ENG-1986 — Page 247

PUBLIC ORDER

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Road safety campaigns continued throughout the year with particular attention being paid to the elderly.

The Road Safety Town at Sau Mau Ping was refurbished during the year and plans are in hand to open two more 'towns' in 1987.

On December 31, provisional figures for accidents causing personal injury showed a decrease of 1.2 per cent overall, with 288 fatalities and 19 420 persons being injured.

Community and Media Relations

The Police Public Relations Branch (PPRB) continued to encourage closer links between the force and the public and to keep the public informed about the force through close co-operation with the media.

Another major territory-wide anti-crime campaign, taking as its theme 'Home Security', was launched to combat the problem of burglaries in residential premises. The campaign featured an intensive 'Fight Crime Month' in September, culminating in ‘Home Security Day' on September 28, during which thousands of young people from a wide variety of youth organisations, including the Junior Police Call, were mobilised to distribute pamphlets containing advice on home security to all residential premises in the territory.

As part of the campaign, the Neighbourhood Watch Scheme was further expanded and two phases were completed during the year. At the end of phase two, a total of 31 152 households had joined the scheme. Public enthusiasm for the scheme remains at a high level. These concentrated efforts to arouse public awareness of simple crime prevention methods and the necessity for home security are showing some encouraging results. For the first time in over 10 years, the figures for burglaries during 1986 showed a decline of 14.3 per cent when compared with 1985, a very welcome trend.

Apart from helping with the Fight Crime Campaign, the police youth movement, the Junior Police Call, has continued to grow and develop. About 3 000 youngsters applied each month to join the JPC, and the total number who have joined the movement since its inception in 1974 is now over 430 000. As well as providing healthy recreational pursuits for its young members, the movement is involved in raising funds for charity, and members take part in a wide variety of community programmes. JPC played a major part in the 'Save a Ring-Pull' campaign launched by the Hong Kong Kidney Patients Trust Fund to raise funds for the treatment of persons suffering from kidney disease.

As part of the on-going efforts to encourage young people to help in the fight against crime, the sixth in a series of 'Young People Help the Police' competitions was held in the spring. From the many thousands of entries, 30 youths were selected to take part in the final, where their talents as 'detectives' were put to the test as they tried to pick out the 'culprit' while watching a specially-made television programme. The entire final was shown on the JPC television programme. The five winners went on a trip to West Germany and the United Kingdom, while the five runners-up went to Thailand.

Another means of encouraging the public in the fight against crime is the Good Citizens' Award Scheme in which those who actively help in arresting criminals are given cash awards. During the year, 75 Good Citizens received awards totalling $122,000. The Good Citizen of the Year Award, which was introduced in 1985 for outstanding efforts by members of the public, continued to

attract nominations, and seven such awards were made during the year, totalling $48,000. The readiness of the public, as a whole, to co-operate with the police was illustrated by the fact that 4 792 criminals were actually arrested by members of the public. This represented 12.6 per cent of the total arrests. The public also continued to make full use of the police ‘hotline' telephone to pass on crime