ENG-1984 — Page 275

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PUBLIC ORDER

The smuggling of children into the territory remained a cause for concern. A total of 180 child illegal immigrants were discovered in 1984, representing a 40 per cent decrease compared with 1983. Most children were brought in by syndicates, some without the knowledge or connivance of their relatives in Hong Kong.

Traffic

New road traffic laws, which were the first major revision since 1959, came into force on August 25 and required considerable effort from the police in explaining to the people the laws' implications and educating them to conform to the new provisions. The changes necessitated retraining on matters of enforcement all Uniform Branch officers, including auxiliary police officers.

Overall traffic conditions improved due to the government's fiscal measures directed at reducing the number of motor vehicles, the opening of new roads such as the Island Eastern Corridor and the effect of other systematic planning measures. However, congestion continued in various areas at peak periods.

Road traffic accidents and casualties continued to decrease, although at a slower rate than in 1983. The total number dropped to 15 098, with 317 fatalities and 19 786 persons injured.

Community and Media Relations

The 1984-5 Prevent Crime Campaign, launched in July, was targetted to reach out and, literally, touch as many people as possible and convince them that the government and the police do care about their safety and security and do value the part they can play in help- ing to curb crime by taking simple, sensible and inexpensive measures to better protect themselves, their families, their homes, their businesses and their motor cars.

'Police and the People Fight Crime Together' was the theme chosen by the FCC to mount the largest crime prevention campaign ever undertaken in Hong Kong. Among several innovations was the production of 10 000 attractively designed kits, each containing samples of crime prevention publicity material and advice (of which there are some five million pieces), and one-million-plus crime prevention wallet cards, more than half of which were handed out to the public by beat police officers to emphasise the force's commitment to the campaign. The rest were given to district community organisations for distribution.

The launching ceremony brought together, for the first time, some 300 District Fight Crime Committee members, over 100 police officers with special responsibilities for community relations and representatives from the Fight Crime Committee, government departments and the security industry.

The campaign, one of only two to be accorded full community involvement status during 1984, was supported at both regional and district level by the City and New Territories Administration and the police.

Junior Police Call (JPC), the world's largest police-youth organisation, celebrated its 10th anniversary. Highlights of the celebrations included a joint production with Radio Television Hong Kong of a new eight-part, drama-documentary On the Beat television series which dealt with youth crime and attracted audiences of over 2.3 million on the two Chinese channels; a five-day Fight Youth Crime Seminar Camp for 900 full-time and 1 000 day campers, a Fight Youth Crime Mini-Olympics and a ‘JPC and the Community' day at Victoria Park.