic and professional elites:
In this way, Chinese culture �K became a fixed, static, and monolithic set of values emphasizing an unchanging hierarchical and patriarchal order. This imperial assimilation of Chinese culture has had long-term effects, especially for women �K In courts of law, this [imperial] interpretation was supplied by ��China experts,�� usually missionaries �K Their view of Chinese women was filtered through their own patriarchal world-view, aided and abetted by their male informants from the Chinese community, typically elite Chinese men. Women then were doubly colonized, first by their colonial masters and sec-ondly by male interpretations of their role in society.189
The male-disparaging views of the female in the HKP still survive today, though much attenuated. For example, some MPOs think that WPCs were assigned more enjoyable administrative work indoor. MPOs think that WPOs could not be trusted to do real police work in catching criminals and making arrests. Otherwise, WPOs did not work very hard and just kissed up to the MPO boss, to get ahead.190
The following WPO in a HKP web forum summed up the debate over MPO versus WPO relationship, on both sides:
Lastly, do not under estimate WPO! You might not realize with your work at PSU (Patrol Sub Unit), WPO can handle their work completely by them-selves, such as working on I.O. An officer��s job and capacity is not only measured by criminal arrests. It is not easy to be successful in handling administrative work. Do not be a small minded male? Have a broader perspective!191
From the above brief response to an MPO��s remark about the unprofes-sionalism of WPO working as administration PC and other conversations in the web blog, we can gather that:
First, MPOs are not too happy with WPO in monopolising indoor administrative duties, away from inclement weather and high work pressure.
Second, MPOs think that office�Vadministrative work is not really police work.
Third, MPOs think that WPOs cannot do real work like going on patrol and catching criminals.
Fourth, WPOs have a lot of power because they are in control of duties, leave and assignments.
Fifth, WPOs have a lot of privileges because they kissed up to the boss.
The other issue is with sexual infidelity at work. This is a sensitive and explosive subject matter in Chinese society, especially between HKP colleagues.
��Disloyal to the other half�� is a discussion topic on Police Forum Web about marital infidelity between HKP officers.192 The topic attracted 62 com-ments, between 07-06-2001 at 16:05.h and 08-01-2001 at 22:11.h. The facts of the case, according to one entry, are as follows:
Rumor had it that a married WPC in Hung X (Hum) was dating another PC. It is sad that the husband was being kept in the dark. As it turned out, the husband is also a police colleague. The PC colleague was just playing (not serious) with the WPC. One night he was embracing the WPC on a Night Club in my pres-ence. The WPC was calling the husband and telling him she missed him. She lied about drinking at a bar. Sometimes we go together to karaoke with the WPC. The PC (lover) told me that it is just like going to Club, with a girl, hugging and kissing, with no need to pay. The WPC would lie to the husband that she was with other WPC drinking. Although I do not know the WPC��s husband, I wish the WPC has been more careful with her conduct. Paper cannot be wrapped up fire.
All the postings disapprove such a relationship, albeit for different rea-sons and degree. Responses range from visceral condemnation, for example, betrayal of colleagues is unacceptable, to subdued resignation, for example, people are only human, to frank acceptance, each to his/her own.
There are many proposals to deal with the issues, from keeping quiet to counseling the parties.
The topic of discussion offers us a unique opportunity to investigate into the moral bearing of HKP. It squarely raises the issue of whether HKP officers should be held to (a higher) moral standard, on or off work.193 Collaterally, how does the moral character and unethical conduct of HKP officers affect work performance, internally and externally? While sexual indiscretion and martial infidelity is not specifically mentioned in HKP disciplinary code, in a traditional Chinese society, they certainly have the effect of ��bringing the pub-lic service (HKP) into disrepute��, sufficient to warrant heightened scrutiny.
The other avenue of investigation is to inquire into how HKP officers relate to and deal with moral breach by fellow officers. This has the potential of tell-ing us how much HKP officers would cover up for each other. Furthermore, how does HKP compare with general public or foreign police officers?
The overall observation is that there is little official sanction and peer concern with extra-marital affairs involving fellow police officers, though all consider such indiscretion to be very immoral and grossly unacceptable. There is also clear evidence that officers are reluctant to get involved in fellow officers ��private�� affairs, due to privacy and professional reasons.
Self-Promotion of HKP
In order to showcase the acceptance of WPO, as a planned change project at HKP, the HKP spared no effort to publicise the achievements of the WPO. For example, we read in HKPM the following entry: ��RIFLE SHOOTING WOMEN��S POLICE TEAM WIN. 22 RIFLE COMPETITION��.194 ��The bi-annual Competition for the Women��s Inter-Service .22 Rifle Challenge Cup was held ��at the Royal Hong Kong Defence��. This showed that WPOs were not recruited as flowerpots, for looks and beauty. This is a statement of full integration of WPO into HKP. It also made the statement, what MPO could do, the WPO were not far behind, and indeed in some instances, excel. This is also a statement about WPO capacity.
In an HKPM entry, the female Sub-Inspector Patrick from the United Kingdom also told us that HKP treated WPC better in every way, from train-ing to job opportunity, than in the United Kingdom. As a result, WPC in HK performed and adjusted much better than those in the United Kingdom, though the United Kingdom WPO programme was started much earlier than in HK, in 1914. This led Sub-Inspector Patrick to ask rhetorically of the U.K. Parliament: ��I wonder what their impression would be if they paid a visit to police stations, police cells, court cells and magistrates�� courts in Hong Kong? How would it compare with their previous visits to the stations, cells and courts of England at the beginning of this century��?195 The expected answer would be, the U.K. Parliament should come and learn from HKP, a reversal of colonial relationship.
H: Modernisation and problem-oriented policing (POP)
In 1986, Professor Goldstein of Wisconsin Law School, first proposed to solve recurring community problems at their roots. The concept and practice of POP was born. Since then, POP has been the preferred policing strategy in the United States, and around the world. However, it appears that HKP has anticipated POP by decades.
In the 1950s, HKP has embraced POP principles to deal with juvenile crime, from the United Kingdom.196 The premise was, it is not useful to pun-ish the juvenile to deter for reform unless we can figure out the root causes of juvenile delinquency, that is, personality defects or environmental influence, through scientific investigation.
POP was also used to deal with ��Squatter Fire in Hong Kong��.197
In March 1956, CIP Roberts wrote about ��Squatter Fire in Hong Kong�� as a chronic problem that HK government and HKP needed to solve.
The problem CIP Roberts was concerned about was with squatter fires, which Roberts found to be frequent, ferocious, deadly and impactful. He found that where there were squatters and congested living, there were fires, and repeatedly.
CIP started the POP with investigation of the problem, the first step of SARA (scanning, analysis, response and assessment) in POP framework. In Shek Kip Mei Squatter area alone, there were growing fire incidents: 1953 (14 fires), 1954 (24) and 1955 (43), with a huge attending loss, damages and inju-ries. He found that squatter fires have serious consequences and they were entirely avoidable.
Then came to the analysis part of SARA, to find the cause and response. CIP Roberts discovered that in Christmas 1953, fire burned down Shek Kip Mei Squatter area in Shamshuipo with 7500 squatters destroyed and 60,000 people homeless.198 In July 1954, Tai Hang Tung fire destroyed over 2000 squatters with 25,000 persons homeless. The fires were avoidable if resi-dents would be more careful. For example, in Shek Kip Mei, the fire was caused by falling of a kerosene lamp onto rubber and in Tai Hang Tung, it was kerosene stove exploding.199
After SARA step-two analysis, CIP Roberts now made recommendations for ��response�� (SARA step three). He recommended multiple ways to reduce squatter fires: (1) Resettle fire victims in new settlements that are safer. (2) Mount a publicity campaign to raise fire consciousness with the people. (3) Promote fire prevention education. (4) Move factories further away from squatters to reduce accidental fire. (5) Remove incentives from criminal ele-ments to set fire to obtain resettlement privileges.200
In a still larger context, according to Roberts, the root cause of the prob-lem is a lack of effective social-housing policy, and not a robust police�Vcrisis management capacity or criminal prosecution strategy.201
The only steps left in the SARA process were implied, more so than expressed.
Roberts concluded with this recommendation: ��In the meantime every effort is being made to eliminate the problem which the squatter areas create, by the removal of the squatter areas themselves��.202
I: Modernisation of police station facilities
In September of 1952, HKPM reported the opening of ��The New Kowloon City Police Station��.203 The new police station was one of the best-designed and built police stations, commissioned after WWII. It was clear that the above news item served the purpose of reminding the police and public that HKP had been completely over-hauled, starting with the buildings and facili-ties. The news article was accompanied with five photos: Kowloon City Police Station and Married Quarter; the charging room; Constables�� Recreation Room and Constables Canteen. All these photos told a story and sent a mes-sage, about HKP reform direction, process and achievements.
A photo is worth a thousand words. What does this set of an old (1951) HKP photo display tells us now, or tried to convey, then? Here, historical context is important. Comparison is necessary. Intent is relevant.
There were many messages being sent by this set of photos.
First, this set of photos, shows us about HKP officers at work (Report Room) and at play (quarters, recreation room and canteen). Three of the four photos are about police welfare, and with JPO.204 The photos made clear that at work, HKP might be a para-military organisation, and after work, officers enjoyed a relaxed civilian life, just liked other civilians in the community. HKP identity was not only wrapped up with policing, and was much less a colonial�Vpara-military policing. For that matter, HKP officers working in uniform and under discipline were no more intimidating and worthy of note than fire and ambulance officers working in uniform.
Second, this set of photos, selectively and proudly presented, evidenced a period of fast growth and expansion with HKP. The expansion was matched with modernising of services to the public, witnessing the efficient design of the Report Room and improvement in the quality of life for the staff. Witness also the top of the line facilities, for living and playing, from a living quarter, to the creation room, to the staff canteen.205 Compared with the civilian world, the living quarters and recreation facility was unsurpassed, most certainly a cut above what the average middle-class HK people could afford or expect.
Third, more significantly, the photos were there to showcase a progressive managing spirit. The Report Room was functionally designed and did not look like a traditional Chinese Yemen (ornate and majestic) or an old Colonial Office (imperial and imposing). Perhaps more symbolically, gone were the days when police report bench was higher than people coming to do business with the HKP, and the people have to look up to officers to plea for help.
IV: Communalisation
The ultimate objective of decolonisation is self-determination; a government that is for the people, of the people and by the people. Communalisation of policing is HKP��s way of decolonising without being officially decolonised, that is, getting close to the people�Xlistening to the people, knowing what the people want and be responsive and accountable; what is called community-oriented policing in modern times.
A: Communalisation through community visits
After the war, HKP has taken steps to ingratiate itself with the leader-ship of the community. This included visiting with the community at Kai Fong Associations from time to time. Traditionally, as a rule, Chinese offi-cials and the community did not visit each other, socially or officially. In colonial HK and before the war, police and public interaction and exchange were rare.
After the war, the British commanders were instructed to mix with Chinese leadership to make them feel important, that is, giving face. For example, in SSP Division, the divisional senior officers often made a point to go for tea with the local communities:
During the Quarter under review, a tea-party was held in the Station to which representatives of all the local Kai Fong Associations were invited; the object being to promote a better relationship between the guests and the hosts. We learnt many of the more obscure functions of the Kai Fongs and the Kai Fong representatives went away happy in the knowledge that the Division was in the safe hands of sober tea-drinking policemen! In truth, the subsequent relation-ship between the two has been greatly improved.206
The two photos (��The Divisional Tea-Party for the Local Kai Fong Association��) taken at the police station accompanying the story are reveal-ing. There were six people at the head table, four Europeans and two Chinese, sitting side by side drinking tea. The head of table sandwiched between the Europeans was an older Chinese gentleman. The Chinese lady sitting by the side cannot be discerned. Both of them wore traditional, upscale Chinese clothes. The officers were wearing uniform. The rest of the audience in the room, nine Chinese (dignitaries) and all older gentlemen, were in their best behaviour, dressed in ties and shirts, except for two who were obscured, with back to the camera.
In as much as Chinese at the time did not speak much, if any English, and Europeans have little facility with languages, one can only guess at how the parties communicated with each other, and more importantly how such meeting could possibly contribute to a better community relationship.
Still, the HKP community must gather for a show of good relationship, diplomatically; a kind of meet and greet type of gesture.207 The HKP needed to show respect to the elder community leaders. The Chinese community members must show deference to the government officials. In doing so, the parties enacted their respective role as community seniors and police officials, lest the Chinese betrayed their own cultural admonitions and the British failed in their professional duties.
B: Communalisation through part taking in community events
In conjunction with tea party�Vcourtesy visits, Sham Shui Po police lead-ership have other community responsibilities. When called upon, the police needed to provide extraordinary amount of police officers to tend to major ceremonies, such as shop opening (here a restaurant), when dignitaries appeared (usually starlets) and crowds gathered.
In order to understand community and police relationship in HK at the time, we need to understand how Western (British) versus Eastern (HK) looked upon HKP deployment of officers to cover private events in public places. To the outsider�XWesterners, the police were there for a functional reason, doing their job to keep order, control crowd and direct traffic. To the Chinese, however, police deployment at such events, served additional purposes. Police turned out to a private event, such as shop opening, or public affairs, for example, sea-sonal opera show, was a way to show how much HKP cared about the impor-tance of the local elites and community gathering. The reasoning goes, what is important to the owner/community is double important to the police. From the public point of view, the more police presence at the shop opening, the more social status the owner enjoyed.208 The more police presence, the more influential the owner appears to have over the police, the more people around pay tribute and show deference. Ultimately, the business titans, community leaders and social elites would like to say to others: ��Do you know who I am��? In HK, then as now, bragging right is important.209 That is why Chinese lead-ers have more titles and associations on their business cards than the current-day CV of successful professionals. In the Chinese world, it is all about mianzi (face) and guanxi (relationship). How important you are, who you know and what you know210 are status symbols, and signs of importance and influence. With status, one can be a power broker, trading with renqing (favour) and bao (reciprocity),211 that is, what you can do for others and demand in return. In essence, social capital is more important than financial capital. As a currency exchange process, financial capital might be more useful, generally, but social capital is more influential, within a particular set of relations.212
In essence, community�Vpolice relationship at the time (the 1950s) turned on one��s ability to manage relationship, giving face, asking for ��favour�� and returning ��favour��.213
Another strategy for the HKP police to build relationship, this time with the younger crowd, is to entertain them with HK��s favourite past time�Xsoc-cer. This allowed the HKP to reduce the insurmountable official distance between the police and people, in years past, by playing up to what the young people like in sports. In order to impress upon the public that the police were not all about enforcing law and arresting people, from time to time, they showed their lighter side, in dressing themselves up to arouse the crowd. For example, in a soccer game, the Sham Shui Po soccer team making up of Europeans as well as Chinese put on imperial Chinese warrior clothes to entertain the crowd. There was no evidence that this tactic worked; still, it impressed upon the public that the police cared enough, and that they let down their guard to entertain all, for a day. 214
C: Communalisation through incentive and recognition
Another HKP communalisation device was to recognise citizens for helping with HKP in fighting crime, or generally as a good citizen.215 ��On 6th February 1952, at Central Police Station, the Commissioner of Police, Mr. D. W. Macintosh, presented awards to seven members of the public, who had personally effected the arrests of individuals committing serious crime��.216
D: Communalisation through image management
For all too long, police in general and HKP in particular has a bad image with the community. So much so when people think about the HKP, people think about corruption and abuse of power.
This is how Tam Pui Lin (DOB: 1946), a hawker at Yau Ma Tei, remem-bered the HKP, being corrupt and abusive, in the 1950s:
The citizens did not have a strong legal awareness in the early post-war period. It was common to see peddlers fight with each other and police receive bribes. Peddlers had to socialize with one another in order to survive. Tam Pui Lin reminisced that the police often sent agents to collect bribes from her parents when they were running their stall at Yung Shu Tau Market. The amount of bribes depended on the size of the stall. The average would be $30 per stall per week. Bribes would be collected several times a week. Each payment was $5 or $10. This phenomenon of police bribery was generally known as ��Escape the Big Rat�� among the peddlers. In 1950s, the Tams were always in finan-cial difficulties. All their earning could barely afford their living. One day an agent came to collect bribe as usual. As Tam��s parents were not able to pay the protection money, their goods were confiscated. At that time Tam was only 5 to 6 years old. She came forward and desperately fought back. Finally she was arrested. She recalled that, as a child, she was simple-minded and straight-forward. Family��s interest was on top of anything else so she had no ideas of the outcome. Since her parents were unable to pay for her bail, she was held in custody in Kowloon City overnight and released the next day. Since she was too young, she was looked after by the police. The constable who arrested her was scolded by his senior for catching a child. Afterwards Tam��s parents stood trial at South Kowloon Magistracy. It was a common practice to detain hawkers who were unable to pay protection money. Many male hawkers were even whipped by rattan stick coated with liquid medicine. Bribe was no longer required after the Tams�� stall moved to Reclamation Street Market in 1956.217
Another restaurant owner in Yau Ma Tei, then a delivery boy at the time, Yeung Hon Yuen,218 recalled that the HKP officers were lazy, drunk and irresponsible:
Yuen Gor delivered takeaways to the policemen in the district. In those days, it was the policemen��s habit to order food at street-side stalls for delivery to a designated place. It was an unwritten rule that the policemen shall eat free. Yuen Gor delivered the takeaways to the Yau Ma Tei Police Station on a bicycle. He would see policemen watching television in the arrest room (the lounge). On one occasion, he noticed more than 100 bottles of white liquor in the police station. Sometimes, the stall workers would be discontent with the picky and wasteful policemen, but they dared not utter a word. Instead, they played tricks on them by cooking their food with a mixture of drainage and corn starch. It was common for the Yau Ma Tei police to shun work and eat at bakeries in the evening. The takeaways were delivered to various ��dodgers�� hangouts��. They included the Leung Kin Kee Pastry at 12-14 Battery Street, Ma Po Shan on Temple Street, and Lucky Bakery at 529-531 Canton Road.219
In the 1950s and 1960s, the HKP spared no effort in rehabilitating the image of HKP to make it softer, that is, more compassionate, and more pro-fessional, for example, more competent. Below is a demonstration of how HKP goes about promoting a better image with the public, that is, HKP is there to help, when needed.
In five photos spread over two pages in HKPM, the HKP tried to tell the story of a transformed HKP. The story line: a kid was lost and found, helped by caring police officers, male and female, old and young, expatri-ate and Chinese. At each step, police behaved not as tough and tumble law enforcement agents, but as kind and concerned citizens in uniform.220 The photo shots were as telling as they were moving.
Photo#1: ��Boy, Am I glad you came along��! (Caption) Showed a police officer squatting down and tending to a lost kid (girl) on the street, not more than 5 years old. The kid has a worrisome facial expression, as anxious as she was fearful. ��I want to be with my mother�� was writ-ten all over her body.
Photo#2: ��I wonder where this is, it looks like a police station so it must be alright��! (Caption) Showed the little girl was holding the male policeman��s hand approaching a police station, with another police standing on guard. The child seemed to have calmed down.
Photo#3: ��What��s Going on, I am lost, that��s all��! (Caption) Showed a puzzled and dazzled girl with the back to a European duty officer standing up and bending over, reached over the desk to touch her. The police who found her was on the side, watching over her, as he tried to make an entry into the daily log book.
Photo#4: (Below left) ��Well, now, this isn��t too bad, not bad at all. I like this��! (Caption) Showed a WPC attending to her at the canteen, over a drink and with a pair of warm eyes. The girl reciprocated, looking at the WPC, calm and composed.
Photo#5: (Below right) ��Who wants to go to the Social Welfare? I want to go back to the police station��! (Caption) Showed the girl crying, with two WPCs looking on, helpless.
The photos captured a new image and identity of HKP, that is, HKP is a community service agency, trying to help citizens in need at every turn. All the HKP officers�Xfrom patrol officer, to European Inspector, to WPC, were all trying to do the best to make the girl feel at home. At the end, the public should get the message that HKP is a service agency, not a colonial master.221
E: Communalisation through integration of the civilian as Auxiliary Police
The best way to communalise is to engage the citizens in protecting themselves and the community they live, work and play. The idea that police are drawn from the citizens and citizens also act as police, comports with British democratic ideal, and was enthusiastically embraced by Sir Robert Peel as one of the nine fundamental principles of policing in 1829:
(7) To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.222
There is no better way to have citizens doing police work, as Auxiliary Police officers after work.
In March 1956, issues about the necessity, suitability and capacity of citizens�� police were raised and discussed223 with reference to the Regular Police224 and the Special Police,225 (emergency police), in an HKPM article: ��THE HONG KONG POLICE AUXILIARIES TAKE OVER�� (March 1956).
The Regular Police observed that both the HK public and regular HKP officers have great reservations about the competence and capacity of private citizens in handling�X��take over�� police tasks, when called upon to do so. This is especially the case in emergency situations, when the pressure is high, stress is great and margin of error is small.
From the perspective of the public, they were not getting what they paid for, with weekend amateur police.
The HKP has a bigger concern. The amateur Auxiliary Police could not be made to perform alongside professional Regular Police, especially in emergencies and crisis situations. This was so for three reasons. First, citizen police were amateur volunteers, doing part-time police work. They were less experienced, dependable and reliable to do the fill range of police duties, 24/7. Second, citizen police were too socially, ethnically, culturally, educationally and professionally diverse, to work together as a uniform whole. Third, the idea has never been tried before:
Policemen have always been skeptical of the amateur and in Hong Kong we were no exception�K.We would blush with embarrassment if it were pointed out that to take men of several nationalities from every walk of life and to weld them into an organised body which can be called up almost at the drop of a hat to understudy us in just about every phase of the whole complicated police machine�Xis quite something. That it is possibly unique in Police history, has never occurred to us.
The HKP officers have a reason to be concerned. HKP has a negative experience with other forms of citizens police, from Special Police to Police Reserve. Special Police were ill prepared to do real police work, in readiness and temperament for example, attending the sick, walking a beat or staffing a police post. They just wanted to play cops and robbers.226 The Police Reserve was only good at emergencies, for example, typhoon,227 and crowd control duties, such as race-course and football duties.
It turned out that the public and HKP concerns were ill founded. The HK Auxiliary officers have proven them wrong by offering to run a police com-mand and did well:
Where, I ask you, is there any Force in the World that can produce an Auxiliary organisation capable of organising themselves at a few hours notice to produce 1,500 men to take over the watch and ward of almost an entire Force?228 This was in reaction to the Hong Kong Police for Auxiliary Police to ��take�� over a Hong Kong Police police station for one day.229
Viewed in a historical context, the relationship between the HKP and HKAP has not been a smooth one. As intimated above, HKAP officers have always been considered as less prepared, less professional, less competent and less reliable. Thus, they were always considered not to be able to do the full range of police work efficiently and effectively. As a result, they were not trusted to perform like a HKP officer. Case in point: In 1999, before the LegCo, the Deputy Commissioner�XOperations (DCP�VOPT) has this to say about HKAP officers:
Dir of Ops said that training provided for Auxiliary Police officers was only a part of the package of training for the regular Police officers. Hence, Auxiliary Police officers could not perform all types of duties undertaken by the regu-lar Police Force, for example, duties in the Police Tactical Unit or related to crime investigation. In addition, the duty pattern of Auxiliary Police officers was irregular where most of them resumed duty during weekends and public holidays. Whereas the regular Police officers provided round-the-clock ser-vice throughout the year. Thus, most of the responsibilities of regular Police Force could not be assumed by Auxiliary Police officers.230
Like the WPO, the HKAP officers were considered by the HKP as second-class ��reserve�� officers. They were called upon only when needed, for example, crowd control or guard and escort duties. Although the people on the street hardly notice the difference, the HKAP has never been treated as a fully functional police unit, by the HKP, bearing shortage or crisis. This was not lost in the HKAP. Indeed, in 1980, HKAP officers were treated very much the same as Regular Police officers,231 when there was a great demand for their service.
As to the role and functions, an exchange in the LegCo in 1990 over the training, capacity and performance on HKAP officers ��in crisis�� gives us some clue as to the distinction in role and capacity between HKP and HKAP:
Mr Tien: Sir, would the Secretary please inform this Council whether in time of crisis the performance of the Auxiliary Police on beat patrol will measure up to that of our Regular Police?
Secretary for Security: Sir, yes. The Auxiliary Police go through essen-tially the same training as their regular counterparts, and they operate on the street and indeed in other duties in very much the same way as the Regular Police. I do not believe that there is a problem of difference of standard.232
Still, HKAP officers were not treated on par in every respect operation-ally with the regular HKP officers. On 29 June 1999, a discussion paper on ��Legislative Council Panel on Security Review of the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force (HKAPF)233�� (paper) (re) defined the post-1997 role of HKAPF as follows:
In their redefined role, Auxiliary Police officers mainly serve as a trained manpower reserve to support the regular Police Force in crowd management operations during major public events and festivals. In addition, their main functions in an internal security situation include key points protection, man-ning the command and control centres, Police station defence and consular premises protection.234
The paper made clear that the redefined-limited role of HKAP was not a result of or required by the Enhanced Productivity Programme. In essence, according to HKP leadership, this was not a cost-saving measure at all. The role and functions of HKAPF needed to be refined in ��light of changing cir-cumstances�� of the day, namely, ��the regular Police Force is now up to estab-lishment and has sufficient manpower to perform frontline operational duties��.
The tense relationship between HKP and HKAP came to the forefront when the HKP�VCP disallowed Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Association activities in official buildings.235
This abrupt change of HKP versus HKAP relationship was not consid-ered as important as the HKP�VHKAP reform programme.236 Except in the LegCo archives, the HKAP downsizing was rarely reported in the news and discussed in the public.
Even within LegCo, the matter of HKAP did not take on much urgency or importance, as compared to its impact and implication. The lackluster performance of the LegCo members most probably has something to do with public interest and members�� competence.
The public have little interest in such low-visibility HKP administrative issue. To the more inquisitive public, the issue was whether HK should have ��real�� HKP versus ��part time HKAP�� on beat duty. For many people, more professional police in the street-fighting crime should be preferred.
In the end, it is argued here that the decision to redefine and marginalise the role and functions of the HKAP is not a well-researched and reasoned one:
First, since the 1970s, HKP has been moving towards CP. CP calls for enlisting citizens�� help and getting the community involved to fight crime, maintain order and provide service. Given this reform vision and mission, it makes little sense to reduce the establishment, capacity and presence of the citizen police, in favour of professional ones. The issue here is who can do CP better? The answer is a clear one. Having community members walking the beat is the best way to realise the goals and objectives of CP, on the cheap. (1) Being from the community, the HKAPF is more aware of and sensitive to public concerns. (2) Being from the community, the HKAPF knows more about the community, in culture as well as with intelligence. (3) Being from the community, the HKAP will be better able to relate, communicate with and liaison between the people as a fellow citizen. (4) Being from the commu-nity, the HKAP brings instant legitimacy�Xcredibility, authority and empa-thy�Xto the task. (5) Being from the community, the HKAP will be able to draw upon the resources in the community to solve local problems. (6) Being from the community, the HKAP would be better able to reduce mistrust and improve communication between HKSAR and the community, and resolve disputes between the community and HKP.
Second, in implementing CP and improving police�Vpublic relationship, actions speak louder than words. In removing the HKAPF from the beats, and reducing their number on duty, in favour of HKP officers, the HKP is sending a number of wrong messages, detrimental to CP:
1. The HKP does not trust the community to police themselves.237 The development of an effective community-based crime-fighting capac-ity, that is, District/Area Security Group, was first proposed by the LegCo in 1974,238 but never materialised.
2. The HKP has little confidence in HKAPF officers to work indepen-dently, suggesting that they are less competent, reliable or trained: ��Mr CHAN Kwok-keung asked why Auxiliary Police officers would be required to perform operational duties in conjunction with regu-lar Police officers having regard to the fact that the former received proper training and performed operational duties independently before the review. Mr CHAN questioned whether, in other words, training previously provided for Auxiliary Police officers was con-sidered insufficient��.239
3. The HKP is more interested in promoting professional and techno-cratic policing by regular HKP officers than in promoting CP with HKAPF officers.
4. The HKP is more interested in cost cutting than be committed to HKAP professional development and capacity enhancement. On 29 June 1999, DPC�VOPT briefed LegCo Panel on Security after cutting of staff at HKAP, in a circumlocutory way:
As outlined in the paper, the total savings generated was almost $170 mil-lion when the establishment of HKAPF was reduced to 4500 through natural wastage. Dir of Ops stressed that the Force fully appreciated the dedicated service provided by the Auxiliary Police officers in the past. The review was to tie in with the value for money principle240 adopted in the Force. The review of HKAPF commenced as early as in 1992.241
This has prompted LegCo Member Howard to ask whether training for HKAP is adequate and cost-effective.
1. The HKP showed little interest in treating HKAP as equal partners, as CP envisions and requires order to be successful. As it turns out, the community is not driving the HKP, as it should be. Instead, the HKP is dictating to the community. HKP is only interested in using the community (HKAP) to advance its own agenda, that is, either as a public relation ploy or crowd control resource.242
2. The HKP has expanded little effort and committed limited resources in developing the capacity and enhancing the performance of the HKAPF. Every effort was to keep HKAPF in a limited and circum-scribed role as a reserve crisis management and emergency security detail.
3. ��Miss CHAN Yuen-han (LegCo member) was of the view that the Force management failed to address members�� concerns expressed at the last meeting, in particular the specific plan put in place to ensure the capability of Auxiliary Police officers to perform operational duties in case of emergencies and the reasons for introducing the drastic changes243 within such a short period of time��.244
4. The decision-making process over ��Review of the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force (HKAPF) demonstrated HKP��s manage-ment��s ignorance of and insensitivity to HKAP��s aspirations, desire, right and capacity to serve the community,245 and expectation of the public.246 It most certainly poorly reflected upon HKP��s deci-sion making process and ability, thereby bringing the HKP into disrepute��.
5. ��Mr Howard YOUNG asked whether the Force management had examined the respective cost effectiveness of the training provided for regular and Auxiliary Police officers in drawing up the recom-mendations. �K Miss CHAN Yuen-han wondered if the manpower situation in the regular Police Force was the decisive factor for the engagement of Auxiliary Police officers�K.
6. The way HKP treats HKAP is unfair/disrespectful, and serve to rup-ture the relationship to and alienate the loyalty of HKPF members.
7. ��Mr CHEUNG Man-kwong said that the trust between the Force management and HKPF had been destroyed to some extent as a result of the implementation of the recommendations arising from the review. Thus, the request from HKPF for independent body as an arbitrator over the implementation of the recommendations was understandable��.247
8. The HKP review of HKAP in process and outcome, has openly deni-grated HKAP leadership and subtly undermined HKAP frontline morale.
9. ��Mr CHAN Kwok-keung pointed out that the proposed integrated deployment of Auxiliary Police officers with their regular coun-terparts was an area of concern of the Auxiliary Police officers. He learnt that many Auxiliary Police officers had hard feelings that they were a burden on the regular Police officers under the new arrange-ment for performing beat duties. Dir of Ops stressed that the Force management had no intention to cause any hard feelings by intro-ducing the proposed integration��.248
V: Organisation
HKP was not well organised before the war. After WWII, HKP had to be rebuilt organisationally. This was a huge challenge. The Japanese had destroyed most of the police records. The HKP had lost most of its police managers. Millions of people were coming across the borders. HK economy was expanding fast and radically transforming. The HKP was pressed into action, in building police stations, training people and designing systems, all at lightning speed.
The HKP reformers were confronted with two basic tasks, namely, how HKP should be organised, for example, centralised versus decentralised, and how it should be operated, that is, command and control.
The HKP decided upon centralised administration, that is, bureaucrati-sation, and decentralised operation, that is, localisation. That is to say uni-form and standardised administration in hiring, firing, training, auditing and accounting, and diversifying and customising operational command and control.
Bureaucratisation249
Standardise Administration
In 1959, a decade into HKP reform and reorganisation, the HKPM saw fit to publish an article titled ��Organization�� by J. B. Fleetwood, deputy chief con-stable, Admiralty Constabulary, United Kingdom.250 The article, first of its kind in HKPM, described in detail the best practice of police organisation, its basic principles and operational importance.251
Fleetwood began by citing W. L. Melville Lee��s observation in his classi-cal work on policing:252 ��The rough and the criminal do not fear the prowess of the individual policeman, they fear the organisation behind him��.253 The republication of Chief Fleetwood was telling about the mindset of HKP lead-ership on police reform.
First, HKP reform was very much an organisational reform.
Second, organisationally, HKP was moving towards a bureaucratic model (Weber),254 and general practices around the world at the time.255
Police forces are fundamental proponents of rational/legal states. Overall, their legitimacy is based on the principle of ��rule of laws, not of men��. That is, formal rules define their authority and govern their conduct. They are a Weberian bureaucracy�Xor have evolved over the years to become one. The police are hierarchically organized; they are chosen on the basis of examina-tions and other specified qualifications; they are paid fixed salaries; in theory employment is a career, with promotion according to achievement or senior-ity; their conduct is subject to strict and systematic discipline and control. (Citation omitted).256
Third, Webertian bureaucratic model of policing is preferred for HKP because of its legal�Vlegitimation functions, and not military potentiality.
Fourth, HKP reform was adopting best practices of policing from around the Western world, as found in British Constabulary.
In the end, Chief Fleetwood��s article registered a change of mood at HKP HQ, namely, making a break with the past, HKP leadership realised that the success or failure of policing did not rest on the loyalty and heroism of indi-viduals, in the days past, but efficiency and effectiveness of the police officers in organisational ways.
From the HKP reformers�� perspective, a rational�Vlegitimacy model (RLM) of policing which Weber offered, served important functions of the time, real or imagined.
First, RLM, with starched Khaki, precision drill and sharp salutes to match, allowed colonial police administrators to be in control, up top, speak-ing the familiar language of order, discipline and leadership, drummed into each member at PTS. British senior colonial police officers could be in control without cultural understanding. JPO would obey orders without personal identification with the colonial master. Even today, the prideful tradition of HKP is still one of, first obey, and then debate.
Second, RLM allowed colonial leadership to claim, much like in 1829 when the LMP Force was set up such that, strict discipline and unforgiving rules, achieved perfect control of police and public. Performance account-ability is to displace political accountability.
Diversified and Customised Operations
Policing in general and colonial policing in particular conjures up images of a monolithic force with uniform practice. This is distortive and misleading. Understanding HKP reform requires contextualisation and particularisation. There is a dire need to first discover and then demonstrate how HKP police in different times, places and people, in terms of philosophy, role, administration and operation. In more concrete terms, there is a need to investigate into polic-ing practices in various policing units, for example, UB versus CID versus SB, formation, for example, Marine versus land, regions, Hong Kong Island versus KLN versus NT and sub-divisions, for example, Mongkok versus Wanxhai. Such a comparative study should allow us to see that HKP is hardly uniform.
Command and Control
HKP was and is a top-down organisation.257 As a colonial force, policy and directives for HKP emulated from the top, from the White Hall to the Foreign Secretary to the Colonial Office to the Governor of HK258 to the HKP. Commissioner of Police serves at the pleasure of the Governor, as head of the executive branch.
Until the latest round of reform in the 1990s, HKP leadership, manage-ment and operational style was very personalised and decentralised,259 with strict centralised administration and policy formulation at HKP HQ, but a wide latitude of operational control with the local commanders, such as Regional Commander (RC), DS and SDI. These commanders were trusted to manage their command as they deemed fit, within the confinement of police general order (PGO).
Research on Command and Control: Policy Formulation and Implementation
In 1981, the then Inspector W.I. Nicholas wrote a research paper on HKP policy formulation and implementation process on hawker control260 in Hong Kong Island by comparing and contrasting ��Police Policy Process�� at five policing units: HKP HQ,261 Central Division,262 Waichai Division,263 Eastern Division264 and Western Division.265 What he found, as an insider,266 is instructive on how HKP made and executed hawker policy in 1981. The most salient findings are HKP HQ proposes frontline commanders�XDS, SDI disposes.
First, HKP HQ set the overall all-police hawker policy by working with other public bodies, such as the Urban Council (Hawker Select Committee), the Executive Council and the Hawker Policy Working Group (Attorney General, HKP, ICAC and Urban Council). The working group establish the overall general policy on how bests to deal with the hawker problems in HK, with HKP ��seeking to determine a proper division of responsibility for hawker control�K��267 within the respective legal and policy bound of various agencies. For example, HKP statutory responsible with respect to hawker control was derived from Section 10 of Police Force Ordinance, such as Section 10(f) con-trolling traffic upon public thoroughfares and removing obstacles therefrom; 10(h) assisting in carrying out any �Ksanitary �Klaws.268 In terms of policy, the Urban Council has determined in 1979 the responsibility of HKP for controlling hawkers as follows: ��The control of hawkers and enforcement of hawker legislation depends on the police and General Duties Team, The task of the Police is to keep main thoroughfares clear of obstruction�K��269
Second, within the HKP HQ, hawker policy was established by the CP in the HKP�XSupport Wing,270 in providing ��supreme direction and admin-istration�� of the HKP.271 In 1977, the CP has issued the following policy state-ment to the Director of Urban Council, namely: ��(a) The Force should not dissipate its effort on hawker control but concentrate on more important constabulary duties; (b) The areas of conflict between the public and Police must be reduced; and (c) As hawker control is primarily concerned with pub-lic health rather than law and order, it should be regarded as a non-con-stabulary duty��.272 This broad non-policy, hawker policy statement basically removes HKP as the main hawker law enforcement regime, making it an Urban Council problem. In 1980, the CP in a visit to Support Wing, asked for a reassessment of hawker control policy, specifically ��manpower commitment by law enforcement agencies to be quantified�� and ��action against hawkers by enforcement agencies be evaluated��.273 This CP policy statement asked for a renewed effort to ��re-assess�� hawker policy, and not how to enforce it.
It was in this ambivalent hawker policy environment at HKP HQ that hawker policy implementation process should be examined.
Third, in terms of hawker policy enforcement, it was generally agreed within HKP that the local commanders, particularly at the division level, have much influence and control, to wit: ��the degree of cooperation from the police seems to depend largely on the initiative of the local divisional superintendent�� and ��local action and policy seemed to depend whether the divisional superin-tendent has a bee in his bonnet about the subject or vice versa (sic)��.274
Fourth, with the non-committal (1980) and non-directive (1977) CP hawker policy, the divisional commanders were left to their own accord, resulting in a variety of enforcement policy, strategies, input, output and out-come, across divisions (KLN vs. Hong Kong Island divisions) and within a division (Central vs. Water Front). For example:
a. Policy across divisions: There was no written hawker policy in all four Hong Kong Island divisions (Central, Wanchai, Eastern and Western) and four of six KLN divisions have one (except the airport and MTR).275
b. Policy within divisions: Within Central Division, since there was no divisional hawker policy or directives, it was up to the SDIs to instruct the sub-unit commanders as to what is the appropriate level of enforcement, and under what circumstances and to what end, against what results. In the case of Central Sub-Division, the SDI has written an operation memo of sorts: ��Action by beat PCs against hawkers is to be confined to keeping hawkers off prohibited streets. Police action is to be dependent the severity of the case and in pref-erential order of formal warnings, summons, and lastly arrest�K��276
Further comparing SDI�XCentral hawker enforcement instruc-tion to SDI�XWaterfront (WF) Instruction#8, we found that SDI/WF Instruction#8 incorporates by reference to Hong Kong Island District Commander Circulation Letter No. 6, in regard to nuisance squad duties.277
c. Sub-division policy across divisions: If we were to compare hawker polices between Wanchai Sub-Division (within Wancahi Division)278 versus Causeway Bay Sub-Division (within Eastern Division),279 we will find that in Wanchai, it has no standing policy. Hawker enforce-ment was the responsibility of Prisoners Escort Team, if and when available, as supplemented by Auxiliary Police duties. ��Enforcement is generally taken on a reactive basis�� and is dependent on the nature, consistency and publicity of the complaints, per divisional complaint policy.280 With Causeway Bay Sub-Division, there was no written policy. The standing policy of SDI was ��to contain hawkers inside Mercury Street and under Tsing Fung St. Flyover. An abso-lute prohibition on King��s Road exists, and frequent operations in Electric Road�K��
d. There were substantial differences in resource input and productiv-ity out in hawker control effort between sub-divisions.
Anecdotal Evidence of Divisional Control
YMT Police Station reported the following item in HKPM (1952/2:37):
An innovation at Yaumati (in fact in the Force as a whole) has been devised, built and installed at Yaumati Police Station. This is Mr. I. G. MacPherson��s duty scheme which shows, by a series of coloured lights, the positions of all men on duty. Of this we say no more at the time of writing�Kthe scheme is still in the experimental stage. We are, however, sure of its success in helping to obtain the maximum beat efficiency in our district.
The message here is that local commanders were given much author-ity to experiment with ideas of management and operations, provided they do not conflict with HKP HQ general policy and specific instructions, for example, uniform haircut, training and assignments. The standard refrain for operational commanders was: ��Do not disturb the boss��. Alternatively, the boss cannot be bordered with. This provides the frontline officers with a wide latitude, and a tint of caution.
In effect, DS and SDI ruled their post and officers like fiefdom. It was an open secret in the 1950s that divisional commanders recruit the offi-cers they liked and disciplined, and eventually transferred, staff they did not like. This is called the ��horse stable�� system of management. In terms of career development, it was whose harbour you moored your boat, not how you steered your boat that matters when it comes to promotion and assignments.
The following item in the HKPM hinted at the existence of such a personal ��recruitment�� system at work at Eastern Division, in a light-mannered way. To contextualise the item, one must remember: ��Immediate post war reforms abolished the recruitment of British and Commonwealth personnel into sub-ordinate ranks, joining instead as Probationary Sub-Inspectors. �K The end of the British Mandate in Palestine in 1948 occasioned an influx of officers over the next two years, along with further arrivals from a now independent Malaysia��.281 Much like the Chinese immigrants and other sojourns coming to HK through the years, these newly arrived overseas cops need to find an eth-nic identity and cultural anchor, before coming to terms with HK and surviv-ing the HKP. They found it with former colleagues within the Colonial Police Service system or Palestine Police Force:
Our D.S. ��Bill�� Segrue came from Palestine in 1948 and after a spell in Special Branch took over Western before coming to this Division in 1950. He strongly denies the rumour that Eastern will employ a publicity agent, having found that results supply their own advertisement. Rex Davies, the Chief Inspector, is also from the Special Branch and came here to replace Geordie Harris now home on leave.282
As it is and at all times, policing is not a one-size-fits-all business.
Police operations in focus and methods are more differentiated than uniform.
In the 1950s and 1960s, what HKP officers did and how they did it, dif-fered substantially between and across (sub) divisions.
There was a common saying within HKP then that ��Hong Kong police are jingcha, Kowloon police are charen, New Territories police are dagenglao �u����ĵ��,�E�s�t�H, �s�ɥ���Сv��. Both the police and the public per-ceived HK versus KLN versus NT police differently in organisation, role, administration, ethos and conduct.283 As folklore has it: jingcha are colonial police agents and organised and operated along Western line. Charen are cen-tral penal officials behaving in imperial Chinese ways. Finally, dagenglao are local communal security agents, who functioned according to local norms. With this folksy remembrance: HK police were more polite and business like, projecting a professional image. KLN police were more rough and tumble, displaying a persona of rough cops. NT police were more down to earth, act-ing as unsophisticated but caring neighbours.
History and folklore aside, HKP organisation culture and personal con-duct, then as now, are very much determined by policing environment of the time, from geographic characteristics, for example, contiguous with China with a porous border, to population demographics, for example, Shanghai business elites versus Canton working poor, to business conditions, for example, HK Central with teams of white collar workers, and industrial set-ting, for example, Tsuen Wan saturated with industrial workers. A blogger on policing wrote:
There is a common saying in HKP; ��Hong Kong are police officers. Kowloon are yamen officials. New Territories are night watchman (security guards)��. �KPolice image, ethos and appearance are not the same in different district. In Hong Kong Island, since there are a concentration of major and important government administrative units, judicial offices, bank and financial organi-zations, international enterprises headquarters, other top businesses, senior executives�� residences and HKP HQ, the police officers need to conduct them-selves in a most careful manner. From outward appearances or service man-ner, they should leave an impression of being civilized and warm. That is why they are called police. In Kowloon, it is packed with dense shops and residen-tial areas. Also there are many recreational sites, with a mix-bags of criminals, the environment are very complicated. Comparatively, there are more crimi-nal activities. Thus when the police officers carried out their duties, they are lacking in politeness but with more authority. That is why people call police ��yamen officials��. Such an image (of police) has been accepted by the public with no negative connotation. As to New Territories region, since it is located in the rural area with fewer people, besides routine policing, the police have no extra-operational duties. They behave like security guards. Thus, they are called ��watchman.�� Judging from the above, police ethos and image to a cer-tain extent is influenced by the environment.284
These customary labels of police have real-life consequences, internally and externally. First, it comes to define and reinforce HKP self-image, pub-lic persona and organisational culture. Second, over time, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, making reification as real. Third, it comes to shape police role. Fourth, it influences police versus public and public versus police expec-tation and relationship, and how police treat the public and public relate to police. Fifth, it affects staff deployment, for example, the best police are assigned to Hong Kong Island, and career development, for example, less advancement with Marine police.
All Policing Are Local
All policing are local and different, if only because places and people are different, in history, culture and conditions. Take Aberdeen as an example. Historically, Aberdeen was the centre of HK in the 1840s. In 1841, HK was named after the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, George Hamilton-Gordon, British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In the Ming Dynasty, Arberdeen was called ��Small Hong Kong��. Aberdeen was then a key fishing village and vibrant market place, with a huge Tanka and Hoklo boat community. In 1964, a British officer who was stationed in Aberdeen had this to say about the town:
This then is Aberdeen, Fishing centre, industrial town in embryo, farming community, high class residential district�Xit is all these things and yet the place manages to preserve for itself a unique character. With the buzz of fac-tories in the background and the noise of the mechanized fleet, there remains a feeling of rural tranquility and friendliness of the local people which one never seems to get on the other side of the Island.285
Aberdeen is a long way from Central Victoria that cannot be any more different. From the earliest of time, Central Victoria was a commercial centre in an urban setting and with modern facilities. Most of the people working there were expatriates, and attended by the poor Chinese.
The diversity of police work and operation in and around HK can be had by reading ��Chatters from Stations�� in the HKPM.
Policing for All Seasons and Reasons
In 1964, when post-WWII HKP reform has well settled in, a European officer reported on police work in and around Eastern Division: ��Eastern Division: Reflection of a Duty Officer��.286 What we learned from him is that police work is not all alike in all districts and divisions. In the case of Eastern, it is all about settling disputes between American soldiers versus British sailors versus bar girls. A regular night would start with Americans and British getting drunk and getting into fights: ��Eastern has its share of U.S. and Royal Naval Shore Patrols and Military Police operating in the Division and keen rivalry exists to prove the efficiency of the various forces��. Thus, it is best for the duty officer (DO) to handle such rowdy behaviour as he deemed fit, extra-legally and not to arrest every offender in sight, by the book. Zero-tolerance policing would create too much work for everyone. As a way to settle interpersonal disputes ending in fistfights, the benefits hardly justify the costs. In such and other circumstances, the DO has to learn how to use discretion to reduce ferocious fights into amicable settlement, or turn a police station into a temporary paci-fication centre or detoxification tank, until people calm down or sober up.
If the problem with Eastern is in settling scores between drunken sailors and prideful soldiers, or servicemen wanting a reprieve from Shore Patrol and Redcaps at night, the problem with Wong Tai Sin is one of population growing out of control. In the face of continuous influx of workers, constant expansion of the industry and building of housing estates, the community has to find ways to adjust to the growing pain of crime and order. Wong Tai Sin Division has to keep expanding and readjusting its jurisdictional boundary:
As most readers will be aware, Wong Tai Sin has been in existence as a sepa-rate Division since January of this year. Since then, the furious rate at which new buildings and resettlement estates have been built has posed the problem of continuously having to readjust to a growing population. The sheer size of the division has been, up to the present time, an aggravation in the sense that transport and communications have been rendered that much more dif-ficult. From the station to Yau Tong Bay, where a large resettlement estate is at present being built, is slightly over four miles. Transport is often tied up because of prior claims, and the net result is that the man on the beat may be forced to leave the area for an hour or more if he makes an arrest. He becomes bogged down by the problem of transporting the defendant to the station, and returning from the station, when his time could much more profitably be spent on the beat. However, the opening of the new sub-divisional station at Kwun Tong will improve the situation.287
Two town centres, two police outfits, one to do less, the other has to do more, it is a tale of two cities, and the difference is between night and day. We now turn to more differences in policing style across different jurisdic-tions in HK.
Policing in KLN City
KLN City Division covers ��Everything east of the Kowloon-Canton Railway is ours, and �K all land bounded by Tolo Harbour, Tolo Channel and Mirs Bay in Sai Kung District��. The main drag of KLN City is the Kai Tak Airport.288 It.was basically a very undeveloped port, with a small industrial development at Hung Hum Sub-Station:
Hung Hom our sub-station takes in all our industrial area, from Army Depots to zephyrs from the uncovered nullahs, although regarding the latter we think Kowloon City has a nose start. Green Island Cement Works is a bit dusty�Xbut Watson��s Mineral Water Factory is pretty handy.289
KLN City Division also contained the ��Kowloon Walled City�� a/k/a ��city of anarchy��290 where HKP has only a symbolic presence, but no real control.291 Historically, the KLN-Walled City was a military outpost established in the Song Dynasty (960�V1279). In 1842, HK was ceded to Britain after the Opium war.292 In 1898, the Second Convention of Peking extended British rule to include KLN and NT except for the KLN-Walled City.293
In 1987, the Chinese-Walled City housed 330,000 people, 8800 families and 1000 businesses in a little more than 2.8 hectares. That amounted to 1.2 million people/hectare (Manhattan is 27,000 people/hectare). It is com-mon knowledge that the KLN-Walled City was a lawless place, being infested with all kinds of illegal activities, from prostitution, to drugs, to gambling. Fugitives also called this their home. The KLN-Walled City was out of reach of China and refused to be policed by HK authorities.294
Through the years, policing inside the Walled City by HKP has been minimal, inconsistent and perfunctory.295 There was a void in government and lapse of control locally known as ��zone of three non-control�� (�u�T���ޡv).296 The Triad seized control and roamed at will:
After a particularly grisly murder in 1959, the British decided it was time to start convicting the walled city��s criminals in local courts. The Chinese made no objection. However, at this point, the Triads were already in domination. Prostitution, drug use and even Japanese sex tourism were rampant. The police were forced to step up their game�Xbetween 1973 and 1974, they confiscated 1,800.kg of drugs and made 2,500 arrests in 3,500 raids. This marked the beginning of a change of control. By 1983 it was reported by the police com-mander of the Kowloon City District that the crime levels were roughly the same as other parts of Kowloon, although the area��s reputation for unsavory acts and debauchery had already been propelled to an almost mythical level.297
In light of the above, and given the lack of interest in reporting in any of the HKPM, it is fair to observe as far as HKP is concerned, KLN Walled City is a well known and accepted crime ��hot sport�� by the public (indul-gence) and with the HKP (toleration). On hindsight, now that it is completely demolished, KLN-Walled City298 is best considered as a case of out of sight, out of mind or policing by neglect.299 According to an old-time resident, a barber who has lived in the KLN Walled City for 30 plus years, that is, since the 1940s.
Ten or 20 years ago there were a lot of illegal activities conducted openly. It is now getting less.
I have lived here for 30 years. People called me Lui Pak (Uncle Lui). I worked here as a barber. Many criminals came here to evade arrest300 because it is very difficult for police to find them here, due to the disorganized streets.301 There was no policing in here until 1976.302 Still local residents do not consider the crime and order here to be bad. That is because outside criminals are easily discovered by the residents.303 Crimes like thefts and robberies are usually committed by outsiders.304 People are still selling dog meat openly and doing drugs in here in the dark alleys.305 Now there are much less selling of drugs and fewer opium dens.306 As to gambling stalls and brothels, they are no lon-ger everywhere, and not confined to the Kowloon Walled City.307 Although it is said that Kowloon Walled City is ��three non-control��, it is really not that terrible, as though everyone is in fear of being killed or hurt.308 Yes, people here would size you up as you enter. So is everywhere�K.This place is filled with rubbish. I thus volunteer to remove them.309 The place is full of fat rats and dripping waters. Kids pee and shit everywhere.310
How then was KLN Walled City policed? A HKP British police inspector who has patrolled inside the Walled City in the 1970s has this to report:
I was a British police inspector in Hong Kong (joined in 1975) and the Kowloon Walled City was one of my first beats. The police did go in at that time on drug raids and for criminal activities (no health and hygiene inspec-tors etc. though) but regular police patrols were a sergeant and 5 constables in a group rather than single constable. Boundary Street was actually the border between the colony and China when Kowloon was ceded and before the New Territories was leased. It didn��t have anything to do with the walled city but there may have been a local name for a street bordering the walled city. If you are still active here and interested I have loads of memories of the place.311
Policing in SSP
In 1952, SSP Division ��stretches from Prince Edward Road on the south and reaches to beyond the San Miguel Brewery on the Castle Peak Road. Industries? Certainly, any industry you could wish, from the lowly hawker to engineering, wolfram mining, pearl button making and myriads of others��.
There were two main roads running through from KLN to NT. Away from the main thoroughfare, the streets were jam packed with people, mak-ing a living or just finding a place to stay.
The division was policed by 200 PCs under an Inspector. It has its fair share of crime from murder to robberies, breaking and entering and petty larcenies. The CID and UB officers worked very well together. The hawk-ers and street sleepers were the greatest problems for patrol officers, and the squatters were health and fire hazards requiring constant attention.312
Local residents were poor. Most of them were illegal immigrants from China. They came to HK to escape the civil war, avoid communism or oth-erwise seek survival. The living conditions, on the street or up the hillside, were dirty, unhealthy and dangerous from fire. They worked from hands to mouth, barely surviving.
The dwellings in the villages are mostly of wood and in the main streets sev-eral have two storeys. These main streets are busy from dawn until well after midnight and there is little one cannot find�Xshops, restaurants, mahjong schools, workshops of every description, wood and ivory carving, sewing, spinning and weaving, metal works, dyeing and even rattan work which is exported to the U.S.A.313
The living conditions were poor. The hillside make-shift housing was not numbered. The whole place appeared totally disorganised, with many crimes and much disorder. Looks are deceptive. The people living together in the squatters helped each other, whenever and however they could. They tended to each other��s affairs and helped each other when needed. The people living there organised themselves to form firefighting teams and night watchers, a communal government of its own. It is a heart-warming story of ��with adversity comes true friendship��, ��a friend in need, is a friend indeed��.314
The mail is handled by the Village Fire Services. If one is about the villages at night, as we unfortunate policemen have to be, these worthies can be seen at work. They are more likely to be heard before they are seen as their approach is heralded by the noise of a drum, which the first of the party usually carries. The party consist of three men and the drum is beaten every third or fourth pace. The second man carries nothing, and the third man carries a long bam-boo pole. Why the drum is beaten is a mystery, but it might be to warn would be felons that they are approaching. No uniform is provided but each member wears a bright red steel helmet with the name of the village painted on in white characters. These fire-watching parties patrol the villages from evening until dawn, ready to combat and give warning of that most deadly enemy of the villages�Xfire. In a brief period, thousands of unfortunate persons could be homeless. With thousands of wooden huts one on top of the other and the nearest water about half a mile away, there is no wonder that these villages are a constant headache to the Fire Brigade! Outside the villages the policeman patrols his beat and sees what is going on. Inside the villages, however, there are no beat constables. The population consists of hardworking but mostly poor people living under most trying conditions. The very nature of these conditions enables the criminal to carry out his dirty work without too much undue disturbance. He can hide himself or his loot very easily. When organ-ised and decent living conditions are available, there will be considerably less crime than there is no.315
The social bonding that developed out of adversity in SSP squatters living together and later suffered baptism by fire when their households were burnt overnight, was transferred and blossomed into the legendary SSP resettle-ment housing community spirit, which lasted until today.316 What SSP com-munity spirit showed is that community self-help does work, without help from the HKP.
Policing in YMT Division
The following correspondence from YMT Division serves to illustrate how policing was conducted in a ��typical�� police division in HK�XKowloon: (1952/1)
This being the first article about Yaumati Division to appear in the first edition of the first Hong Kong Police Magazine, we feel that for the sake of posterity a description of Yaumati Division in the year 1951 A.D. should be given. There are four Police Stations, a prison which is modern and politely referred to as a place of detention, and a population of about 700,000 persons.
There is a Divisional Superintendent, a Chief Inspector, some Inspectors at all stages of experience and some 370 R. & F. to look after this area. If you want to travel from the Hong Kong Island to Kowloon the comfortable way you will arrive at Yaumati. If you want to travel from Kowloon to the Hong Kong Island the comfortable way you must pass through Yaumati and leave Kowloon from the shore of Yaumati! This is our source of worry�Xfor far too many impor-tant people with that all-seeing eye travel through Yaumati. Of the remainder who pass that way many have cared to stop, for Yaumati has its attractions: a reasonably large residential area, a larger Chinese working class area, fairly good shops and more than its fair share of the bright lights. Hence we have every type of person from the respectable European and Chinese citizens to slick racketeers; from the hard working shopkeepers and coolie class through every grade to the armed robber, petty thief, pimp and prostitute. This is our lot: interesting, worrying at times, amusing and always hard work. Interesting and amusing, such as when the boat people in the Yaumati Typhoon Shelter decided that there was a band of lepers looking for fresh human hearts to eat in order to cure their disease.
From the above report, we learned that YMT was commanded by a DS, a CIP, and a number of Inspectors. In terms of police strength, the police (R & F) to population ratio was 370:700,000 or 52.9/100,000. But this police�Vpopu-lation ratio has little meaning in YMT, in as much as it has a sizable sea-bound population coming ashore and many commuters and transient visitors, com-ing and going, all hours of the day. YMT was a sleepless community.
One gathers from the tone and texture of the write up, that the police strength hardly matches the diversity, complexity, magnitude and inten-sity of happenings in the district. In terms of the nature of police work, we can expect a lot of traffic control, order maintenance (from nuisance com-plaints to dispute resolutions to hawker obstructions), criminal investigation (Triads, extortion, drugs and fights) and vice raids (��red light�� district).
We were told by police officers serving in the YMT district that they suf-fered from three chronic police problems: hawker, suicide and vice.
Unlike HKP�XCentral, the land use pattern was mixed�Xfrom residential to commercial. The people to be served were also of a mixed bag, from foreign tourists to transient visitors to local residents. The undesirables also came in all colours and shapes: gang members, habituate criminals, opportunistic offenders and juvenile delinquents. The police would be expected to handle a whole host of issues and different kinds of people in need.
For a seasoned�Xsalted and tested�XHKP officer, policing in YMT was little different from policing anywhere, except perhaps an awareness that civil disturbances might happen anytime; thus, the military and police must be prepared for it. Thus, YMT was built like a fortress. To some, that was clear evidence of ��colonial policing�� at work, and to others, this is an over-statement. To the OIC (officer in charge), this was just being prepared for any and all contingencies.
From a resident��s point of view, YMT was different, than any other place. Li Ping-sum, a long-time resident of YMT, described the area of the YMT as follows:
Dundas Street as the north boundary and Austin Road as the south. He found Yau Ma Tei Police Station both the geographical centre and power centre of Yaumatei. Geographically, it was located in the mid way between Austin Street and Dundas street. Outside the police station there was a pier called ��the Royal Bridge��, serving as the docking location for marine police vessels. The area outside Prosperous Garden used to be the harbor front.and the typhoon shelter. Li believed that in the mind of the local residents Yung Shue Tau was the centre of Yau Ma Tei. It was the place where people met, took rest and gathered. Middle-aged men love to play chess and read newspaper there, and talked with each other freely in public. Tin Hau Temple used to be frequented by many worshippers particularly on Tin Hau Festival on the 23rd of the third lunar month. It was attended by many fishing folk. Li��s mother and sister-in-law usually stayed at home taking care of housework and rarely hang around on the street or go to Yung Shue Tau. His mother loved Cantonese opera but would go home soon after the performance was over. He believed that neigh-bourhood relations in multi-storey buildings in the district were not close, because the environment was not open like public housing.317
For the police as with the people who worked and lived in YMT, it was not a place (major traffic thoroughfare to HK) or a set of activities (shopping, recreation and vice) that defined it. YMT is a home.
In understanding what HKP does in YMT, we need to see YMT in its eyes and in the ever-changing context of people��s routine activities.318 From Li Ping-sum��s perspective, YMT is not a police district�Xwith traffic problem here, robbery cases there and called-for services everywhere, known only to the HKP by its vital sign: daily crime rate and police per hundred thousand people.
To Li, YMT is broken down as a place to worship (Tin Hau Temple) and a corner to hang out (Yung Shue Tau).319 Li��s perception and experience of the place was as much affected by the people coming and going (fishing people, tourists and worshippers) as by the building structure and landscape ever changing. If we learn anything in policing, specifically community or expec-tation policing, it is that in policing, people in the environment matter.
The most telling part of the above-cited HKPM report was the clos-ing statement. As HKP officers, in dealing with people��s problems, both ��Europeans and Chinese��, respond the same way, that is, hoping for the best and preparing for the worse, staying out of trouble as best as they can: ��Amusing, and it shows that there is a lot in common between Europeans and Chinese��.
Policing in NT Division
As intimated above, policing in NT was much different from policing in other divisions, in terms of the problems it faced and methods used.
First, geographically, NT covered a much larger area than KLN or HK, combined. Thus, policing in NT differed from sub-division to sub-division, for example, Tsuen Wan, an emerging industrial town versus Ping Shan, a historical border area. Let us compare Ping Shan and Shatin.
In Ping Shan, policing took up border security missions, for the most part in lieu of (peace time) and at times complimentary to (border incident) the military. Thus, Ping Shan Station and other border posts were organised in such a way as to provide the first line of defence of HK against military incursion, cross-border crime and illegal immigrants. This was achieved by strategically built interlinked police posts, segmented by routine police secu-rity patrol. The OIC of Ping Shan, the nerve centre, was in total command and control:
Travelling on we reach Ping Shan where S.I. E. C. Sharp and his wife reign supreme. This is a station which creates the impression of a modern fortifica-tion rather than a police station. A flat roof prevails with a ��lookout�� post in each corner, gun emplacements have also been erected for emergencies. Ping Shan is also the Headquarters of Criminal Investigation Department for the N.T. West �KAttached to Ping Shan are the three police posts, namely Lau Fau Shan (S.I. Lo Kwok Tung) Sap Pat Heung (N.C.O. in charge) and Nam Sang Wai (N.C.O. in charge) which further provide for the policing of this large area�K.Apart from Chuk Yuen Police Post also in Lok Ma Chau District is Ma Cho Lung and Pak Hok Chau posts�Kto house the personnel who operate the post. They are each equipped with search-lights and maintain constant radio communications with their parent station, and are in fact the eyes and ears of the British frontier. Border patrols are in operation twenty-four hours of the day for the strict supervision of immigration to the Colony.320
HKP role, functions and style changed at the border is the message here.
Second, for the most part, NT at that time, was sparsely populated. The distance between police stations and population centres was big. In fact, in many areas, there was no police presence. If available, police response time was long, ��The ��splitting�� of the N.T. enables a senior officer to be at any spot in the district in a matter of minutes��.
HKP jurisdiction is structured by geography, is the lesson drawn.
Third, except for town centres, Shatin or Yuen Long, NT policing was rural policing. It was patrolled by a specially formed Village Penetration patrol:
In 1947/1948, the New Territories�� Superintendent of Police founded the Village Police Patrols, informally known as ��pangolin�� and in short as ��VPP��. The Superintendent of Police invited Cheung Koon Fu to join the VPP, con-sidering that Cheung is an indigenous Hakka person of the New Territories. Cheung led a four-person unit, patrolling villages, liaising with villagers and helping villagers apply to the government for the construction of bridges and roads. The VPP was a special unit in the police force, which worked four days a week and took rest on the other three. The team members prepared their own equipment rather than signing out firearms from the police station..�K Village matters were still under indigenous inhabitants�� control. The rural disputes that VPP dealt with mostly involved only the indigenous inhabitants. �KThe most common quarrels had to do with cattle going out of the boundary or with private arguments between villagers. Sometimes the VPP needed to intervene and mediate villagers�� fight. In those cases, Cheung Koon Fu would contact the village headman. Since he had the headmen��s respect, the disputes would come to a peaceful end most of the time. New Territories residents rarely had disputes over borders on their land, because the Lands Department clearly defined the fields and houses in all villages.321
The observation here is that urban policing is not the same as rural policing, in organisation, operations and style. In rural policing, commu-nity members are more connected, intergraded, and personally bonded. Mechanical solidarity is usually obtained. They possess social capital and collective efficacy.322 A prima facie for true community-driven crime control can be made.323
Fourth, since the earliest days, policing in NT has been done with self-help, for example, mutual surveillance, communal discipline and watch and ward system. In some instances, villages were expected to fend off the ban-dits. ��The villages in the New Territories had their own self-defence forces formed of young people with good character. The VPP supplied firearms to the self-defence forces; this built a sense of mutual goodwill��.324
Policing the Border325
Policing the frontier and at the border with China is different than any other divisions and functions, throughout HKP. In organisation, operation and style, policing in the frontier resembles more like a military operation, than regular civil policing. Indeed, during the 1950s and up through the 1990s, policing the frontier is conducted in conjunction with the British military, under civilian (HKP) command and control. Command and control of joint police and mili-tary operations reverted to the British under exceptional military situation, for example, incursion by Chinese or armed insurgency by bandits.326
The land border between HK and China�Xthe length of Shum Chun River�Xruns 16 miles from Mirs Bay in the East to Deep Bay in the West. Police and military presence is required to defend against military incur-sion or illegal immigrants. During 1948�V1949, in order to secure the border against influx of refugees and in light of repeated cross-border raids fol-lowing the Shum Chun River, a Frontier Defense System was established. The Frontier defence for HK was severely challenged during the 1948�V1949 period when there was a large influx of refugees from Mainland China due to civil war. Then, the Commissioner of Police, Sir Duncan William MacIntosh, caused seven inter-locking Police Observation Posts to be built across the border known as ��MacIntosh��s Cathedrals�� as HK first line of defence.
Policing the Peak327
Anticipating what I said about context and in particular of policing, Jackson began his descriptive account of policing in the Peak with the following note:
The police are so much a part of the life of any community that it is impossible to write about them without mentioning to some extent the district in which they work. This is particularly true of the Peak, and so I trust readers will excuse my referring to the history of the area as well as the station, but this helps to make the story more interesting and complete.328
What follows was a tortuous but riveting account of how the Peak Police Station developed and policing the Peak evolved, over time. The Peak Station is an old and storied police station. Policing in the Peak changed with the development of transportation facilities and attending social ecology.
The Peak (Victoria Peak) is the tallest hill in Hong Kong Island (1811 feet). For much of the time before WWII, it was isolated from the rest of the island, geographically, commercially and socially. It was then primarily used as a summer retreat for the wealthy people, especially during the summer. In 1859, Sir Hercules Robinson built a path to Victoria Peak. A signal station was set up in 1860. The sixth Governor of HK, Sir Richard MacDonnell had a summer residence built on the Peak circa 1868. Many well-to-do expatri-ates followed. The first police station #6 was built at Victoria Gap in 1869. In 1888, the Peak Tram opened, making accessibility much easier but was still prohibitive to most due to high cost (30 cents ride). Still, British access was privileged while Chinese seating was restricted. For example, during the peak office hours�X8�V10 a.m., the tram is reserved for first-class people, or people with status. In the late 1890s, Europeans flocked to the Peak, to avoid commingling with the Chinese on account of unbearable cultural habits and unhygienic living conditions.329 The last straw was with the 1894 deadly Third Pandemic of Bubonic plague which spread from China to HK, causing thousands of deaths in a few months.
In 1904, the Peak was zoned British by the Peak District Reservation Ordinance, except with the permission of Governor in council. The Peak at the time was referred to by the British as ��Little England��.330
All this changed after WWII.
Policing in the Peak was more about rendering services and providing for emergency relief, than fighting crime and pacifying criminals. This is so for much of the time before 1960 because the Peak was not part of HK, in accessibility, temperature and culture. By the same token, police and polic-ing were not much affected by what was going on in and around the town (Victoria), and totally disconnected from KLN, and NT. Whatever that was of concern downtown HK, rural KLN or undeveloped NT has little to do with people in the Peak. That being the case, what went on in the Peak, stayed in the Peak, unknown to others, was unknowable except for those who lived there. It was an exclusive enclave, in but no of HK.
This final policing the Peak story informed us, clearly, that there was British style�Vcivilian policing in HK, very early on. The existence of British civilian policing in the Peelian mode under a colonial-policing Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) framework raises interesting research questions: How could RIC kind of colonial policing co-exist with British type of civil polic-ing? In as much as RIC-type colonial police officers were recruited, trained, socialised and organised for the colonial policing mission, role and functions, how could and did they perform as a British civil police agent? When HKP offi-cers have to perform both police roles�Xcolonial and civil, at a moment or over time, how might such role expectations and personal experience affect them?
The larger lessons we can draw are, colonial policing or civil policing not-withstanding, policing the rich and powerful is not the same as policing the poor and powerless, that being the case, how might the status of Chinese�Xeconomical, social and political impact on the conduct of colonial policing? For example, would wealthy and/or influential Chinese be treated the same or differently by HKP? If we find that the wealthy and influential Chinese were treated by HKP compatible with their station in the English way, do we still claim discrimination? What if wealthy and influential Chinese were treated by HKP in Chinese ways, commensurate with its wealthy and influ-ential status, but different from British citizens, what then?
VI: HKP Voices
What HKP frontline officers feel, think and (re) act about colonial policing is best captured by their ��voices�� reported in HKPM in the form of ��essays��, ��letters��, ��opinions�� and ��reports��, with formalism and light heartedness in the mix. Interpreted in context, each of them tells us a bit more about ��what is going on inside�� HKP�XJust in Time. Considered cumulatively and in total-ity, they provide us with a distinctive cognitive understanding and emotive resonance of ��what policing is all about�� in HK, in a point of time.
A few words on methods of analysis:
First to notice is that the reports and comments in HKPM reacting to HKP programs or practices is telling of HKP positions from inside, for example, promoting reform, versus revealing of officers�� (readers) concerns, for example, feedback on changes.
Second, as to how to read relevant HKPM items as official promotion or informal feedback, the idea is one of reading behind and between the lines, asking as in here, beyond the levity what is the true intent and real meaning of the message. In cases of policy promotion by HKP, this means reinforcing formal instructions with informal stories and educational essays. This allows officers to have the autonomy and flexibility of choices. In cases of a critique by subordinates, this means affording deniability for the speaker and saving of face by the listener, for example, after work, bar talk or mess night bantering.
Third, in reading behind the lines to ascertain the real meaning and true message, there is a need to take a ��peeling of onion�� approach, that is, there is more than one layer of meaning to a set of comments.
On Police Reform Measures
In summer of 1951, a local newspaper reported on an innovative police patrol by bicycle being experimented within Eastern Divisions. The new bicycle patrol programme was introduced to extend traditional police foot patrol coverage: ��Police are now utilising bicycles in the City and Eastern Divisions to speed up patrolling. They made their appearance in Eastern Division a few weeks ago and on the flat stretches of the mid-levels area a few days ago. An officer said that the men on the beat are now able to cover a much greater area more effectively��.331
This positive, complimentary and promotional news report, meant to showcase HKP reform activities, provided an opportunity for HKP officers to air their deep-seated feelings�Xresentment to the ongoing reform in a light hearted, if sarcastic, way. The message seems to be, police reform is much to do about nothing:
One Divisional Superintendent, in a rural area, is said to have remarked how much the personnel in his Division deprecate this craze for newfangled ideas, and that he sees no reason at all to alter the present arrangement which he has of borrowing a pony and trap for use in cases of extreme emergency. It is rumoured that he is most concerned because there is talk of those modern automobiles and crystal sets being issued to Stations, in fact he does not know what is likely to happen next in ��Sleepy Valley��. This same Divisional Superintendent is said to have recently remarked in public, that he prefers to stick to the ��horse and buggy�� mode of transportation (the anatomy of most of his personnel seems most suited to this), but he is prepared to do all he can to instill some ��devil�� into the Division, by agreeing to the suggestion of his go-ahead D.I. that he should train his dog Pluto to perform second-night patrols, complete with brandy flask at neck. He contends that the development of this idea will ensure coverage of the mountain areas as well as mid-levels. (At the moment the dog is being taught Cantonese in order that he can ring in reports each half hour).332
Coming to the messages of the HKPM reaction piece:
First, it tells us that, more often than not, police reform and innovative measures during the time were not uniformly imposed from HKP HQ but separately developed by divisions. This is so because at the time (the 1950s), the individual police division was a self-contained administrative and opera-tional unit, with the DS as the titular head of the police family.333 As such, the DS��s personality and philosophy dictated what all was going on within his charge, subject to veto by HKP HQ, a veto that was rarely if ever rendered, especially when DS actions were well accepted by locals and not unduly resented by subordinates. DS at the time would most certainly get the nod upstair if he had a track record as a performer and achiever. In those days, reputation matters. With HKP at the time, the evaluation of any policing policy or measures was based on performance, that is, how well did a policy work in practice and how well did the operation/division function/suffer, with or without the policy. In most cases, the litmus test for a policy or deci-sion was a no-trouble�� (�·� ma fang) for senior officers test.
Second, the DS was meant to be the voice of reason, against unreasonable reform. In this regard, the DS made clear that reform measures must be based on local needs or customised to fit street conditions. Transplantation of polic-ing practice from one place to another is not likely to work, at least in the short term. In this case, bike patrol might work well in Central�Vmid-level, but has little use in rural areas where they were sparsely populated and too little activ-ities were going on in between towns (Yueng Long) and villages (Pak Hueng). Time might be better spent commingling with the villagers and befriending them. As a community-policing tool, bike patrol was not the way to go.
Third, the DS made clear that he was against constant changes in a tra-ditional setting, such as rural NT. This is particularly the case when reform measures and programmes were imposed from above, in rapid succession without a detailed consultation and timely notice. ��It is rumoured that he is most concerned because there is talk of those modern automobiles and crystal sets being issued to Stations, in fact he does not know what is likely to happen next in ��Sleepy Valley����.334 Notice that HKP HQ was not only pushing for ��modern automobiles��, but it was also talking about ��crystal sets�� which looked pretty and fragile, not suited to police work, which is rough and tough.335 Even with good measures and ample notice, it nevertheless takes time to adjust and adapt to change meaningfully.