TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 150

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PART VI CONCLUSIONS

(i) a tendency to impute failure to enforce certain laws, particularly in respect of gambling and narcotics, to police inefficiency and corruption without appreciating the difficulties and making allowance for the possibility that effective action was hindered by lack of information, lack of legal proof, limitations of staff, inadequate co-operation from the public and other reasons;

(ii) a belief that police powers were excessive and used in arbitrary fashion: this was specifically related to deportation; a subject on which there appears to be much public misunderstanding; and

(iii) the unpopularity attaching to the police through their dealings with generally law-abiding sections of the public e.g. motorists and hawkers, for what are sometimes called 'technical' offences, where public sympathy is more likely to be attracted to the offender than in other matters,

476. In answering these points, the Commissioner of Police drew attention to the very high rate of crime detection achieved by the police in relation to ordinary crime, which both indicates their efficiency and the contribution they are making to the great measure of personal freedom and liberty enjoyed in Hong Kong combined with reasonable protection for person and property; a difficult task in any community. He went on to mention the number of complaints of all sorts and kinds brought to the police by the public which did not indicate any lack of confidence in the Force in general, and the readiness with which the public turned to the Force for assistance in circumstances of difficulty or disaster, such as fire, floods and the like. He went on to point out the difficulties faced by the Force because of certain long-standing attitudes to police in this part of the world and an innate resistance to certain laws which the police are required to enforce. Left to themselves, without check or control, hawkers, he said, would block every main street in the city and so would the parking of cars. But this was of little assistance to the police when they had to move against the individual hawker, who was anxiously competing for a living, or the individual motorist; any more than when they were required to enforce laws not fully acceptable to substantial sections of the public e.g. provisions relating to gambling and narcotics.

Comment

477. We note that public hostility to the police is a matter of comment and concern in many countries to-day and that experience elsewhere has shown a connection between declining respect for the laws which they are employed to enforce and declining respect for the police.

478. We think much needs to be done in Hong Kong as elsewhere, to educate the public to an understanding of the need for a great deal of the legislation which the police are responsible for enforcing. No constructive purpose is served by

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