68. Report of The Commission of Inquiry under Sir Alastair Blair-Kerr, Government Printer, Hong Kong, September 1973.
69. The best short history about corruption in Hong Kong is: de Speville, Bertrand, Hong Kong, Policy Initiatives against Corruption (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1997) pp. 80. For a comprehensive study, see H. J. Lethbridge, Hard Graft in Hong Kong: Scandal, Corruption, the ICAC (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985).
70. Ibid., p. 12.
71. L. Lam, Forty years since its creation, how the ICAC cleaned up corruption in Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 15 February 2014. http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1428093/forty-years-its-creation-how-icac-cleaned-
corruption-hong-kong.
72. Those officers who are on the take are rewarded by ��good�� postings, for example, CID or Vice, and ��golden beats�� (money beats).
73. Sanctions ran from administrative transfer to undesirable sanction, for example, in the mild case being posed to the frontier (then a derogative term suggesting not being wise enough to be on the take), in the medium case being picked on by peers and reprimanded by seniors and in the worse case being disciplined and forced out of HKP, for some conjured-up reasons, for example, dereliction of duties, or no reason at all, that is, trump-up charges. The author was not on the take, and was posed to the frontier, at Sha Tau Kok in 1970.
74. See M. J. Macoun to Mr Crowson, 3 July 1973; FCO 40/451. Additional doc-uments relating to the case can be found in FCO 40/456 and FCO 40/453. Reported in M. Hampton, British legal culture and colonial governance: The attack on corruption in Hong Kong, 1968�V1974, Britain and the World 5.2: 223�V239, 2012, note 24, p. 230.
75. From the Second Report of The Commission of Inquiry under Sir Alastair Blair-Kerr, Government Printer, Hong Kong, September 1973, p. 24, Section 99.
76. R. P. L. Lee, Incongruence of legal codes and folk norms, In: R. P. L. Lee (ed.), Corruption and Its Control in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1981), pp. 75�V104.
77. E. Elliott, The Avarice, Bureaucracy and Corruption of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Friends Commercial Printing Factory, 1971), pp. 12�V14; J. Smart, The Political Economy of Street Hawkers in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1989), see the files in HKRS 301-1-1.
78. The best short history about corruption in Hong Kong is: de Speville, Bertrand, Hong Kong, Policy Initiatives against Corruption (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1997), pp. 80.
79. Godber��s downfall: The landmark case ICAC. http://www.icac.org.hk/new_icac/eng/cases/godber/html/case1.html.
80. For Hong Kong government effort to put corruption under control, see K. Hsin-Chi, Anti-corruption legislation in Hong Kong: A history, In: R. P. L. Lee and T..Cheung (eds.), Corruption and Its Control in Hong Kong: Situation Up to the Late Seventies, (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1981).
81. Godber could be extradited for corruption from England, but not for living beyond means translated into legalese: Possessing Financial Assets Disproportionate to an Official Emolument (Section 10 of Prevention of Bribery Ordinance).
82. Pay out of SP Wan Chai was going for $60 to $100,000/month.
83. The ICAC began its work on 15 February 1974.
84. M. Hampton, British legal culture and colonial governance: The attack on corrup-tion in Hong Kong, 1968�V1974, Britain and the World, 5.2: 223�V239, 232, 2012.
85. S. C. Y. Luk, Questions of ethics in public sector management: The case study of Hong Kong, Public Personnel Management, 41 (2): 361�V378, 2012, n. 18 (refer-encing ICAC Godber case.)
86. R. Yep, The crusade against corruption in Hong Kong in the 1970s: Governor MacLehose as a zealous reformer or reluctant hero? China Information, 27 (2): 197�V221, July 2013.
87. The best short history about corruption in Hong Kong is: de Speville, Bertrand, Hong Kong, Policy Initiatives against Corruption (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1997).
88. See also Confession Statements and their admissibility in criminal proceedings (HKLRC Report). (��The central recommendation of the report is that a mecha-nism should be established to provide an accused person with an early oppor-tunity to raise any complaint of ill treatment by the law enforcement agencies with an independent party��.) http://www.hkreform.gov.hk/en/publications/-radmissibility.htm.
89. Minutes of meeting of the Panel on Security on 11 November 1996 (LC Paper No. CB(2) 1545/96-97). http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr96-97/english/panels/se/minutes/se 111196.htm.
90. LegCo Sitting (Hansard) 2 November 1995. http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr95-96/-english/lc_sitg/hansard/han0211.htm
91. Coopers and Lybrand, The Review of the Top Management Structure of the Royal Hong Kong Police: Final Report. London: Coopers & Lybrand, 1993.
92. Emphasis on discipline with a ��can do spirit�� and problem-oriented approach, lifetime commitment with a strong sense of loyalty and ��esprit de corps��, strong rank consciousness and formalised internal communication and control system.
93. Ibid., 71.
94. Coopers and Lybrand, The proper title of the Cooper and Libra study was: ��Report on the Command Structure and Manning Level Review of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force��.
95. The LegCo Panel for Security, subcommittee on PMR has divided the PMR into the following classifications: Maintenance of law and order; prevention and detection of crime; enlistment of public support for the Force; reduction of traf-fic accidents; field of operations and others.
96. Hong Kong Legislative Council, Official record of proceedings, Wednesday, 29 March 1995. The council met at half-past 2.o��clock. Secretary for Security brief-ing on law and order in Hong Kong.
97. Hong Kong Legislative Council, Official record of proceedings, 30 November 1994. (��MR JAMES TO asked (in Cantonese): Mr President �K (a) when the details of the Report will be disclosed, so that the public and Members of this Council can have specific and accurate information for analysis and discussion and will thus be able to reflect their views to the Government; and (b) whether the Government is of the view that the appropriate time to release details of the Report is when it applies to the Finance Committee for funds to implement the measures recommended in the Report; if so, what the reasons are and whether the Report will be released in full then��?)
98. ��In May 1995, the Administration released 41 reports arising from a review of the manpower requirements of the Police Force. On account of the magnitude of subjects covered and the vast number of reports involved, the Security Panel decided on the formation of a subcommittee to examine the reports in more detail. The Subcommittee to study the reports of the Police Management Review was accordingly formed in May 1995��.
99. Parliamentary monitoring mechanism in Intelligence Agencies, RP03/95-96 Research and Library Services Division, Legislative Council Secretariat, October 1995.
100. 1994�V1995 Hon James to Kun-sun (Chairman) Hon Mrs Selina Chow, Obe, JP Hon Zachary Wong Wai-yin 1995�V1996 Hon James to Kun-sun (Chairman) Hon Mrs Selina Chow, Obe, JP Hon Andrew Cheng Kar-foo (until 29 April 1996) Hon Cheung Hon-chung Hon Ho Chun-yan Hon Bruce Liu Sing-lee terms of reference 4. The terms of reference of the subcommittee is ��to con-sider the reports of the Police Management Review and to make appropriate recommendations��. LegCo Panel on Security, Report of the Subcommittee on the Police Management Review. LegCo Paper No. CB(2) 120/96-97. Ref: CB2/PS/4/95. http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr96-97/english/panels/se/papers/se2810-3.htm
101. Finance Committee�XEstablishment Subcommittee (Papers) 9 July 96. Item for establishment subcommittee of finance committee. Head 122�XPolice: Royal Hong Kong Police Force. Subhead 001 salaries EC(96�V97)32 on 9 July 1996. http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr95-96/english/fc/esc/papers/es090732.htm
102. Bokhary, Justice, The LKF Disaster on January 1 1993: Interim Report, Government Printer, 1993.
103. 20 killed in Hong Kong stampede, Independence, 1 January 1993. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/20-killed-in-hong-kong-stampede-1476034.html
104. Dr. G. Keith Still, 2.1. Crowded disasters, Safer Crowd (2000�V2012). http://www.safercrowds.com/CrowdDisasters.html.
105. There were a total of 13 Commissions of Inquiry appointed by the Chief Executive in Council (or formerly the Governor in Council) between 1966 and 2003, starting with the Commission of Inquiry into Kowloon Disturbances which was appointed under the Commissioners Powers Ordinance (1) or Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance (Chapter 86) (12). None of them deal with fatalities resulting from crowd stamped. Information note Commissions of Inquiry, Legislative Council Secretariat, 20 March 2003. (Ref.: IN19/02-03).
106. Immediately (2 days) after the LKF incident, Hong Kong Governor Paten appointed the Honorary Justice Bokhary to inquire into the accident. The pre-liminary report was ready by 18 January 1993, and the final report published on 23 February 1993. Bokhary, Justice, The LKF Disaster on January 1 1993: Interim Report, Government Printer, 1993.
107. Cheng, Long-ping, Johnny, A consideration of the contagion and emergent-norm theories: A case study of LKF. MA dissertation, Centre for the Study of Public Order, University of Leicester in association with School of Professional and Continuing Education, University of Hong Kong, 1994.
108. The police officers on duty that night, being defensive, held a totally different view of what happened. The HKP officers felt that the there was nothing unusual about the crowd, in size, constitution or behaviour. In fact, they were fairly well behaved, given their collective mentality and festive mood. See Chapter 5, ibid.
109. K. Bokhary, Inquiry of the LKF disaster: Final Report 1993 Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong Government Printer, 1993.
110. K. K. Wu, C. C. Lu and E. Y. Leung, Responding to the LKF disaster: A case study from Hong Kong, Community Psychologist, 28 (5): 28�V30, 1995; R. A. Cocks, The medical management of civil disasters in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Journal of Emergency Medicine, 3: 179�V184, 2000; W. M. Fung, K. Y. Lai and A..Y. Loke, Nurses�� perception of disaster: Implications for disaster nursing cur-riculum, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 18 (22): 3165�V3171, 2009. (��Only 123 out of the 164 respondents (75%) gave a description of disaster in the open-ended question. Sixty-one per cent of them described unfortunate events with large numbers of victims as disasters. The ��LKF tragedy�Xstampede caused by over-crowdedness�� (90.9%) and the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak (89.6%) were commonly referred to as disasters in Hong Kong. Fires in tall buildings (61.6%), infectious disease outbreaks (61%) and stampedes caused by overcrowding (48.8%) were rated as the events most likely to happen in Hong Kong��.) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19619209.
111. R. S. C. Lee and R. L. Hughes, Exploring trampling and crushing in a crowd, Journal of Transportation Engineering, 131 (8): 575�V583, 2005; http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-947X(2005)131:8(575); R. S. C. Lee and R. L. Hughes, Minimisation of the risk of trampling in a crowd, Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, 74 (1): 29m�V37m, 2007.
112. HKP internal study of LKF included a model replication by SP Chin, then a CIP with BSU (Briefing and Support Unit), HKP. ��Retiring OC BSU looks back on his secondary duty��, (��After serving as BSU��s Second-in-Command, SP Chin was appointed OC in 1994, and has been leading the unit to take part in Force-wide Counter Terrorism Exercises. During his time in BSU, SP Chin also led its members in a number of extremely complex tasks, including provid-ing scale models for the following incidents: ��Shek Kong Camp Fire (1992)��; ��LKF Tragedy (1993)��; ��Garley Building Fire (1996)��, ��Mei Foo Sun Chuen Fire (1997)��, ��Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital Vascular System Failure (1998)��, ��Hei Ling Chau Riot (2000)��, ��Tsui Chuk Garden Explosion (2002)��, ��Tuen Mun Highway Bus Accident (2003)��, ��Homantin Service Reservoir Police Opened Fire (2009)��, and ��Rizal Park and Coach Hostage Incident in Manila (2010)��.��. Those models provided great assistance to end users and drew rare praise by police officers, judges, coroners, lawyers and jury members. OffBeat, 961, 2012.
113. O. W. M. Fung and A. Y. Loke, Disaster preparedness of families with young chil-dren in Hong Kong, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 38: 880�V888, 2010.
114. Ibid., p. 884, Table II.
115. After the LKF incident, the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) of The Hong Kong Psychological Society set up a Critical Incident Team (CIT) in February 1993 to provide post-disaster psychological services in Hong Kong. http://www.dcp.hkps.org.hk/cit.php.
116. For a blogger��s rendition of the tragic event and take away, see Marc Perton, Take a cup of kindness for LKF. (31 December 2006). (��Suddenly, what had started as a peaceful New Year��s Eve celebration turned into a panicked mob, with all 20,000 souls rushing to get off of the street. When the melee ended, 21 people were dead and more than 100 were injured�K. LKF became synonymous with death��.). http://www.perton.com/2006/12/31/take-a-cup-of-kindness-for-lan-kwai-fong-2/.
117. The HK government proposed to organise a New Year party up the peak to divert people and traffic from Central and LKF. An anxious Legco member immediately asked:
a. ��of the estimated number of participants in the celebration programme on that night;
b. whether it is expected that the activities there will help ease the overcrowding at LKF as experienced on similar occasions in the past;
c. (c)what measures will be taken by the police and other departments con-cerned for crowd control including contingency measures to cope with emer-gency cases, if any, at the two locations on that night��? The Secretary for Security was equally quick in providing reassurance: ��Mr President, yes, I can confirm that. The lesson learnt from the tragedy that occurred last year have been taken into account, not just in the event planned for this New Year, but in events that have taken place earlier this year. Loudhailers are used extensively, and specifically in Victoria Park there is a one-way pedes-trian flow arrangement that has been introduced, and for that matter it will also be introduced at LKF to ensure that there is no buildup of crowds. And therefore no situation will arise that might result in an emergency��. Official proceeding records, Hong Kong Legislative Council�X15 December 1993.
118. M. Ingham, Hong Kong a Cultural History (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 146.
119. Installation of closed-circuit television systems at LKF. Item I of LC Paper No. CB(2)1444/01-02(01) Security Bureau. March 2002.
120. Traffic and crowd management during Halloween: LKF and Halloween crowd control set for LKF, Law and order Hong Kong Government, 27 October 2002. http://www.police.gov.hk/pprb/peb/english/102907_e.html; 27 October 2003 respectively. http://archive.news.gov.hk/isd/ebulletin/en/category/lawandorder/.031027/html/031027en08002.htm Crowd management and traffic arrangements during Halloween in LKF, Business News Asia, 27 October 2011 (��Police will implement crowd control measures and special traffic arrangements in LKF from 29 October to 1 November to facilitate the public to celebrate the Halloween��.). http://asiarelease.asia/crowd-management-and-traffic-arrangements-during-halloween-in-lan-kwai-fong/.
121. Since then, mass gatherings have grown in frequencies, size, complexity, sophisti-cation and audacities, making HKP crowd management and control duties more onerous and difficult. Chapter 8: Hong Kong Police Force, Hong Kong Government, 2008, 8.8 (d), p. 117, Crowd Management, Policing Public Order Events and Major Events. http://www.jsscs.gov.hk/reports/en/scds_gs_08/gs_ch8.pdf.
122. S. Leese, LKF: From sweaty taverns to decadent discos, Cable News Network, 6 September 2010. (LKF was ushered into existence in 1983 with the opening of the California Bar, and later Disco Disco. LKF was famous for everything that goes jet-set life style, where drinks, drugs and sex were dispensed within abundance, all within the yards of Central Police Station and Victoria Prison. It was demolished on 2.September 2010 to make way for real-estate development.) See also S��porean under-graduate gang-raped in Hong Kong, asiaone.com 8 July 2010. http://www.asiaone.com/News/The%2BNew%2BPaper/Story/A1Story20100706-225546.html. http://www.cnngo.com/hong-kong/drink/lan-kwai-fong-used-to-be-more-fun-262656.
123. Hong Kong people��s view towards privacy is mixed, attitudinally, cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally. For example, according to a survey, a majority is mindful of their privacy rights, but chose not to take steps to protect their enti-tlement, accepted on rare occasions. See ��Social Attitude Towards Privacy�� in Graham Greenleaf, Comparative study of different approaches to new privacy challenges: Country study�XHong Kong (European Commission. Directorate�XGeneral justice, freedom and security, 29 May 2010), pp. 3�V4. (Public awareness is high, but activism is low. Elite knowledge and activism is high, but achieve-ment is insignificant.)
124. P. Tsang, Legco CCTV cameras raise privacy concerns, South China Moring Post, 15.April 2011. http://topics.scmp.com/news/hk-news-watch/article/Legco-.CCTV-
cameras-raise-privacy-concerns.
125. Audit Commission: Vision, mission, values. http://www.aud.gov.hk/eng/aboutus/.about_vision.htm.
126. Audit Commission: About us: Regularity audit. http://www.aud.gov.hk/eng/aboutus/about_regm.htm.
127. Audit Commission: About us: Value for money audit. http://www.aud.gov.hk/eng/aboutus/about_valm.htm.
128. http://www.aud.gov.hk/pdf_e/e44ch06_summary.pdf.
129. Ibid., para. 1, p. 1.
130. Ibid., para. 2.
131. Ibid., para. 4, 5, 6, pp. 1�V2.
132. Ibid., para. 9, p. 2.
133. Ibid., para. 2, p. 1.
134. Ibid., para. 3.
135. Ibid., para. 8, p. 2.
136. Ibid., para. 10, pp. 2�V3.
137. Ibid., Delay in completion of the station improvement project�XInsufficient internal communication, para. 2, p. 1.
138. Ibid., Management of pilot schemes, para. 3.
139. Ibid., Usage of identified spare spaces, para. 4.
140. Ibid.
141. Ibid., Additional spare space in the Tsing Yi Police Station, para. 5, p. 2.
142. Ibid., Surplus accommodation, para. 6.
143. Ibid., Remodeled report rooms.
144. Ibid., Need for reception area and deployment of staff to reception are, para. 7.
145. Ibid.
146. Ibid., Carpet problem in the back of house area, para. 8.
147. Ibid., Information kiosks in report rooms, p. 2.
148. Ibid., Hardware not in use, para. 9.
149. Ibid., Usage of information kiosks, para. 10.
150. Ibid., Alternative use of information kiosks, para. 11.
151. Ibid., Information kiosks not functioning properly, para. 12.
152. Ibid., Usage of resource centres, para. 13, p. 3.
153. Ibid., Resource centres in close proximity, para. 14.
154. Ibid., Late involvement of stakeholders, para. 15.
155. Ibid., Efficient use of resources, para, 17, p. 4.
156. Ibid., Congested accommodation in merged police stations, para. 16.
Table 5.1.Number of Corruption Reports Received (Excluding Election-Related Reports)
Year
Total
1974
3189
1975
3179
1976
2433
1977
1700
1978
1234
1979
1665
1980
1772
1981
2344
1982
2286
1983
2516
1984
2365
1985
2474
1986
2545
1987
2299
1988
2162
1989
2388
1990
2390
1991
2186
1992
2257
1993
3276
1994
3312
1995
2987
1996
3086
1997
3057
1998
3555
1999
3561
2000
4390
2001
4476
2002
4371
2003
4310
2004
3746
2005
3685
2006
3339
2007
3600
2008
3377
2009
3450
2010
3427
2011
3868
2012
3731
2013
2514
Table 5.2.Breakdown of Complaints: 2012 versus 2013 (Excluding Election-Related Complaints)
.
Jan.�VDec. 2012
Jan.�VDec. 2013
Percentage Change
Total
3932
2652
.33%
Government sector
1192
808
.32%
�XPolice
342
250
.27%
Other government departments
850
558
.34%
Private sector
2483
1649
.34%
Public bodies
257
195
.24%
Note: The breakdown is based on complaints against different departments/public bodies/industries. As a corruption report may have multiple complaints in respect of the above, the total number of complaints may be larger than the total number of corruption reports.
Table 5.3.Prosecutions90
.
Jan.�VDec. 2012
Jan.�VDec. 2013
Percentage Change
Persons prosecuted
196
215
+10%
Completed prosecutions
227
198
.13%
Persons convicted
171
155
.9%
Persons cautioned
27
24
.11%
Government servants recommended for disciplinary/administrative action.
228
Policing in Hong Kong
229
Policing in Colonial Hong Kong
227
6
Policing in Colonial Hong Kong
Introduction
Before diving into an investigation on HKP reform, it is best to describe what colonial policing was like, in characteristics and from experience. This chap-ter comprises five sections: Section I, ��Policing with Colonial Characteristics��, provides a list of defining characteristics of colonial policing; a macro pic-ture. It examines (colonial) policing in Hong Kong in snap shots: historically, locally, culturally and politically. Section II ��Historical Developments of the HKP�� provides an official view of how HKP developed over time. This shows how the HKP sees its own development. ��Colonial Policing: Continuity and Change�� (Section III) discusses what it was like to police Hong Kong in a dif-ferent era in the 1880s and 1920s, with three case studies of police careers. This creates ��up close and personal�� illustrations of how HKP and policing in Hong Kong have changed over time. Section IV, ��Police Reformers��, discusses selected HKP senior officers who contributed to HKP reform or left a mark. It makes the point that police reform is as much about personality as it is about leadership. Section V is a brief ��Conclusion��. All told, this chapter allows read-ers to see HKP reform in a different light, that is, as an enrichment project�Xdialogue with many, and not a monologue of one.
I: Policing with Colonial Characteristics
First, Hong Kong population, then as now, is predominantly Chinese. In April of 1843, there were about 19,000 people (12,561 people in March 1842) of which not more than 500 were foreigners. In 1961, there were 33,140 British and Commonwealth subjects in Hong Kong, excluding the armed forces. There were 16,607 other non-Chinese residents (2103 Americans, 323 French, 1863 Portuguese, 652 Japanese, 422 Filipinos, 386 Dutch, 329 Indonesian and 300 German). Hong Kong was also an international city, acting as a gateway to China before 1997. Hong Kong policing is Chinese policing with a distinc-tive British flavour, and international orientation.
Second, until very recently, people of Hong Kong were rootless and restless.1 There were very few permanent residents of Hong Kong. Migrants, Chinese and Europeans came to Hong Kong to make quick money. Most of them have no intention of remaining. In time, everyone wanted to return to their respective homeland, to live, to retire or just to die. Hong Kong is a transient community. For example, in the 1840s, most migrants to Hong Kong were young and single. There were few families, and males outnumbered females by 6�V7 to 1. In 1948, on the eve of the communist takeover, 2 million people entered the Colony.2 Since 1844 and until the 1950s, Hong Kong adopted an open-door policy to refugees from other places, such as China and Vietnam; many entered illegally. Hong Kong had a difficult time in setting the boundary and imposing control on people entering and leaving; try, for example, branding and exile. In the early days of the Colony, Chinese from Kowloon could make the trip across the harbour with ease. In the later years, Mainlanders from China could cross into Hong Kong with little hindrance, notwithstanding police effort. This means that Hong Kong��s economy and society has always been intimately related to China��s fortunes, and most certainly impacted by whoever enters across the border in mass and individually for economic or criminal reasons:
The ingress of over 700,000 refugees from mainland China since 1949 has had a marked effect on the labour situation in the Colony, the chief characteris-tic of which is an excess of unskilled labour. Previously the ebb and flow of the working population was closely aligned to the economic opportunities in Hong Kong and China. The refugees, however, have shown no desire to return to the mainland, even though Hong Kong is unable to offer to all the prospect of earning a reasonable living.3
It also means that, save for the European elites, there were few cohesive communities. Loose-knitted groups had little incentive and capacity to self-police.4 It is no surprise that Hong Kong has been called a ��Borrowed Time, Borrowed Place�� kind of town.5 Hong Kong policing is more about keeping order and making peace more so than law enforcement and social control within a transient population. Self-help was the norm.
Third, Hong Kong��s political economy and social conditions are much affected by the mainland. Since the 1950s, Hong Kong shares a lengthy, porous and restricted border with China. However, the border does not and cannot stop all contacts between the mainland and Hong Kong, for example, illegal immigrants travelling to the South and families visiting the North. Hong Kong policing, colonial and now SAR, is and has been very much affected by what happens across the border; witness the Opium War in the 1840s, Taiping rebellion in the 1850s�V1970s, political struggle (cultural revo-lution) in the 1960s and economic development in the 1990s. Hong Kong policing is cross-border policing.6
Fourth, Hong Kong is a barren rock. It is often said that Hong Kong��s claim to success is Chinese entrepreneurial skills and industry spirit, with the British rule of law having played an important role. As observed by Endacott: ��The success of Hong Kong as an important commercial centre has been its stability�K. British law courts have had the confidence of the population��.7 The Hong Kong Police, by necessity, has to play an important role in main-taining order, stability and prosperity, for Hong Kong to survive and prosper.
Fifth, Hong Kong was a Crown Colony; administered by a governor appointed by the Crown and assisted by an executive council and a legislative council. On this count, Pottinger, when asked by Lord Aberdeen on political administration in Hong Kong, made clear that there would be ��no popular form of government��.8 Hong Kong policing was colonial policing, an instru-ment of control,9 albeit with a Chinese touch.
Sixth, as a Crown Colony, Hong Kong was administered in line with British foreign policy and strategic interests. Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for War and Colonies (1841�V1945), wrote a letter to Pottinger in June 1843 to make clear that Hong Kong was to serve as a diplomatic, commer-cial and military post.10 Hong Kong policing is about keeping order within, for example, Chinese gangs, and security without, for example, pirates in and around the Colony.11
Seventh, Hong Kong was administered in line with Chinese local customs and needs. In this regard, Hong Kong colonial administration reflected British philosophy, political values and administrative conve-nience.12 Lord Aberdeen made clear to Pottinger that in terms of legal administration and police regulations, it was best to ��satisfy the claims of the British�� as well as ��conciliate the respect and fall in the manners of the Chinese subjects of Her Majesty.�� The HKP made every attempt to meet the local needs and follow indigenous customs, without compromising British values or interests. Viewed in this light, colonial policing sought mutual accommodation and flexible negotiation, rather than unilateral imposition and forceful domination.
II: Historical Developments of the HKP
Conventional wisdom had it that the HKP, building on the past, reformed and transformed itself in the run up to 1997, in multi-farious ways, from vision and mission to organisation, to operations, to culture and style. This is what the HKP said of the ��Historical Developments of the HKP�� in hindsight:
The early police in Hong Kong were established in 1844. The early 20th century saw the HKP building its policing capabilities, with the Criminal Investigation Department established in the 1920s and the first Emergency Unit formed in 1930, to deal with serious crimes and minor disturbances. After World War II, the HKP reorganized itself by recruiting ex-servicemen abroad and at home. The Police Tactical Unit was formed after riots in 1956, and given the responsibility of maintaining internal security, thus provid-ing the HKP with a permanent reserve for emergencies. The 1970s marked the beginning of the formative years of present-day policing. The HKP Complaints Office and the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) were formed in 1973 and 1974 respectively following a series of seri-ous corruption cases. Police Public Relations Bureau (PPRB) implemented the Police Community Officer Scheme in 1974 to improve relations with the public.
Management reforms gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s. The arrival of Mr. Christopher Patten, the last governor, in Hong Kong in 1992 brought the UK ��citizens�� charter�� concept of administrative responsiveness and quality service delivery to Hong Kong. Within the HKP, Service Quality Wing was established in 1994, taking over HKP inspections and instituting numerous service quality initiatives.13
The all-too-brief historical account of HKP development informed the readers about various kinds of ad hoc and piecemeal advancements through the years, for example, the establishment of Crime Investigation Department (CID) in the 1920s and EU in the 1930s, or the formation of ICAC and PPRB in the 1970s. The CID made HKP more effective in fighting crime. The EU made HKP speedier in attending to emergencies. The ICAC made HKP more accountable to the law and PPRB brought the HKP closer to the public. The systematic and comprehensive management reform in HKP started in the 1980s and 1990s, with the objectives of providing more responsive services to the public (��Citizens�� Charter�� (1992)) and achieving quality policing in the HKP (��Service Quality Wing�� (1994)).
The above presentation from HKP College accurately describes various milestones in the development of HKP. However, this slim account, while informative for the purpose of presaging the need and effort in leadership in the last decade (1990�V2010), is not adequate in providing the discerning public with an appreciation of the import and significance of such and other events in HKP development history. For this, the public has to consult ��Police History�� parts of HKP website.
If the public were to consult HKP�X��Police History��, it would be informed that there are three main inflection points to HKP development history: ��The Modern Era 1945�V67��, ��Creating a Legend 1967�V94�� and ��Changes to the Policing Model and the Return of Sovereignty 1994�V99��.
The Modern Era 1945�V6714 informs that ��In 1945, the force had to be built anew�� and the Commissioner Duncan Maclntosh (1946�V1953) was the one we looked towards for leadership and answers. He did not fail. He rebuilt the debilitated and dispirited HKP from the ground up. Under his watch, he established a new HKP HQ in Arsenal Yard, trained up a new force in thousands and built a border defence system with interlocking police points known as Maclntosh Cathedrals, all the while fighting criminals and gangs on the street, stopping illegal immigrants at the border, controlling civil unrests in the Colony, responding to natural disasters in storm and fire and fighting off provocations from China. The era ended with the bestowing of the honour of Royal Hong Kong Police.
In all, ��Commissioner Maclntosh laid strong foundations for a force meant to last. His redoubtable, forceful personality had transformed the disjointed, shattered police into an effective and stable force. This had happened just in time for them to cope with a calamity, both natural and manmade.��
Creating a Legend 1967�V94.15 This era is marked by three broad themes, in police reform, all in one way or another to improve the standing of the HKP in the eyes of the public, that is, a clean police force with high integrity. First, under the strong leadership of the Commissioner Charles Sutcliffe (1969�V1974), the HKP was able to defange all the powerful Staff Sergeants, particularly the CID, who for all intent and purpose controls the front-line police operations by way of discipline of subordinates, coopta-tion of seniors and bribing of all. Second, the establishment of the ICAC was precipitated by the Chief Superintendent Godber corruption probe. Third, the continuation of HKP outreach to the public, particularly the young, with Junior Police Call.
Changes to the Policing Model and the Return of Sovereignty 1994�V99.16 This era is marked by radical political change in the community, that is, the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The occasion allows the HKP to rethink its mission, restructure its organization and rewire its operations. ��As the nature of Hong Kong society changed, the police force also changed with it, moving away from a para-military policing model to become a service orientated modern force, determined to engage the public in crime preven-tion, and remaining open and accountable for its actions. This change did not happen overnight; cultures take time to adjust. The professionalism of the serving officers, coupled with continued recruitment of motivated officers with higher academic standards, and introduction of information technol-ogy, enabled the Force to move forward and meet the rising expectations of the Hong Kong public��.
To summarise, the three periods of police show that the HKP has suc-cessfully modernised (1950s), cleaned (1960s�V1970s) and professionalised (1990s) itself in the face of trying circumstances and overwhelming odds, and it ��is committed to seeking continuous improvement to meet the chal-lenges of an ever-changing future��.17
The above ��Police History�� of HKP, while more substantive than that of the HKP College version, still falls far short than what is needed to under-stand the dynamics and impact of change sufficient to plot the trend and assess the impact of change.
III: Colonial Policing: Continuity and Change
A good march through the Settlement streets also served to remind Shanghai��s residents where power lay.18
Robert A. Bickers (2003)
The study of policing in Hong Kong has always been conducted from afar, outside in and a top-down perspective. There is a need to look at polic-ing in Hong Kong from a personal perspective, bottom up.19 The following pages will look at the career and experience of three police officers from different eras: Inspector Quincey (1870�V1890), CIP Reynolds (1910�V1932) and Chief.Inspector Andrew (1912�V1938); read together, they tell us how HKP.and policing have changed, over time, before and after the Second World War.
In terms of analysis, the following questions will be raised, as appro-priate: How was the HKP organised? Who joined the HKP? What were the requirements and process? How was HKP trained? What was the role and function of the HKP? How was policing conducted in Hong Kong, in process and style? What was the working relationship between HKP colleagues and with the public? How were HKP officers supervised and held accountable? What were some of the problems and issues with policing in Hong Kong? What was the organisational culture of HKP? How have the above aspects and dimensions of HKP changed over time?
Inspector Quincey (1870�V1890)20
Inspector Quincey was the first Chinese HKP Inspector in Hong Kong. Quincey was born in Quinsa (Kunshan) County, Jiangsu Province, China, in about 1850�V1851. Quincey was an orphan. He was adopted by Major Charles Gordon (DOB: 1833) of the Royal Engineer Corps who came to China in 1860. Quincey returned to England with his father in 1864. There he acquired a British education.
Quincey joined the HKP in October 1870.21 In 1870, under the young and energetic leadership of Captain Superintendent Walter Meredith Deane,22 HKP changed its recruitment focus from European to British officers. This moved the HKP entries from diversity to uniformity in background. From the 3 years of experimentation with International Recruitment Program, Deane learned that ��The excessive diversity in races and creeds among the officers, and the lack of universality in their background and training had made managing the Force incredibly, and unreasonably, difficult��.
Quincey joined HKP in a personal and backdoor way by passing the rudimental recruiting process in place. His father Major Gordon was on good relationship with Governor Kennedy (1872�V1877). Quincey first worked as a batman (attendant to military officers) to Kennedy and next, he was inducted into the HKP as a police sergeant. Eight years later, on 21 August 1880, Quincey was promoted by Governor Hennessey as an Inspector third class with a salary of $840 in 1887. He was made Inspector second class in 1888 with a salary of $920, and later increased to $1091. A Chief Inspector was making $1440 at the time in 1879.
On 22 April 1882, Quincey petitioned for naturalisation as a British citi-zen and was granted on 24 March 1883.
At the time (1882), the ��HKP boasted 117 Europeans, 172 Indians and 197 Chinese, and 183 men from Water Police, majority of them Chinese: 1 Chief Superintendent ($3,840), 1 Adjutant (Army secondment), 1 Chief Inspector ($1,440), 12 Inspectors (4 First Class ($1,200), 3 Second Class ($960); 4 Third Class ($720), 1 unclassified�Xthat being Quincey ($540, plus $60 for good conduct and $108 for special service, totaling $708), 11 Sergeants ($540) and 88 Constables ($480) [Essentially, Quincey was under the pay grade of an European sergeant. An Indian sergeant received $270, and his Chinese coun-terpart $300]��.23
The appointment as Inspector was not well received by his peers. It was reported by Hong Kong Daily Press: ��Sergeant Quincey has been transformed by His Excellency the Governor into an Inspector, and that considerable dis-satisfaction prevails among the members of the Police force at the appoint-ment, more particularly since he was, though nominally a sergeant, acted as an attendant at Government House.��
Quincey��s peers had reasons to complain. Quincey was a Chinese. He was being promoted too fast. He did not earn his rank by merit at work and seniority in place. Quincey built his career on account of his father��s rela-tionship with the governors. Still in all, Quincey was the right person at the right time. He was then the only Chinese Inspector in the 666 men strong HKP.24 The HKP needed Chinese officers to communicate with and fight crime in the Chinese community. Not long after, Quincey was promoted again in 1884 to Detective Inspector in charge of the whole Chinese detective contingent. Quincey was also responsible for liaison with the Chinese police authority. In such capacities, Quincey was allowed to travel between Hong Kong and China, to investigate cases and make arrests. In 1881, Quincey arrested 13 men based on Chinese requests. But Governor Hennessy wanted to have nothing to do with it since there was no legal arrangement between China and Hong Kong.
A cursory inspection of the China Mail of the time showed that Quincey was very productive and very successful as a police officer. The Editor in Chief of China Mail and its publisher George Murray Bain lauded Quincey as an overachiever and rising star. Bain was one of his followers and made sure Hong Kong people felt the same. The following are some of the news items from The China Daily about Quincey��s exploits:
16 November 1883: Arrested and prosecuted a person in possession of a huge amount of smuggled opium.
9 December 1884: On 8 December 1884, at 8.30 p.m., Inspector Quincey and Sergeant Butlkin and a ��lukong�� (Chinese officer) stopped and searched a suspected person who tried to elude the offi-cers. He was found with 1 pound of gunpowder, kerosene-saturated paper and a box of matches. He was also armed with a dagger, eight skeleton keys and two pawn tickets. He was charged with illegal possessions.
17 July 1886: Inspector Quincey charged three Chinese dealers for the possession of light scales and measures. One was fined $10 and the other was fined two $15 each.
21 August 1886: Inspector Quincey was not able to track down a crimi-nal Beltran who escaped to Canton.
2 March 1887: Inspector Quincey arrested two dealers and Sergeant Mann in the Pak Kop Piu lottery and were fined $100 each at the Police Court on 1 March 1887. One paid immediately. The other would not be far behind.
7 March 1887: Inspector Quincey arrested two Chinese servants of Messrs. Blackhead & Co. for stealing various items worth $17. They were sentenced to 3 months of hard labour.
7 September 1887: Inspector Quincey arrested three men who were suspected of burglaries attack on Messrs. Blackhead & Co.��s house at Tsim Sha Tsui. They were remanded for further investigation in Police Court.
12 September 1887: Inspector Quincey charged six men with public gambling. The first defendant was fined $50 or 6 weeks�� impris-onment. The others were sentenced to a fine of $5 or 14 days of imprisonment.
18 September 1890 (Hong Kong Telegraph): Detective Quincey and Haddon raided a gambling den and arrested the keeper. He was sen-tenced to 4 months�� imprisonment with hard labour.
24 October 1890: Inspector Quincey and others arrested two gambling club managers in Stanley Street. They were bailed at $250 for each prisoner.
19 November 1890 (Hong Kong Telegraph): Detective Inspector Quincey and Sergeant Mclver arrested an embezzler from Macau to be appeared in Police Court tomorrow.
16 June 1891: Detective Inspector Quincey and Sergeant Hadden arrested a man wanted by China on 15 June, 1891.
16 November 1894: Inspector Quincey charged an eating place in Bonham Strand for selling intoxicating liquors without licence. The case was dismissed, as there were no legal sales within the meaning of an act.
3 May 1895: Inspector Quincey saved a drowning Chinaman at Yaumati and gave artificial respiration.
22 April 1887 (The Brisbane Courier): Inspector Quincey was charged with accidental killing of a Chinese fruit hawker while chasing a thief. The manslaughter charge was later withdrawn. See also: 13 March 1887 (unknown): Inspector Quincey shot and killed a Chinese bystander with his service revolver, when he was not able to overtake. He was the first Chinese to be armed, shot and killed on duty with a service revolver. He was also the first Chinese police officer to be charged with manslaughter.
In 1878 Pope-Hennessy ordered firearm training for selected Chinese officers. By September of 1878, 30�V40 Chinese constables were armed with rifles when they were on their night duties. That protocol was revoked in 1883 with Hennessy leaving, but was again approved in the 1920s.
In 1855, a Bubonic plague (Third Plague Pandemic) broke out in Yunnan Province. In 1894, it spread to Canton. In June of 1894, the death toll stood at 60,000. Quincey raised the first alarm on 26 April 1894 at a Hong Kong Sanitary Board meeting. 12 days later, Hong Kong was diagnosed with the first case of plague, with 20 more suspected cases at Tung Wah Hospital. On 8 May 1894, Hong Kong was proclaimed to be an infected port.
On 1 March 1895, for his plague-related services, Inspector Quincey was awarded a Plague Medal from Governor Robinson, as did Chief Inspector John Mathieson, and Inspectors George Hennessy, George Kemp, Alexander Mackie, J.W. Hanson, A. Mann and the acting Inspector William Bake. Quincey��s medal citation read: ��Inspector Quincey was employed on actual plague work for a few days only, his state of health not permitting, but he rendered valuable services as an interpreter in obtaining informa-tion on all matter connected with the movement of the Chinese and other otherwise��.
As the first Chinese Inspector of HKP, Quincey��s various achievements captured the attention of the media and imagination of the public, naturally. But for that, he also paid a high personal price. He was hated by his European peers, challenged by British subordinates and belittled by the Chinese offi-cers. The European peers resented him for not having earned his keeps. Their attitude was that Chinese are not suitable for being a police constable, much less being an Inspector. The British subordinates challenged his authority. They refused to salute and obey the Chinese as a senior officer. The Chinese officers belittled him because he was a turncoat�Xa foreign bloke (��wei jiang lo��). Quincey could not be trusted, as a snitch for the British -colonial administration.
The final chapter of Quincey��s career with HKP was a tragic, anti--climatic one. He was summarily fired from the HKP for engaging in cor-ruption. In the late 1880s, Captain Superintendent Deane was shot during a police raid. He retired a few years later in 1892. Major General (ret.) Alexander Gordon took over. He was taken ill and died after taking a medical leave. Mr.Francis May, a veteran Cadet officer who was the private secretary to the 10th Colonial Governor George William Des Voeux, was appointed as Captain Superintendent on 10 February 1893.25
May was obsessed with law enforcement. In June 1897, May and his assis-tant CIP Alexander Macie conducted a series of gambling raids. The raids grabbed books which documented the largest Chinese gambling syndicate in Hong Kong in Sheung Wan. In the books, May found the payoff records to 14 Europeans (one CIP�Xacting deputy SP, six IP, one acting IP, four sergeants and two acting sergeants; 38 Indians, 76 Chinese police officers).
This led to one of the largest internal corruption investigation and shake up that the HKP has experienced in history. The HKP internal inquiry was conducted by Captain Superintendent May and Crown Solicitor Lardner Dennys at the Victoria Gaol. It was finished in August 1898. The inquiry was reported in HKP Annual Report of 1897:
One European Inspector was convicted of receiving bribes and sentenced to 6 months�� imprisonment with hard labor. Three Inspectors and one Sergeant were dismissed. Two Inspectors and two Sergeant (one was Acting Inspector when the list was discovered) have been called upon to resign. Two Sergeants and one Acting Sergeant were not re-engaged on the expiration of their terms of 5 years�� service. One Acting Sergeant resigned. The Inspector who was Acting as Deputy Superintendent, had already retired from the Force when the list was discovered.
The corruption scandal rocked the Hong Kong community. The European community was particularly disturbed for three reasons. The scandal reflected poorly on the British (police) community. They were on the payroll of the Chinese and otherwise conspired with them to violate the law. At the time, Chinese corruption was expected; European corruption, while not accepted, was tolerated, within a tight-knit community of like-minded expatriates. But collusion between Chinese and European was out of bounds. The Europeans lost more than face; it lost its purported innocence and high moral ground. Second, the European officers were considered as being treated too harshly, being disproportionate to their liability. Third, the corruption involved Chinese gambling, one of their favourite pastime. The ill effect of gambling did not affect European communities.
The sentiment of the European community was best expressed by Dr. James Cantile (1851�V1926) who was the Dean of Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (1888�V1897) and founding chairman of British Medical Association, Hong Kong Branch: ��At the present moment there is consid-erable scandal in connection with the acceptance of bribes by European police, and men of great experience are being got rid of because they took ��tips��; surely a well-understood purloin of the police in all counties��.
Analysis
As to recruitment process: There was not much discussion about the formal recruiting standard or process, other than a reference to Deane��s effort to make recruitment more English, and not too diversified. But there was clear evidence that Inspector Quincey got into HKP through a personal relation-ship, since he was adopted by Major Charles Gordon, a person with high social standing and who was well connected. Otherwise, Quincey was well qualified�Xproficient in Chinese and English, with good education from the United Kingdom.
As to peer relationship: Inside the HKP, relationship within and between ranks was soured by racial tension, with the British always in the higher rank, with no exception. British and Chinese officers just did not get along. British did not trust the Chinese. The Chinese did not trust the British. The British and Chinese were not working as a team. Beyond that, there was a lot of internal bickering over ranks and jostling for position. One got the distinct impression that it was who you know and not what you know that counts in the HKP.
As to police role and functions: Inspector Quincey attracted considerable media attention because those Europeans wanted to hear that the HKP offi-cers were doing their job, in suppressing crime, catching criminals or quash-ing vice establishments. Mostly, the media played up the role of the police as a crime fighter. But fighting crime and suppressing vice was not all what policing is all about. Through newspaper accounts, we learned that HKP also has other civil duties from saving life, to secure sanitary conditions and attending to the sick.
We were told that policing was a dangerous job. The Chinese police were armed for night duties, and the use of guns while on duty was all in a day��s work.
As to public relationship: Inspector Quincey had a good public image. He had a public following, thanks to the Editor in Chief of a major newspaper, who was his admirer. For the European community, Quincey was a rising star, and a picture-perfect HKP officer. But his fortune waned fast, with the discovery of his corruption with the Chinese.
As to police service ratio: Inspector Quincey worked for the HKP between 1870.and 1890, as an Inspector of Police. For most of the time, Hong Kong population hobbled between 1866 (115,098), 1881 (160,402) and 1891 (221,441) with 2113 Europeans and Americans in 1866 and 2500 British in 1891, policed by 117 Europeans, 172 Indians and 197 Chinese in 1882. The Europeans were well policed by European officers, being 2500 (1891)/117 (1882) or 21.37 to one European officer. This is much more than 160,402 (1881)/172 (1882) of 814.2 to one Chinese officer. Even if we take into account Indians, the ratio of Chinese to Asian officers is still high: 160,402 (1881)/369 (1882), that is, 434.7 to one Asian officer. This is to observe that Europeans were much better served by European officers, and Chinese were hardly served at all, being 38 times less. This is to say for most of the time that Chinese need to be prepared to seek self-help if and when needed. This is particularly the case for those Chinese living away from Victoria where the HKP HQ gathered.
As to police accountability: HKP officers were not above the law. They were held strictly accountable in corruption charges. At the time and until 1974, HKP was a corrupted organisation, with both Europeans and Chinese col-luding. This also provides more evidence that in the policing of Hong Kong, collaboration between colonisers and the colonised was the rule, and not the exception.
As to police administration: It did not appear that HKP was well organised and rule bound. If anything, judging from Quincey��s recruitment and promotion, HKP was ran by status power based on rank, not the rule or system. There was also little effort to train the police systematically and comprehensively.
CIP Reynolds (1910�V1932)
In January 1910, Mr Reynolds, a British police officer, volunteered as an HKP officer. He provides a historical account of what it was like to do policing in Hong Kong in those days. When Reynolds first joined (1910), the HKP was a small department: ��about one thousand Chinese and Indians and about 125 Europeans; on the detective staff there would be about twenty-five Europeans and fifty Chinese��.26 From his personal account we learned the following details:
First, the recruitment of Reynolds was haphazardly performed. At the time of his application, 14 people signed up, in response to an open advertise-ment. He was one of the two who was selected after an interview with a police agent from HKP. The whole process took less than a month. He applied in the first week of January 1910 and was shipped out by end of February.
According to him, his selection is a luck of the draw: ��probably all the names were put into a hat and we were the lucky (or unlucky) ones��.27
Second, there was no formal reception and reporting for duty. Reynolds arrived on a weekend. He just reported to the duty Inspector at Central Charge room. The next thing he knew was in the single��s quarters, a large room at Central with 12 others sharing the space.28
Third, there was no formal training for new recruits, since there was no Police Training School. Reynolds had to learn the ropes of being a police officer in Hong Kong through personal and inconsistent instructing, men-toring and shadowing by senior officers. The final certification for his duties came from the Superintendent. The instructions were about facts of life, the custom of the Chinese, getting around and police duties, than what policing entails and requires in terms of role and responsibility, power and authority, procedures and skills:
There was no Police Training School and instruction in Police duties was given by the Chief Inspector and the Barrack Sergeant; you were shown round the sections by older hands, from whom you probably learned more of the facts of life and police duties, than from the instructors and books; you also learned to know more of the highways and byways and the customs of the Chinese. After a month or so you were questioned by a Superintendent and if found satisfac-tory was posted to a district.29
Third, policing at that time suffered from a gross lack of resources and equipment. For example, the HKP��s procedures had them show up to a fire by foot or on a rickshaw. Steam fire engines had to be drawn to the scene by col-leagues. Thus, ��as can be well imagined, lack of transport and other modern facilities which go to make an efficient police force made police work of these days a foot slogging and laborious job��.30 For example, inspection at New Territories needed to be conducted by foot:
Inspector N. Lamont when in charge of the New Territories, accompanied by his bull terrier, would walk from Tai Po over the hills to Castle Peak and back by way of Ping Shan, Au Tau, Lok Ma Chau, Cheung Shui and back to Tai Po sounding the alarm at each station.31
Fourth, during Reynolds�� service, the HKP was severely understaffed due to lack of finances: ��the Colony��s finances were not over flush, and I would say that the cost of the present Police Headquarters was more than the entire police force of those days��.32 Reynolds was asked to be the Acting Chief Inspector (one of the two CIP), without being paid.33
Fifth, Reynolds was basically a CID person, having retired as a CID-acting CIP. He made three observations of crime and its control in Hong Kong at the time. (1) The Hong Kong people were a law-obeying lot. ��During 1910 to 1925 the force really got under way. The Police Training School had started, finger prints and photography and other departments of the Criminal Investigation Department were improved and strengthened, though in 1932 there was still only one man with a few Chinese assistants in charge of finger prints and photography��.34
To compare 1910 versus the 1950s, Reynolds did not think that the two periods were comparable, if only because things changed drastically after the war, that is, more resources, more expertise, more of a scientific approach taken, and in general, a more professional conduct: ��I would like to add here that after fairly wide experience I do not think there is to be found anywhere in the World, a more law abiding man than the average Chinese��,35 More importantly, crime detection and control could not have been done without a dedicated and professional CID staff: ��In speaking of the detective staff, the good work done by the Chinese staff must not be forgotten, without which indeed, success would have been impossible; there is only one person�K and that is another Chinese��.36
The most difficult problem in fighting crime was the location of and communication with witnesses:
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 and the Chinese border was always open for wanted persons to get over and when this hap-pened, it was a case of Good bye.37
However, the HKP had been making progress in reforming itself since the 1910s when Reynolds first joined, ever so slowly, but noticeably:
During 1910 to 1925 the force really got under way. The Police Training School had started, finger prints and photography and other departments of the Criminal Investigation Department were improved and strengthened, though in 1932 there was still only one man with a few Chinese assistants in charge of finger prints and photography.38
Finally, the conditions of service were not very good. Officers had to live in single quarters. Married quarters were rare. There was little transportation available to the officers and the family. This meant that police officers were subject to and afflicted with many diseases:
Police of the early part of the century had also a deal of sickness to con-tend with, small-pox and plague was still rife, malaria was quite common and police and their families suffered accordingly. I would like here to pay tribute to police wives, more especially to those of the past, some of whom were in out stations where transport, electricity, gas, etc. was nil�Xeven liv-ing in Hong Kong and Kowloon was far from pleasant during the summer months�K39
Analysis
CIP Reynolds�� account offers another picture of HKP, 40 years later than Inspector Quincey��s time. The obvious story line one can derive is that there was much continuity in the organisation, role and style, with sparse changes in the method and measures. The HKP was still very much disorganised in terms of recruitment, training and the overall administration: this was evi-denced by the rudimentary recruiting process, ad hoc training and certifi-cation regiment. The small size of the HKP, centralised area of operations (Hong Kong Island), and an exclusive core command group, allowed for per-sonal leadership and discretionary management. As to its role and duties, the HKP was still very much a bush fire-fighting outfit, for example, fighting fire and social service agency, attending to small pox and plague. As to style, policing in both eras was very personal, labour intensive and entrepreneur-ial, ��police work of these days a foot slogging and laborious job�� and the fast-est way to go to a fire scene was by a rickshaw.
There is little question that policing then was a dangerous job, that is, Superintendent Deane was shot and Quincey had to fire and kill a bystander. It was also a demanding assignment, on and off the job, for example, there is little support in fighting crime or putting out fire or attending to health hazards, and living in ��out stations where transport, electricity, gas, etc. was nil�� is tough, particularly with a family. There is also a sense that the HKP was trying to do better, with limited resources at its disposal. In 1870, Deane tried to perfect the recruitment system by setting up standards and between 1910 and 1925, more formalised training at PTS and the establishment of a more dedicated CID Department is on the match.
Ultimately, police work anywhere and any time is about working with people. Police cannot fight crime and resolve disputes without communicat-ing and commingling with the locals. In the Quincey case, he was in charge of CID because of his Chinese background. In Reynolds�� case, he gave all the credit to the Chinese CID: ��In speaking of the detective staff, the good work done by the Chinese staff must not be forgotten, without which indeed, success would have been impossible; there is only one person�K and that is another Chinese��.40 The real HKP story�XChinese on Chinese�Xbegan with Chinese CID, not British UB. That should be the focus of future research.
Chief Inspector Andrew (1912�V1938)
Inspector Andrew served with the Force from 1912 to 1938 and was pro-moted to Chief Inspector before retirement. He loved his job and spoke fluent Cantonese. The HKP remembers him fondly:
Due to turn a grand-old 107 in October, Ken was born in 1893 and joined the Force in 1913 as a Police Constable, retiring as Chief Inspector in 1938. He was awarded the King��s Police Medal in 1928 and Colonial Police Medal in 1936�K. He could also tell his police tales in fluent Cantonese, outlining his exploits as being one of only 153 British policemen in Hong Kong, having answered advertisements in British newspapers and signing up soon after he stepped off the ship in 1911. He survived many near-death incidents including shootouts and attacks with knives and broken bottles, and was in and out of hospital 34 times in his 27 years in Hong Kong with everything from dysentery to malaria.41
As lauded by HKP, Mr Andrew was an iconic and much-loved police officer from Hong Kong. After his retirement in 1938, he wrote two books, one on policing in Hong Kong generally, and the other about his service with the CID in Hong Kong.42 Both books informed about policing in Hong Kong, from the eyes of a British police officer who served 25 years in Hong Kong in different capacities�XUB, CID and Water Police. He spent most of his career in CID since he knew Cantonese, and showed a keen interest and uncommon knowledge about Chinese culture. Both the books are rather short. The Hong Kong Detective (1962) is 176 pages long and Diary of an Ex-Hong Kong Cop (1979) is only 124 pages, in sparsely printed pages. Here, I will report on the Diary of an Ex-Hong Kong Cop by quotations.
Hong Kong Detective comprises 21 untitled short chapters, and each of it tells a story of many of Inspector Andrew��s encounters in and out of work as a CID police officer in Hong Kong in the first half of the book. As the title suggests, the book recounts how Inspector Andrew went about investigating crimes (prostitution), arresting criminals and abating nuisances (drunken soldiers). The cases are told in the first person, and with a rich context. This allows readers to experience what was going on as the cases unfold, vividly and realistically. In doing so, the author offers the opportunity, at places, to think about the larger policing issues involved, such as how to exercise dis-cretion or come to terms with cultural anomaly. Close reading and thought-ful analysis of each case, and as a corpus, allows readers to understand what it was like to perform (colonial) policing in Hong Kong as a European officer at the time.
As reported in Diary of an Ex-Hong Kong Cop, the following were some.of CIP Andrew��s observations about and impression of policing in Hong Kong.43
On being a police officer: ��In spite of all the long hours, loss of sleep, discomfort, the risks and injuries I found the policeman��s lot a happy one�� (p. 17).
On police training: ��After a very perfunctory course in police duties last-ing one month, I was put on patrol in the company of an experienced P.C. This job mainly compromised the chasing and arresting of unli-censed hawkers or of licensed hawkers causing obstruction�� (p. 16).
On police role and functions: ��Owing to the prevalence of stray dogs�K a scheme of rewards was formulated for the capture of such dogs, but for some reason police of all ranks seemed to be averse to capturing these dogs. Perhaps it lowered their dignity to be seen chasing dog or, worse still, having caught one, tying a piece of string to it and leading it to the police station�� (p. 32).
On fighting crime: (Policing in Hong Kong was dangerous.) ��It happened while staking out the Wah Long Distillery when he was attacked by two men from a gang, one wielding a gun, the other a dagger made of razor blades. (Andrew) ��Man Yat was the leader of the gang whom we had caught in the commission of armed robbery and he tried to shoot me. But his gun didn��t go off, it was a bit damp. So I shot him through the heart�KMy sergeant shot the man with the dagger and he died in hospital the next day. One of the robbers hid behind a wall in the courtyard. Every time he saw a policeman he would fire at us. He was a good aim and shot one of my men through the head. Meanwhile two of the robbers fled on the junk��. ��But the former Hong Kong Police detective Andrew was prepared for this and had a police launch stationed in the bay. He set off a light in the direction that they fled and his sergeant at sea caught up with the junk and the two men��. ��We caught all seven: dead, alive and wounded��.44
On prostitution: ��There were two streets of prostitutes in Wan Chai�Xone for Chinese and one for Japanese. The girls were good people and they never bothered anybody. They all had a document with a photograph and a stamp on it showing they were prostitutes. If a cli-ent contracted VD all he had to do was contact the police and they would send a doctor down to the brothel. If a girl was infected she��d be in the hospital for six weeks. They never gave us any trouble��.45
On nuisance abeyance: ��That is to say, what instructions were we police officers given as to the right way and of avoiding the wrong way. Our instructions were that a rabid dog was to be killed by shooting it through the heart and that the brain must remain undamaged�K. Qualified police officers armed with shotguns, patrolled the streets at night and were empowered to shoot on sight any dog not wearing a muzzle�� (p. 36).
On police attitude towards work: ��Many of the European police seemed to know the knack of staying away from trouble. There was little doubt that the more work you did, the greater the risk of doing something wrong and of having to face the consequences�� (p. 31).
On policing and ��guanxi��: ��A police officer is always coming up against persons who claim friendship with people in high places, accompa-nied by the usual threat: ��You��ll be hearing more about this�� (p. 32).
On language ability: ��All the underworld knew that I could speak their language so they used to supply information to me at all hours of the day�Xand the early morning�Xin person on the street, on the tele-phone or anywhere else �KMy life was made very busy��.46
A European officer communication problem: ��The average European policeman found is very difficult to interview informers or take statements without using an interpreter�� (p. 18).
On police uniform not functional: ��The uniform of the Chinese police-men looked like something from a music-hall sketch. The hat was made of bamboo, shaped like a pudding bowl. The tunic was more like a smock, and he wore white socks up to the knees and tied with blue tape. In pursuit of a criminal the poor fellow stood little chance of catching up without the aid of his whistle�� (p. 25).
On European versus local culture: ��I also wonder why certain British-made motor cars were not popular, and found that the Chinese did not like the design of the front grille because they said it looked like a dead man��s rib�� (p. 26).
Analysis
Judging from the above, it is evident that policing in the early days of Hong Kong was more of order maintenance, hawker clearance and service deliv-ery, for example, wild dog control, than crime fighting. This shows that for most of the time, colonial policing was not doing the business of the British Crown, but minding the affairs of the Chinese public; it was more about transforming the informal Chinese dispute resolution into a formal British legal adjudication. It also shows that on many occasions, colonial policing was not about dominating over people, but providing services to the com-munity. This put ��colonial policing�� on its head; for most of the time, com-munity service, not order maintenance, defined ��colonial policing�� (though this is not to deny that coercive and dominating aspects of ��colonial policing�� were always present and keenly felt by the public).
Andrew observed that policing in Hong Kong at that time was not too professional. The police learned by doing and through on the job experiences. This portrayal of the British colonial police officer is a far cry from those of a superior trained, tightly organised and highly disciplined para-military force bent on controlling the indigenous people in every move and at every turn. The British colonial officer, as personified by Inspector Andrews, was more personable and even effable than officious, when conducting hawker duties or prostitution watch (��The girls were good people��). The one-person quest to save the world, which defines the ideal of policemen past and present in Hong Kong or the United Kingdom, was very much evident. This more so than any other factors�Xcolour of the skin or mandate of the British Empire�Xdefined the style of colonial policing in Hong Kong.
In terms of style of policing, colonial policing was quintessentially Chinese, that is, informal and contingent on relationships (��guanxi��). At its core, this is what community policing is all about. Community policing is build upon social networking and not based on rule of law, still less on principle of justice. In ingratiating themselves with the Chinese leaders, the British colonial officers were able to co-opt and rely upon the locals to do most of the policing (social control) work in the Chinese communities. This is despite the fact that the European and Chinese populations were separated by a wide cultural gap and many of the British officers did not speak the language.
As expected, an expatriate officer (like Andrew) who could speak flu-ent Chinese was in much demand, by the British administration and with the Chinese people, as with Caldwell of old (the 1840s). Both Caldwell and Andrew acted as an interface between the British command and local staff, Colonial police and the Chinese public. Interesting enough, beyond com-munication role and facilitating functions, bi-lingual officers, because of their rarity, attracted more attention from the Hong Kong public, and due to their increased efforts, earned more respect from the Chinese people. This allowed them to build bridges and establish trust with the Chinese community, making possible the gathering of intelligence, channelling grievance and resolving disputes. In this way, British colonial policing took on community-policing spirit, functions and process, which the colonial masters used to their utmost benefits in solving crime and anticipating ��trouble��.
Finally, colonial administration in Hong Kong, including policing, had to come to terms with cultural gaps, mistrust and misunderstanding. They surfaced in the most innocuous ways: British car grilles were commented to look like ��dead man��s rib��; the Chinese police tunic was considered not func-tional in chasing after criminals by the British (Andrew). More telling on cultural exchange gone wild is the serendipitous revelation that the Chinese disliked all things that were British because they offended their sensitivity and spirituality (here, British cars remind them of death) and the British thought that all Chinese things and activities were non-functional or irra-tional (tunics).
In the end, CIP Andrew helps us to understand policing in colonial Hong Kong in two distinctive ways:
First, in terms of ideas, he tells us that there was a material and sub-stantial difference between ��colonial policing�� of Hong Kong and ��policing�� in colonial Hong Kong. The study of ��colonial�� policing in Hong Kong is the study of how the British sought to impose her will in controlling the Chinese. The study of ��policing�� in colonial Hong Kong is a study of how the British police officers negotiated order and made peace, in furtherance of colonial objectives, with the Chinese.
Second, in terms of methods, Andrew achieved what other cultural-ists and anthropologists could only dream of in their continued struggle to decipher and unrelenting quest to understand what colonial policing was all about. In writing a book about a British police officer working in a Chinese beat day in and day out for a life time, Andrew was able to transform a theo-retically sterile (and sterilising) cultural discourse and politically viral (and virulence) civilisation clashes, better suited for archived books and head-lines, into touching human encounters and poignant personal moments. In doing so, Andrew reminded readers that life as lived was not quite that same as what people think it was (imagination) or should have been (ideology). To a police officer, in Hong Kong or otherwise, then as well as now, every day, people on the street were never idealists or pragmatists, friends or foes, colo-nisers or colonised. They were just people with different life experiences and personal ambitions, confined in a small social space, doing what they do best. As Professor Otwin Marenin puts it, ��The transformation of state intent into police action is problematic�K The question, whose interests do the police protect is a meaningful one that cannot be answered by deduction from prior models of social formations��.47
As a British police officer working in the Colony Hong Kong, CIP Andrew was forced to come to terms with the reality he found, that is, Chinese people under the British rule. Once that was acknowledged, Andrew then had to go on living a life as he knew it, not as a British colonial officer (wearing con-spicuously on the sleeve), but as a police officer, who happened to be a British colonial officer (hidden deep under the collar).
IV: Police Reformers
There are differences in opinion as to who contributed the most and in what way to the reforms and changes to the Force, from a high profile to the lesser known,48 and from the grandiose to the mundane.49 However, one thing is clear: the reform of and changes to HKP are not only attributable to the fore-sight of the best but are dependent on the fortitude of the rest.50 Extant police reform research, in Hong Kong or otherwise, has a tendency to focus on the prominent and sensational (if only because those data are easy to be had) without paying sufficient attention to the obscured and real due to lack of awareness and interest. As a reminder and to proffer a different perspective, it serves to recall what the Chief Superintendent Tam Kwok-wing who served with HKP for 35 years, had to say about his small role with a real impact in changing HKP: ��I have been doing what I like to do and there are no regrets. It has been a perfect life. However, as a police officer, I think I have only barely passed! But I am satisfied with my career and what I have achieved. I know I have done what I was supposed to do��.51
An officer like the Chief Superintendent Tam, and many like him are the real unsung heroes of HKP reform, to whom this chapter is dedicated.
Commissioner Charles Sutcliffe (1969�V1974) will always be remembered for cleaning up HKP corruption:
In 1969, Mr. Sutcliffe was appointed Commissioner and set out to break the back of corruption. He changed the rank structure, raised pay scales, reformed recruit training and embarked on an ambitious course of building develop-ment to cater for the increasing populations in the New Territories. 52
In doing so, Commissioner Sutcliffe was able to break the backbone of the almighty CID Staff Sergeant��s network of control over the Chinese rank and file, effectively making them the de facto police chiefs of much of the HKP establishment.53 That was when HKP developed the systemic capacity to police the Chinese people, beyond the CID. As the veteran HKP investiga-tive reporter Kelvin Sinclair wrote about his legacy upon Sutcliffe demise:
It was Sutcliffe who ordered a fiercely resisted restructuring of the force, which crippled the power of the mighty station sergeants who�Xuntil that time�Xhad virtually run the police and organised the collection and distribution of the vast flood of dirty money.54
Commissioner Tang King Shing��s (�H����, 16 January 2007�V2011, January 2011) performance was considered by many to be lackluster at best,55 and controversial at least.56 Still in some quarters, he too was the man of.the hour for changing people��s perception about the HKP, from a headstrong, macho and authoritarian agency to a principle-minded, reflec-tive and responsive organisation. In this, Commissioner Tang was the first and.only.HKP Commissioner of Police who has apologised for HKP wrong-doings, from indiscretions to lack of performance, three times.57
This earned him the unflattering nickname of: ��Sorry Sir��58 and with it scorns of the frontline officers for being weak and lacking leadership. However, to some, Tang not only did the right thing but also displayed visionary lead-ership. He demonstrated exceptional courage and visionary leadership under fire, a contrarian in the midst of the blind, when such qualities were much needed, and were yet in short supply. The apology from the top not only sent a clear message that HKP is a professional agency, transparent and account-able, worthy of public trust. In so doing Commissioner Tang allowed future staff to follow his example.59
Such and other one-upmanship arguments as to who was the best Commissioner of Police, cannot be definitively settled in one way or another, if only because reform to the HKP was a continuous process, conducted with an incremental approach and multiple objectives reflecting different condi-tions60 and needs of the time.61 Moreover, there are personality issues to be reckoned with in this type of evaluation. In essence, policing is operationally driven, context specific and people oriented. Over the course of history, there are many HKP memorable reformers and rainmakers.62
In 1867, HKP appointed Walter Meredith Deane (�Х�) (1867�V1892) as its first Cadet Captain Superintendent. Deane was the longest-serving police chief, and the youngest. He was also the only one to leave the Force for health reasons, after being shot in a police raid. Deane did not disappoint: neither the fact that he had no police experience nor his barebones colonial ser-vice credentials detracted from his uncommon drive in shaping HKP to his image. Deane was able to leave his mark as one of the most achieved leaders of HKP. His signature contribution was to make HKP a clean, competent, effective and racially integrated Force.
Walter Meredith Deane destroyed the widespread myth that white people could not speak Cantonese, by learning it. It was not done to ask villains to learn English, he argued. Officers really should learn Chinese. Deane set up a police language school in 1869, but attendance was voluntary and most officers did not bother to turn up. He asked the governor for advice. The community to be served was almost entirely Chinese, and the force was largely Indian�Xbut the govern-ment set up a Europeans-only commission. Six months�� worth of discussions followed. Some commission members argued the only way to improve the force should be to turn the clock back, and make it 100 per cent white-skinned�K63
Another tireless reformer was Commissioner Roy Henry. He is remem-bered for modernising HKP in the 1980s, long before Commissioner Hui Ki-on launched his own in the 1990s.
Commissioner Roy Henry of Sarawak Police (1964) and later Jiji Police (1967) joined the HKP in 1973 as Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police, Operations, and were promoted as Commissioner in 1979.64 While in post, he improved standards, increased salaries and benefits and retained a zero-tolerance policy for corruption. ��He also dealt with government planners to provide a new generation of police stations, to increase and modernise the police fleet of vehicles and vessels and to ensure that Asia��s finest were equipped and trained to the highest international standards. �KIn looking at the modern police force, many of the foundations that make it so efficient were laid in the six years��. Roy Henry was the Commissioner.65
As a tribute to Commissioner Henry��s life-time achievement in reforming HKP, and earning him a CBE, the then Deputy Commissioner (Management) Tsang Yam Pui had this to say at his funeral:
He quickly set about redressing the Force��s problems and restoring the public��s faith in the police. Roy established a close and regular working relationship with the ICAC, launched a series of territory-wide ��Community against crime�� campaigns, and spoke with as many junior police officers as he could. Roy set in motion the re-organisation of the Force through regionalisation and the devolution of command from Police Headquarters. His aim was to give commanders at ground level greater autonomy, which he strongly believed would increase efficiency and strengthen management. By April 1984 this restructuring was completed, and the Force��s current structure of Regions, Districts and Divisions came into being. Roy was also very keen to improve police relations with the public. He embarked upon a policy of Community Policing to bring the Force closer to the people it served. To supplement this, he re-organised and strengthened the Complaints Against Police Office, and made it easier for the general public to complain about police malpractice. The welfare of serving police officers was something very close to Roy Henry��s heart. As a result of a review conducted between 1979 and 1983, he was able to persuade the Government to grant a huge increase in the funds allocated to the Force. At the same time he successfully argued for the introduction of a salaries review mechanism. As a result, new married quarters were built for junior police officers and new police stations providing better working condi-tions and facilities for frontline officers came into being.66
Consider yet another game-changing Commissioner, Lee Ming-kuai (DOB: 1950). As of this writing, Lee is the only Chinese Commissioner to have graced the office (10 December 2003�V16 January 2007) with a formal university education from Hong Kong. Lee joined the HKP in December 1972 and was promoted to the Assistant Commission rank in 1995, Senior Assistant Commission in 1998 and Deputy Commission in 2001.
In his career, Lee handled two major public order-policing events, the handover ceremony in July 1997 and 6th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in December 2006.67 The first event courted him with much local complaints, undeservingly, and the second earned him acclaim worldwide, rightly so. He was a hands-on operational-type leader. While in service, he was well liked by peers and subordinates due to his accessibility and openness.
Coming to the contribution to HKP as a change agent, Commissioner Lee was recognised for what he did not do, more so than what he did do out of office. Lee��s retirement plan was to relax, enjoy life and do public service without being paid. This was unlike other retired Commissioners before him who went on to second careers in private enterprise,68 indepen-dent consultancy69 and/or government agencies. For example, when asked whether he would like to be appointed as the Secretary for Security after HKP, he diplomatically declined, self-effacingly: ��I lack political intelligence�� (�L�F�v���z).70
Since retirement, Lee has kept to his promise in donating his services to educational institutions, for example, a lecturer on criminology and leader-ship71 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, non-profit organisations, for example, acting as the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Institute for Public Administration72 and charitable activities. In the words of Commissioner Lee:
I work on a voluntary basis and I am the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Institute for Public Administration. I share my experience by providing train-ing to Mainland officials on public administration, media skills and crisis management. I also work as a co-ordinator for government departments and universities, overseeing seven or eight programmes a year. So life is certainly not quiet or dull these days.73
Ex-Commissioner Lee��s words and deeds, lent support to his pledge to con-tinue to cultivate himself, to promote HKP and to improve Hong Kong as a life course project. This recalled the legacy of President Jimmy Carter: ��Jimmy Carter is much more highly regarded today than when he lost his bid for reelec-tion in 1980. He has produced an exemplary post-presidency, and today there is an increased appreciation for the enormity of the task he took on in 1977�K��74
For his exemplary refusal to enter politics and stay clear of commercial-ism, the Commissioner set himself up as a much-needed role model of how ex-public officials should behave after retirement. This earned him applauds from all around and from many quarters. A Chinese University lecturer in a ��Salutation to Lee Ming-Kuai�� had this to say:
Lee Ming-Kuai retired last week. He promised to do volunteer work hereaf-ter and not earn a living at private enterprise. As I think about a few of our past Commissioners, belatedly, I am much impressed, and allow me to salute him, my senior at CUHK. HKP is a unique organization. It requires a lot of public trust. If not, how can it enforce the law? If our citizens or law enforce-ment officers observed that their former wise and brave leaders, finally has to yield to the temptation of money and make friends with the rich and famous, lowering oneself to serve the rich, where is the pride and dignity of the HKP? The purpose of pension is to cultivate sense of dignity with comfortable pay, in hope that retired civil servants not have to worry about their retirement years. In this way they do not need to kiss up the financially rich and politi-cally powerful to carve out a future, by catering to them, even to the point of engaging in money for power exchange. If we were to look at recently retired senior civil servants, the speed they flock to work for the commercial world to make money, we wonder why we should have been paying them or these high pension from the our taxes.75
V: Conclusion
This chapter reports on HKP reform and development in various ways as informed by several grounded and personal perspectives. The ultimate objec-tive is for the readers to look at HKP reform and change in a different light, from a different angle, with a different purpose. The suggestion here is that HKP reform has many narratives, each adding more to an understanding of the reform process. The HKP official historical development account (Section II), in process and essence, is very different from the personal account offered by the individual officers who worked to bring changes about, one day at a time, from the frontline, and below the surface (Section III). To the insti-tutional (Section II) and personal views (Section III) on HKP changes, one needs to add that of the reformers�� legacies: Who are these people? What did they try to accomplish? How did they go about influencing people and changing institutions to make things happen? What have they left behind? They too have stories to tell, in their own way and for their own reason.
The institutional narratives, personal accounts and reformer stories, how do they fit? Why should anybody care? What does it matter? The nar-ratives fit because they have to. They were part of history in the making. Each seemingly disjoined narrative added something to the ��melting pot�� of new ideas�Xa new narrative in the making. The struggle between and within narratives is expected, and the dominance of some facts over another is natural. Our job is to read all these narratives, account and stories to come up with our own.
As to the question of caring, it is simply necessary. Everybody is his/her own narrator, seeking to tell ��the�� story about HKP reform, definitively. To the extent that one wishes to ��construct�� his or her own narrative, one needs to ��fit�� all what this chapter has to offer.
Endnotes
1. See Chapter 4, supra, p. 165.
2. Annual Report 1948, p. 9.
3. Commission of Labor in David Faure, Society: A Documentary History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1997).
4. G.B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1964), p. 4; R. J. Chaskin, Building Community Capacity (New.York: Aldine De Gruyter, 2001), p. 7.
5. R. Hughes, Borrowed Place Borrowed Time (London: Deutsch, 1968).
6. S. H. Lo, The Politics of Cross-Border Crime in Greater China: Case Studies of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2009).
7. See R. Hughes, op. cit., note 5.
8. Lord Aberdeen to Sir Henry Pottinger, 4 June 1983, No. 3, CO 129/3. Cited in R..Hughes, Borrowed Place Borrowed Time (Andre Deutach, 1968), Id., p. 20, note 1.
9. Ibid.
10. Lord Stanley to Sir Henry Pottinger, 3 June 1983, No. 3, CO 129/3. Cited in G.B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1964), p. 20, note 1.
11. I. Ward, S. Geng, The Hong Kong Marine Police: 1841�V1950 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1991), pp. 6�V8. (Piracy in and around the Colony has been a fact of life since at least the tenth century.)
12. Sir K. Roberts-Wray, Commonwealth and Colonial Law (London: Stevens & Sons, 1966).
13. Challenge in police leadership development. HKP College, July 2011. http://www.police.gov.hk/info/doc/Challenge_in_police_leadership_development.pdf
14. HKP Web. http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/01_about_us/ph_03.html
15. http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/01_about_us/ph_04.html
16. HKP Web. http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/01_about_us/ph_05.html
17. HKP Web. http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/01_about_us/ph_05.html
18. R. A. Bickers, Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (New York: Colombia University Press, 2003), p. 69.
19. There are many personal reflections and stories to be had, see C. Knowles and D. Harper, Hong Kong: Migrant Lives, Landscapes, and Journeys (University of Chicago Press, 15 December 2009), On patrol (pp. 216�V226). The chapter is about Bill who joined the HKP as an Inspector in 1977, on patrol at the border arresting illegal immigrants.
20. This section is based on Rudi Butt, Inspecteur Quincey and his master Dramatis son, Hong Kong First (16/12/2012). http://hongkongsfirst.blogspot.hk/2012/12/inspecteur-quincey-and-his-master.html
21. Depending on what historical sources one believes, Quincey could not have more than 6 years of British education.
22. Captain Superintendent Walter Meredith Deane (DOB: 1840) has an elite edu-cation, namely BA, 1862, MA, 1866, Trinity College at Cambridge. He was recruited to join HKP as a Cadet Officer. He spoke fluent Cantonese and knew his way around. He has no working experience other than being a Cadet in Hong Kong for 5 years, when he was first appointed to the head of HKP at 27 years of age.
23. R. Butt, Inspecteur Quincey and his master Dramatis son, Hong Kong First (16/12/2012).
24. In 1887, another Inspector named John Lee was found in a 1997 record. He might also be a Chinese�Xjudging by the last name and work station. He was in charge of Women and Girls Protection Ordinance of 7 April 1891. He retired in 1902.
25. May arrived HK on 27 February 1883. He was appointed as the acting assistant audit general and acting assistant colonial secretary on 19 January 1897 and then the private secretary on 20 April 1889. He was the son of George Chuhester May, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
26. N. A. Reynolds, Looking backward. HKMP, 9(1): 5�V9, Spring, 1959, p. 8.
27. Ibid., p. 5.
28. Ibid., p. 6.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., p. 7
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p. 8.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., p. 9.
36. Ibid., p. 8.
37. Ibid., p. 5.
38. Ibid., p. 8.
39. Ibid., p. 9.
40. Ibid., p. 8.
41. Centenarian Ken dies. Police Beat, 5 April to 18 April, Issue 676, 2000. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/676/013_e.htm
42. K. Andrew, Hong Kong Detective (London: John Long, 1962).
43. K. W. Andrew, Diary of an Ex-Hong Kong Cop (Hong Kong: United Writers Publication, 1979).
44. Hong Kong��s oldest surviving cop, Police Beat, Issue 8 October to 21 October 1997.
45. Hong Kong��s oldest surviving cop, Police Beat, Issue 8 October to 21 October 1997.
46. Hong Kong��s oldest surviving cop, Police Beat, Issue 8 October to 21 October 1997.
47. O. Marenin, Policing African states: Toward a critique, Comparative Politics, 14(4): 379�V396, 1982.
48. There are also lesser known police reformers, especially on the frontline admin-istration and operational staff. ���奻 is a graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong serving between 1972 and 2012. http://www.alumni.cuhk.edu.hk/magazine/200203/html/p04-05.htm. For his contribution to HKP, see �P������ ��1�� ���奻�mĵ��G�ƤT�Q�~�n(Published on 6 December 2013: �e�U�zĵ�ȳB��, �������^�j������εد譸���_�l�ƬG�C30�~ĵ��ͲP���ɤj����, �ë��H���u�z, �O�L���X�W�S��ĵ�ɥͦs���D)�C�P������ is a religious-bearing testimonial TV programme. At 7.06/20.26���奻distinguished himself by refusing to form a cliche and being an equalitarian. At 8.16/20.26, he refused to worship ��guandi�� but insisted on using evidence-based policing to improve police work. Forming cliche and worshipping ��guandi�� are entrenched HKP culture and practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v.=.PSe7OnSt7qM
49. Hong Kong Island regional commander Eric Leung Chi-bun retired after 34 years in the Force. His signature achievement was in making HKP more politically aware and socially connected: ��As an officer, we must always be politically neutral, but we should not be politically ignorant �KKnowing what is happening in society and understanding the cause and effect of every incident is the key to an effective and fruitful negotiation with the public. It is so important when handling public pro-cessions and demonstrations��. In terms of operational style, this is a far cry from early years when Leung joined, where orders were given to constables and laws were imposed on citizens. Eric��s words of wisdom, OffBeat Issue 705, 20 June to 3 July 2001. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/705/index_e.htm; Chief Inspector Peter Ip Pau-fuk of the Criminal Intelligence Bureau��s Research Unit retired after 35 years. His contributions include acting as the Police Adventure Club chairman for 24 years and researching into triad activities in Hong Kong, becoming a leader in both. Undefeated Peter retreat�XTriad buster moves on, OffBeat Issue 676, 5 April to 18 April 2000. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/676/02_index_e.htm
50. The Chief Superintendent of Police Patrick Lai Pak-hay retired about 30 years as the head of Traffic Branch Headquarter. The Shark��s swansong, PoliceBeat, Issue 663, 8 September to 21 September 1999. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/663/023_e.htm; Keith Braithwaite retired after 33 years of service as New Territories south regional commander, arresting drug lords and disposing bombs. KB��s convictions, PoliceBeat, Issue 680, 7 June to 20 June 2000. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/680/022_e.htm
51. Retirement pass for nonchalant CSP, PoliceBeat, Issue 686, 30 August 30 to 12 September 2000. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/686/01_index_e.htm
52. Obituary. http://www.police.gov.hk/offbeat/809/eng/n16.htm Chapter 7: Hong Kong. J. S. T. Quah, In Curbing Corruption in Asian Countries: An Impossible Dream? An Impossible Dream (Emerald Group Publishing, 21 July 2011).
53. B. De Speville, Hong Kong: Policy Initiatives against Corruption, Vol. 769 (OECD Publishing, 1 January 1997) Commissioner Charles Sutcliffe is credited by ICAC head, the author, for ��determined leadership�� in fighting HKP corruption in 1971�V1973, p. 66. Police history: Creating a legend 1967�V1994. http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/01_about_us/ph_04.html ��To give him his due, much of the initiative for a cleaner police force came from its new Commissioner, Charles Sutcliffe �K He dispensed with and disbanded the formidable ��tigers�� behind the rackets, the staff sergeants who�Xwith all the force of a mafia�Xhas controlled corruption within the ranks��. (p. 198), P. Moss, No Babylon: A Hong Kong Scrapbook (Universe, 1 January 2006).
54. K. Sinclair, Police chief who tore the mask of corruption from the force, South China Morning Post, 27 September 2005. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.true-crime/OPJ5fWW0LKE
55. Tang King-shing��s four-year roller coaster ride comes to an end, South China Morning Post, 29 March 2012. http://www.scmp.com/article/734984/tang-king-shings-four-year-roller-coaster-ride-comes-end
56. ���ӷ� (Wong Shik Tao), ���J�I�H���G���|�ѤH �H������ (Focus Person: Laugh or Belittle Up To You�XTang King Sing) �j�ǽu (University Beat Magazine) 85 �� 2008 �~ 5 �� ���䤤��j�Ƿs�D�ζǼ��ǰ|�X�� (Hong Kong: School of Journalism and Communication�XChinese University of Hong Kong). http://www.com.cuhk.edu.hk/ubeat_past/080585/tang.html
57. �T���}�D�p�Q�a Sorry Sir�� Singtao.com [04-04-2010]. http://news.singtao.ca/toronto/2010-04-04/headline1270368048d2408817.html
58. Police used civilian vehicles to set up a roadblock to stop illegal car races at the middle of the night, ending in accidents. Commissioner Tang said: ��According to initial investigations and the information we have gathered so far, we believe there has been some error in judgment in our operation. I apologize to the citizens affected, including the drivers involved in the traffic accident and the car owners��. D. Lee and N. Lau, Top cop��s sorry saga: Hong Kong��s top cop has made an unprecedented apology in the wake of the human blockade saga, Standard, 15 July 2009. http://www.thestandard.com.hk/archive_news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=84861&sid=24568698&con_type=1&archive_d_str=20090715
59. E. Freidson, Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy and Policy (New York: John Wiley.& Sons, 25 April 2013). (Professionalism is about professionals being able and allow to organise and control their own work, in process and outcome, i.e., being self-accountable.)
60. Given the position of political precariousness, Hong Kong found itself after the Second World War, under the leadership of the director of special branch (DSB) Peter Erwin, the deputy commissioner of police, and later DSB John Prendergast, the HKP expanded and professionalised the special branch within CID, pack-ing it with seasoned counter-insurgency and intelligence officers transferred from Palestine, Cyprus, Suez Canal zone and Kenya. At the time, the SB was in charge of all sensitive investigation, including corruption. I. C. Smith and N. West, Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence ((Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 4 May 2012), p. 225. Scourged in secrecy and deception, this is one of the least-studied areas of HKP. See also, N. West, Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence (Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2014), p. 482 for a background of DSB John Prendergast.
61. The item for establishment sub-committee of finance committee: Head 122�XHong Kong police force. EC(2013�V2014)18, 12 January 2014. (Problem: The commissioner of police needs dedicated staffing support at the directorate level to tie in with the upgrading of the Tseung Kwan O Police Division [TKODIV] to a police district in 2015 and to meet the increasing policing needs arising from the massive development and the population growth in Tseung Kwan O [TKO].). http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr13-14/english/fc/esc/papers/e13-18e.pdf
62. This is an emerging rich and fruitful research field. D. K. Das and O. Marenin, Trends in Policing: Interviews with Police Leaders Across the Globe (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2009).
63. N. Vittachi, From farce to force to be reckoned with, South China Morning Post, 10 October 1998. Saturday Review; The History Man; p. 7. (��The next big break-through in police diversity happened in 1949, when the force opened its doors to two ��minority�� groups�Xdogs and women. Over the next 40 years, the char-acter of the force changed from very British to quite Chinese��.)
64. In 1977, the deputy commissioner Henry, then at the age of 50, was tipped to be transferred to Rhodesia in transition, to fight terrorism. The man from Hong Kong, Rhodesia Heralds, 23 November 1977. http://rhodesianheritage.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-man-from-hong-kong.html
65. K. Sinclair, .A fortunate life for a career cop: Kevin Sinclair looks at the life of Roy Henry, the former commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police who transformed law enforcement in the territory, South China Morning Post, 12 May 1998. http://www.scmp.com/article/240402/fortunate-life-career-cop
66. OffBeat (The electronic newspaper of Hong Kong Police).
67. H. Jing (���R), Lee Ming-Kwai��s hair is all white (�����f�Q�S�C��������) Wen Hui Bao 23 February 2025. http://paper.wenweipo.com/2005/02/23/RW0502230001.htm
68. The first eve Chinese HKP Commissioner Li Kwan Ha (1989�V1994) joined Li Ka-shing��s Cheung Kong (Holdings) and Hutchison Whampoa to advise the firms on security matters. In 1990, Li intervened in the kidnapping incident of Li-Ka-shing��s son Victor Li Tzar-kuoi and Walter Kwok by Cheung Chi Keung. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Li_Kwan_Ha Tsang Yam-pui served as the HKP Commissioner from January 2001 to December 2003. After retirement and in May of 2004, Tsang joined NWS Holdings (part of New World Development) as an executive director. His brother Donald Tsang was appointed as the chief executive of Hong Kong a year later (21 June 2005�V30 June 2012). There was a wide spread question of whether it is appropriate for Tsang Yam-pui moving from a position of public trust (police commissioner) to a high executive of a real-estate firm, giving the appearance of influence ped-dling, if it is not even suggestive of corruption. E. Luk, Tsang family included in wider investigation, Standard, 31 May 2012. http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_print.asp?art_id=122974&sid=
69. David Hodson, the Assistant Commissioner (retired), has been working with various private agencies as a consultant, the latest being a senior advisor to Steve Vickers Associates. http://stevevickersassociates.com/about/advisory-board/david-hodson/
70. Support Lee Ming Kuai as the chief executive. (��������f���S��). http://bufishking.mysinablog.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=246187
71. Talk with the ex-commissioner of police (Mr Lee Ming Kwai), 24 April, 2014. CUHK Business School. http://alumni.bschool.cuhk.edu.hk/en-gb/events/upcomingevents.aspx?udt_428_param_detail=9884
72. The 35th Lecture of UM Distinguished Lecture Series�X��Leadership�� by Mr Lee Ming-kwai�XExecutive director of the Hong Kong Institute for Public Administration at 2:15 p.m. on 13 November 2013.
73. The right ingredients: A recipe for a healthy and productive life, Civil Service Newsletter. http://www.csb.gov.hk/hkgcsb/csn/csn78/78e/pensioners_corner_1.html
74. American President: Legacy and impact, Miller Center, University of Virginia. http://millercenter.org/president/carter/essays/biography/9
75. Senior lecturer Choy, Chi-keung Ivan, Department of Government and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong. http://blogcity.me/BLOG/reply_blog_express.asp?f=QHA0SPQOHY120817&id=147017; See also Lee Ming Kuai do non-profit work without pay (�����f�ۦ��H�u������). 5.December 2007. http://www.kui.name/event/2007-12-05/%E6%9D%8E%E6%98%8E%E9%80%B5%E8%87%AA%E6%89%A3%E4%BA%BA%E5%B7%A5%E5%81%9A%E5%96%84%E4%BA%8B_n84851.htm
258
Policing in Hong Kong
259
Formation of Hong Kong Police in the 1840s
257
7
Formation of Hong Kong Police in the 1840s
Introduction
This chapter describes the formation of HKP in the 1840s; this will be compared with HKP reform in the 1950s. This chapter has three sections. Section I is on ��Crimes in Hong Kong��, which discusses crime and disorder problems in Hong Kong before and after British took possession in 1844. Section II is a discussion of ��Crime Control Measures�� being deployed to fight crime, addressing the issue of why such discriminatory and harsh mea-sures�X��brute suppression and divisive seclusion���Xwere necessary. Section III ��Policing in Hong Kong�� is about how Chief Magistrate Captain William Caine, Hong Kong��s first police chief, fights crime and maintains order. Section IV ��The Legal Framework�� describes and discusses the provisions, merits and impact of various police laws, from Police Force Ordinance to Gambling Ordinance to Native Chinese Peace Officer Ordinance, and oth-ers (��The legal framework��) on policing and Chinese community. Coming to the last two sections, ��V. The Police Laws and role of HKP�� and ��VI. Police Leadership and Policing in Hong Kong��, the chapter turns to discussing the role of HKP in enforcing law (V) and the impact of police leadership in polic-ing Hong Kong (VI). The chapter concludes (VII) with two major obser-vations, namely, the following: first, from its inception, HKP as a colonial force functioned less as a legal agent than a moral and culture one. Second, in its formative years, the HKP was led by powerful men, strong individu-als and colourful personalities, as in the case of Cain, May and Deane. This allows us to conclude that personal leadership, not rules or system, drives and defines policing in Hong Kong.
I: Crimes in Hong Kong
When the British first landed in Hong Kong in 1841, they discovered crime and disorder everywhere: piracy, robbery, theft, drugs, prostitution, assault, murder, and corruption, real or imagined. Fear of crime was in the air, and moral panic everywhere. There were just too few Europeans and too many criminals, criminally inclined. Chinese gangs roaming on the street, drunken soldiers creating disturbance in public, disgruntled workers struggling for survival, triad societies and anti-foreign nationalists conspiring behind closed doors all undermined the order of the day. In fact, crime was so bad in the colony that the ��History of the Laws and Courts in Hong Kong�� reported the following:
��The state of crime during 1843 showed no improvement over the previous years. The number of nightly burglaries and gang robberies had alarmingly increased, and the credation of a body of Justices of the Peace, none of them of the slightest use and exceeding in number one-third of the whole constab-ulary Forces, was considered an absurdity�K Crime was so rampant at this period that a correspondent of the local paper �Kadvised the residents, who had not yet been robbed ��but who should soon be �Kto nail their boxes to the floor, lock them and sleep with a good pair of loaded pistols under their pil-lows, for as soon as the moon got into her first or last quarter during the quar-ters, the robberies began�KThe town up this period was not lit at night, and it was dangerous to move out at all without running the risk of being attacked��.1
At this time, few were spared from the mayhem of crime and disorder, not even high officials, such as the Governor or the Chief and Assistant Magistrates.2 While, there were no criminal statistics being kept at this point, there was a report made about the conditions of Victoria jail between 9 August 1841 and September 1843. The report documented two groups of prisoners by names. In the first group, there were a total of 482 prisoners listed, including 430 Chinese, 28 Lasears, nine Portuguese, five Seapoys, one American and the rest were Europeans. The second group, with 184 names, was mostly of European sailors, with a few court-martial soldiers. Given this breakdown, we can draw two conclusions: First, there were a lot of crimes perpetrated by Chinese and Europeans. Second, there appeared to be pro-portionately more Europeans in jail than the Chinese.3
II: Crime Control Measures
For the first 4 years, 1841�V1844, Hong Kong had little institutionalised4 or organised5 social control. Formalised legal, bureaucratic and professional social control did not exist.6
Crime-fighting methods in Hong Kong during the earlier period (1841�V1860) were one of brute suppression and divisive exclusion, through registration, curfew, surveillance, transport and lashing, and all were per-formed mostly on the Chinese. There were a number of reasons why the British colonial government adopted such measures. First, Chinese were deemed uncivilised and brutal people. They did not understand reason nor follow law. They only reacted to stern punishment because they understood force. Second, the British had no way of separating the law-abiding versus law-offending Chinese. In the eyes of the British, all Chinese looked alike and behaved the same; every Chinese was a potential threat, and a legiti-mate target of control. Third, the British had little cultural understanding of Chinese ways and means. They were not able to conduct discriminate regulation, for example, meaningful classification and registration scheme, and pursue discretionary policing, for example, through investigation and during interrogation. Fourth, British officials could not speak Chinese, and found the Chinese community inaccessible and indigenous people incom-prehensible. Fifth, the British police officers in HKP were small in num-ber and not well trained. They did not have the resources or capability to conduct community policing. Sixth, the police were overwhelmed by the violent nature and quantity of crimes they have to deal with. In the ulti-mate analysis, for the Europeans in Hong Kong, fear of crime ruled the day, moral panic displaced reason and racial animus stood for judgement.
III: Policing in Hong Kong
Policing of Hong Kong started with the appointment of Chief Magistrate Captain William Caine7 on 30 April 1841. Caine was in charge of police, courts and prisons. As such, he was the person responsible for maintaining law, order and justice in Hong Kong.8
In this way, Caine��s role, function and power were not unlike that of a Chinese magistrate�Xone ��person�� having ��total responsibility�� and ��absolute power�� over the law and order, safety and security, welfare and happiness of the people.
In Imperial China, the local magistrate, as with the heavenly Emperor, personally assumed the role of the parent in taking care of the well-being of his charges. There was very little supervision and accountability; officials were guided and sanctioned by heavenly mandate. There was no institutional check and balance, such as legislative versus executive versus judicial sepa-ration of power. There was an integration of all three in search of what is right and wrong, more generally ought versus ought not. With the Chinese an ��ought not�� (��bu gai��) is something that should not have happened, not just violation of law or defeat of justice. The magistrate, in delivering ��what ought to be�� is not assuming the role of a judge or adjudicator, per se, but functioning as a moral person passing judgement on the normative order of things. As such, one cannot separate the magistrate��s role as a judge and the character of his personhood. They are one and the same. At the time, Caine certainly felt that way. The same can be said of Superman�Xwith great power comes great responsibility. Escape is not an option.
There are a number of things of note here in terms of criminal justice administration with the Chinese community in Hong Kong: First, the local Chinese community was very much left to its own devices, undisturbed, in justice administration. Second, systematic control and occasional punish-ment of Chinese in the colony was borrowed from traditional9 China, for example, registration, shaming, lashing and deportation. Third, criminal justice administration is personal, not institutional. Chinese were judged by whom they were, not what they did. Fourth, substantive justice was preferred over procedural justice. Moral principle was more important than legal rules.
As a parent, Caine loved and cared for the British people, much like any responsible military commander would, and would stop at nothing to sup-port the people, in holding them harmless from crime. As a military officer, he had zero tolerance for deviance, crime and disorder. As a disciplinary, he believed in using harsh punishment to exact retribution from the criminals and to deter people from committing crime. The Magistrates�� Warrants of 1841 and 1842 permitted Caine ��to inflict on Chinese offenders sentences of imprisonment with or without hard labor of up to three months (increased to six months in May 1842), fines of up to $400, and corporal punishment of up to one hundred lashes��.10
As a professional soldier serving her Majesty the Queen in a foreign land, Caine was loyal, disciplined and hard working. He had but one goal in mind: to secure Hong Kong as a Crown Colony. He never took time off. He even patrolled the street himself. In time, Caine came to personify law and order in Hong Kong. He was the face of justice in Hong Kong. To the Hong Kong people, he was more famous than the Governor, and deservingly so.
On reflection and in defence of his harsh treatment of criminals, this is what Caine had to say:
��[I]f it were ever my misfortune to be similarly situated, I should most probably adhere to the same determined and stringent measures which I consider to have protected the lives and property of the British public here�Knine-tenths of our Chinese subjects, and about one half of our low European inhabitants have been in a most depraved condition�K[draconian punishment was neces-sary]�Kas long as the people remain in their present state of immorality and total absence of principle��.11
To the Chinese, it is called ���å@�έ��塦�X��applying stern punishment in chaotic time��.12
But one person, however resourceful and diligent, could not keep crimes in check and criminals at bay. Caine��s law, order and security duties were divided in the following ways:
1. Elders and village representatives taking care of the Chinese inhabitants.
2. Justice of Peace helping with securing peace and order in the European community, mainly Victoria.
3. Marine Magistrate and water police in charge of the harbour and pirates.
4. Hong Kong Police in charge of public security in and around Victoria.
5. Private security and guards provide for safety and security for firms and private residents. ��During these first months of settle-ment, there was no organized public police force and the only kind of policing was provided by the occupants of the individual premises��.13
IV: Formation of Hong Kong Police Force: The Legal Framework
Introduction
In May 1844, John Francis Davis took over from Pottinger (26 June 1843�V.8 May 1844) as the Governor of Hong Kong. Governor Davis was the first Hong Kong governor at the time who knew intimately about China�Xhe was completely familiar with the place, people and language. As intimated from above, at the time, Hong Kong experienced a general sense of social disor-der,14 moral panic, social malaise and racial discrimination. Correspondingly, police corruption, abuse of power and indiscretions rule the day. This called for a more disciplined, efficient and effective policing regime, and more sys-tematic penal and justice administration.15 It did not help that Governor (Davis)16 was at odds with the Chief Justice17 and in contest with the expa-triate merchants and residents, over taxes, security and justice administra-tion, with the local Chinese residents caught in the middle.18 As Governor Davis put it to Lord Stanley in November 1844: ��it was much easier to govern the twenty thousand China inhabitants of this, than the few hundreds of English��.19
Governor Davis was very much responsible for establishing a legal frame-work for the HKP to prosper and function.
The Legal Framework
Police Force Ordinance (1844)
On 1 May 1844, ��An Ordinance for the establishment and regulation of a Police Force in the Colony of Hong Kong�� (PFO) was passed to create the very first formal colonial constabulary in Hong Kong.
The Preamble (Section 1) to the PFO called for ��establishing an effective system of police within the Colony of Hong Kong�� and the appointment by the Governor a ��Chief Magistrate of Police�� residing in Victoria. The Chief Magistrate is to provide ��general direction�� and overall ��superintendence�� of the HKP by and through the Superintendent of Police, Marine Magistrate and Assistant Magistrate.
The Preamble spelled out the basic organisational structure of the HKP to be built: (1) Vision and mission: There should be an ��effective system�� of police; (2) ranking structure: That there is a hierarchy of authority, that is, the Chief Magistrate is in command (policy) over the Assistant Magistrate (administration), Superintendent of Police and Marine Magistrate (execu-tion); (3) jurisdictional boundary: There is a division of responsibility�Xland versus sea-bound policing, that is, Superintendent of Police versus Marine Magistrate; however, for all intents and purposes, land policing is restricted to places Europeans converge and gather, for example, commercial (Victoria) or residential (Peak) and (4) residency: Chief Magistrate is to live in Victoria, the main area of operations at the time.
Section 2 provides for the appointment, standards, role and functions of the HKP officers: (1) Appointing authority: The Governor is empowered to and responsible for appointing police constables to perform police duties. (2) Establishment: The Governor is empowered to and responsible for appoint-ing ��sufficient number�� of police constables. (3) Standards: Police constables so appointed must be ��fit and able men��.
Section 3 empowers the Chief Magistrate to make ��rules and regulations�� governing the administration and operations of the HKP. These include but are not limited to the following rules and regulations:
1. Roles and functions: Constables are appointed to keep peace, arrest criminals and apprehend disorderly people.
2. Police powers: Sworn police constables have all ��such powers, author-ities, privileges, and advantages�� under common law, English stature and colonial ordinances.
3. Administrative orders: Police constables should obey all lawful orders given by superiors, from the Chief Magistrate to the Superintendent of Police to the Marine Magistrate.
4. Accountability: The Chief Magistrate is responsible for the efficient, effective and proper operation of the HKP.
5. Discipline: The Chief Magistrate has the power to suspend and dis-miss the staff for a cause: remiss, neglect or abuse in the performance of duties.
Section 4 provides for terms of service. It makes clear that serving with HKP is not an at-will contract. Constables appointed cannot ��be at liberty to resign�� without (1) giving 2 months notice; and (2) being approved by the Chief Magistrate.
Section 5 provides for cessation of police authority and return of police equipment when on an office vacation.
Sections 6 through 8 provide for disciplinary and accountability mea-sures, that is, penalty against disobedience of lawful order (Section 6), pen-alty of possession of police uniform, guns and ammunitions (Section 7) and accountability proceedings (Section 8). Specifically:
Section 6 provides for a penalty of $200 or less, in cases of neglect of duties or disobedience of orders.
Section 7 provides a penalty of $200 or less in cases when a non-appointed person has accessed to and in possession of police uniform, guns and ammu-nitions for the purpose of using them to impersonate a HKP constable.
Section 8 empowers the Governor to appoint the Chief Magistrate, Assistant Magistrate, Superintendent of Police and Marine Magistrate to conduct an inquiry into a complaint about police neglect of duty and abuse of power.
Section 9 provides that any challenge of rights and powers of the Chief Magistrate Superintendent of Police and others in performance of duties can be satisfied by reputation alone.
Section 10 provides for the establishment of a ��Police Reward Fund�� for the payment of ��rewards, bounties, and pensions��.
Section 11 sets forth arrest, detention and bail process. It provides that people who are arrested for minor crimes (misdemeanour and petty felony) shall be placed in the custody of a Sergeant who can then set bail for the appearance before JP.
Section 12 requires the Chief Magistrate to establish a police detail to attend to the magistrates�� business and duties, including executing ��all lawful warrants, orders, and command of such Justices�� in civil and criminal cases.
Section 13 sets forth the chain of command from the Chief Justice to the Police Superintendent to the other inferior ranks.
Section 14 provides HKP officers with immunity from prosecution and liability ��for any act done in obedience of the warrant��.
Section 15 exempts HKP officers and staff from jury duties.
Section 16 prohibits the keeper of liquor house from knowing ��harbor or entertain�� any member of the police force while on duty.
Section 17 provides for penalties against assaulting of police or obstruc-tion of justice.
The above PFO provided many of the general principles�Xconstituting authority, role and function and accountability, to build the first HKP. The PFO is characterised by its lack of specificity and sense of overall direction, beyond fighting crime and keeping order. It was intended to be an aspira-tional, empowering and guiding document rather than an instructional or legal one. The HKP force was small enough and the operational area was limited enough for the HKP supervisors to be in touch with the police. The PFO, being the first, also contemplates changes over time. Finally, the PFO indicates that Hong Kong was gingerly experimenting with building up a HKP. It did not want to be tied down and was unable to respond quickly to evolving situations or flexibly to novel cases.
Thus observed, the PFO leaves much room for creative experimentation and personal improvisation, in the hands of experienced police leaders, for example, May, seasoned colonial officials, for example, Caine or learned Hong Kong governors, for example, Davis, to make Hong Kong a success under a set of very difficult and uncertain circumstances. One must also remember that when the PFO was drafted and for a long time after, say before 1910, the Hong Kong expatriates lived in a small, knitted and intimate community, where people knew each other as neighbours, than strangers. The rule of the ��honorable man�� prevailed over the rule of impersonal law. It is best to call policing at this time and under PFO ��entrepreneur policing��. Entrepreneurs do not like rules, they have learned to improvise and solve problems, with all the resources or no resource at all.
The first PFO is also revealing for what it did not provide. The PFO did not provide for a ��Colonial�� police force. This should give a pause to those who argue that from day one, the colonists came prepared to set up a para-military force to control Hong Kong. The fact of the matter is, the colo-nists were neither prepared nor unprepared to rule Hong Kong, a Chinese habitat, miles from home, and the sight unseen. They did what they could, adjusting to well-established local conditions and reacting to a fast-evolving circumstance.
Native Chinese Peace Officer Ordinance (1844)
This was the first ��Chinese to Chinese�� policing law. Policing in Hong Kong during her early days would not be complete without discussing how indige-nous and migrate Chinese were controlled. No. 13 of 1844: ��An Ordinance for the appointment and regulation of Native Chinese Peace Officers (Paouchong and Paoukea) with the Colony of Hong Kong�� (31st May 1844) set forth the basic idea of indirect rule. The Ordinance was promulgated in order ��to adopt and preserve such Chinese institutions as tend to the preservation of peace, and good order��. Thus understood, British colonial officials and HKP leader-ship expected the Chinese police to regulate themselves in keeping order and maintaining peace, by dispensing control more proactively (confronting dis-putes) than reactively (confronting crime), more informal (restorative) than formal (punitive) kind of social control. The Ordinance is seven sections long. It was more of a declarative, affirmative and validating document than an instructive and organising act.
The Governor was authorised under the Ordinance (Preamble) to appoint native Chinese Peace Officers in ��towns, villages, and hamlets�� of the Colony of Hong Kong. The Peace Officers were supposed to be elected by inhabitants and recommended for appointment at the discretion of the Governor. These were the first elected officers in Hong Kong history. There was grass-root democracy in Hong Kong, under colonial rule.
In terms of authorities, privileges and immunities, the Peace Officers are like HKP officers in every way, except perhaps that they had no power to punish the offenders (Section 3). But the Chinese Peace officers, being indig-enous, had other more pervasive and effective sanctioning power: that of moral and customary powers to shame, and relationship power to demand respect.
In terms of discipline and accountability, the peace officers adhered to the Chinese tradition: ��Peace officers�K have the same authority�Kas any con-stable of the Police Force�K shall be subject to be punished for neglect of duty, in like manner as hath been customary within the dominions of the Emperor of China�K�� (Section 3).
The Chief Magistrate of Police was responsible for enacting rules and regulation at the sufferance of the Governor in Council. The Peace Officers were under the Chief Magistrate��s control and need to obey his order (Section 4). But in practice, the Chief Magistrate left the Chinese to do what they knew best. This is what ��indirect rule�� is all about.
The Peace Officers were subject to monetary fines for neglect of duty and misconduct, at the hand of the Magistrate of Police (No. 10 of 1844). If the offense was serious, Peace Officers are subject to dismissal ��with marks of ignominy as are customary in China�� (Section 7). Likewise, the Peace Officers could receive honours and awards for good conduct (Section 6).
The language and passage of Ordinance No. 13 of 1844 clearly shows that the British colonial administration was aware of and sensitive to Chinese ways and means, down to using shame and honour to discipline and control the would-be Peace Officers.20
Still the Ordinance, notwithstanding the good intention of Governor Davis, was not well received because the European public opinion of the time was squarely against a separate justice administration by and for the Chinese due to cultural ignorance and racial bias, though not without its reason, that is, lack of communication between British and Chinese in any meaningful way, due to language and cultural barriers. Thus, the European public was against placing powers of administration of justice in the hands of the Chinese who were considered not trustworthy and corrupted:
We have been, are, and always will be, the consistent opponents of giving the administration of law into Chinese hands, and we do it on the strong belief we have, that from the Emperor on the throne to the beggar on the dung-hill, there is not a Chinese who is not prepared to lie and support his lie with an oath; and further, that with the little existing power of public opinion, there is not one who is not prepared to be bribed; for which reasons we are strongly opposed to the administration of justice by Chinese to Chinese in a British Colony.21
In the end, it is fair to observe that there were many British laws on Chinese but very little justice for Chinese people, and separate administra-tion notwithstanding.22
Justice of Peace Ordinance (1844)
Ordinance No. 10 of 1844: ��An Ordinance to regulate summary Proceedings before Justices of the Peace, and to protect Justices in the Execution of their Office�� (10th April 1844) details the powers of Justice of Peace in the exe-cution of his office. Section IV, authorised the Justice of Peace to order the appearance of offenders to face criminal proceedings with the issuance of warrants of arrests. Under Section IV, Justice of Peace is authorised to issue warrants: ��IV. It shall and may be lawful for any Justice of the Peace, when any Information shall be exhibited before him, and in the opinion of such Justice it shall be fit and proper to do, to grant a warrant under his Hand, directed to some Constable, Peace Officer, or other proper person �Kto take any offender against whom such Information shall be laid, and to bring him before such Justice or Justices of the Peace, as the Case may require, at a Time and Place to be named in such Warrant��.
Gaming Ordinance (1844)
Ordinance 14 of 1844 ��An Ordinance for suppression of Public Gaming in the Colony of Hong Kong�� (10th June 1844) outlawed gaming in the public, a favourite pass time of Hong Kong people at the time. The said Gaming Ordinance empowered the HKP to act against gambling with warrant from Justice of Peace. Section 4 in the Ordinance provided in pertinent part:
And be it further enacted that it shall be lawful for any Justice of the Peace or constable of the Police duly authorized by warrant of any Justice of the Peace, to enter and if necessary to break into any house �Kplace either on land or water, within which such Justice of the Peace shall be credibly informed on oath, or have reasonable grounds of his own knowledge to suspect and believe that public gambling or playing is, or has been commonly carried on�K
The provision further empowered the police to arrest all persons and seize all monies attending a gambling event.
This Ordinance reveals several things about the HKP at the time, which has a grave impact and far greater consequences on the relationship between police and Chinese society in the long term.
In terms of police role, the Ordinance required the HKP to act as a moral agent in the guise of a law enforcer, that is, extending and promoting of British Victorian values on an ��uncivilized�� and ��immoral�� crowd. At the time, and even now, gambling law enforcement was at odds with the ingrained habits of the Chinese,23 socially and customarily. Personal indulgence among eth-nic Chinese had been elevated to the level of addiction, sickness and moral flaws, requiring intervention, treatment and above all punishment.24 Here, the British were not sensitive or unable to discriminate between gambling as a personal habit, social pastime, sickness or moral flaw. For control purposes, those were one and the same. As a result, it was the punishment that defines the crime, not the criminal conduct that controlled the reaction. Making punishment fit the crime was a classical and administrative approach to crime and punishment. It privileged the authority�Xreaction to crime, over and above the criminal��s just desserts and treatment. In context, how Chinese (gambler) thought and felt about crime (choice vs. habits vs. addiction) had little bearing on the need for control. Or, simply, the British colonists cared little (indifference) and knew less (ignorance) about the Chinese in pursing administrative rule in Hong Kong. That was the pitfall of colonial policing.
More troublesomely, the way the Ordinance was drafted and applied was discriminatory along culture and class line. It was thus acceptable to play poker in a club house or bet on horses in the race track, but not playing mah-jong in home or �r ��25 in public. Boisterous bar card game is social while loud mahjong at home is nuisance.26
The race and class-based Gambling Ordinance and stern enforcement drew a loud and sharp rebuke from the local press. In an 1887 editorial, the China Mail has this to say about the colony��s gambling policy:
��It is monstrous folly to regard a crime in a Chinaman an act which is not looked upon even with disfavor when practiced by others; for if the wrenched little Chinamen play with cash are to be stigmatized as gambling so also must be called the conduct of man in this colony who sits down to play for quarter dollar points after dinner or joins a ��pool�� in a billiard room. If whist and bil-liards are innocent enjoyment then also is the Chinaman��s cash game inno-cent enjoyment��.27
In terms of enforcement process, the Ordinance required a warrant from JP based on reasonable suspicion before any search of gambling place and seizure of gambling proceeds. This was not required with the Chinese judi-cial process, since magistrates and runners have unlimited access to enter illegal establishments and seize illegal goods, as warranted.28
In terms of HKP and the relationship with the underlying society (indig-enous residents and transient population), this gambling law and strict enforcement policy was not understood, much less accepted by the Chinese. The HKP breached the faith of the public, who evaluated the HKP on moral grounds. In the eyes of the people, the HKP was not acting as a ��father and mother official�� (fu wu guan) in a paternalistic, compassionate and sensi-ble way. They were not looking out for the welfare of their charge as sons and daughters and in accordance with ��Qing-Li-Fa��. As a result, the Chinese people looked elsewhere for resources and support in meeting their expecta-tions, security and well-being. They turned to communal groups, and ethnic associations; failing that seek out triads, as hire guns.
In terms of police operations, the HKP, having little Chinese knowledge and access, was not able to keep gambling under control. This invited abuse (shake down by police) and corruption (bribing by public). In time, syndica-tion of corruption blossomed,29 with little semblance of control, virtually an open secret.30
Distillation of Spirits Ordinance (1844)
No. 8 of 1844: ��An Ordinance for prohibiting the Distillation of Spirits within the Colony of Hong Kong�� (20th March 1844). The Ordinance prohibited the distillation of spirits except under licence (Section 1), and only for profes-sional or medical use, such as apothecary, chemist or druggist, and only lim-ited to 8 gallons (Section 3).
Police authorities were given extensive search and seizure powers to stamp out illegal spirit making, on land or sea. A pertinent part of Section 4 of the Ordinance reads:
IV: It shall and may be lawful for any Justice of the Peace, Officer of Customs, or other Person duly and lawfully authorized, having reasonable Grounds to believe and suspect that any private and concealed Still, or other Utensil or Vessel for the Distillation of Spirits, is set up or kept in any House or Place within the Colony or its Dependencies, to enter into such House or Place in the Daytime, and accompanies by a Peace Officer, to search for and seize any such Still, Utensil, or Vessel�K
The making of spirits and alcohol was strictly regulated by law and inspected by officials. The Chief Magistrate of Police was authorised to take applications for licences to make sure that Public House licences did not fall into wrong hands, that is, criminals or a person of ill repute:
III. And for the better preventing the granting Licences to unfit or improper Persons, be it further enacted, That every Person desirous of obtaining a License for keeping a Public House under the Provisions of this Ordinance or of obtaining the Renewal of a Licence before granted, shall, Ten Days before the Day of which his Application is to be taken into consideration deliver to the Chief Magistrate of Police a Notice in Writing of his Intention to apply for such Licence , and that in every such Notice there shall be contained a full descrip-tion of the House proposed to be licensed, with a Statement of the Applicant��s Trade or Calling and Situation in Life and whether married or unmarried, together with the Names, Residence, and Additions of his proposed sureties, and that every Person giving such Notice shall in like Manner deliver by three or more known respectable Housekeepers, residing within the said Colony�K
The reason for prohibition of distillation of spirits was to stop illegal mak-ing and selling of alcoholic drinks, which was found to be a health hazard. For example, in a letter to the editor on 28 September 1843, a sailor described his misadventure and harmfulness of illegal wine selling and drinking in Hong Kong, particularly by sailors:
I am a sailor on one of the receiving ships in the harbour. My captain keeps me working all week and I can only go ashore on Sunday. When I arrive on land, I find the pubs are all closed by government order. Some Chinese entrepreneurs stakeout the closed pubs and way-lay people like me. They secretly sell us grog at high prices. We either buy from them or go without. They take us up the hills at the back of the town to grottoes beside mountain streams where we drink the villainous stuff to the detriment of our health�KAlternatively we can board one of the lorchas in harbour where we can buy another similarly noxious wine at even higher price and drink unconcerned for the attentions of the land or water police. This is hard for us sailors but if the matter was well represented to the nobs, they might care for us better without affecting the morals of the town. Yours Ben Brace31
However, the Ordinance did not go unchallenged. The Editor of the Friend of China, openly challenged the law as unreasonable:
Editor�XI don��t understand this second law. Rum from Manila is landed at 30 cents a gallon. Spirits have to be expensive before people distil their own. Is the import of sam shoo from Kowloon to be prohibited? The Chief Magistrate recently disallowed a shopkeeper from making ginger beer because it was ��conducive to drunkenness��.32
Registry and Census of the Inhabitants Ordinance (1844)33
��An Ordinance to repeal Ordinance No. 16 of 1844, and to establish a Registry and Census of the Inhabitants of the Island of Hong Kong�� (13th November 1844).
The Preamble of the Ordinance makes clear that the Ordinance was pro-mulgated to keep track of the mobility of a transient population as it tried to prevent undesirables from coming to Hong Kong, such as ��abandoned char-acters�� and persons without any ostensible means of subsistence.
In operations, the Ordinance called for registering all residents and sojourns in Hong Kong. Starting from 1st January 1845, all people living or travelling through Hong Kong were required to register at the ��Census and Registration Office�� at Victoria, except for those who worked for the British government, including the East India Company, and professionals, clerks, shop keepers, householders, tenants and persons of independent means ($500 per annum) (Section 2). If the Registrar General and delegates found that any registered person was a vagabond or bad character or without visible means of subsistence, the Registrar General had the authority to prohibit the person from residing in Hong Kong, except for a resident (Section 3). Registered persons were given a ticket (Section 3) to be refreshed annually (Section 4). People who hired, hid or offered residence to a nonregistered person would be penalised (Sections 7 and 8). Businesses or households were also required to report the number, sex, country and occupation of each person in the premises or household (Section 11), as did boats and Chinese vessels visiting Hong Kong (Sections 13 and 14).34
The ��Registry and Census of the Inhabitants Ordinance�� recalls an age-old household registration system, installed for social control, class mainte-nance, military conscription and taxation management purposes in Imperial China.35 The household registration system survived the years until today, where it is enforced in the People��s Republic of China.36
Preservation of Good Order and Cleanliness Ordinance (1844)37
On 20th March 1844, ��An Ordnance for the Preservation of good order and cleanliness within the Colony of Hong Kong�� (No. 5 of 1844) was passed. The Preamble makes clear that the Ordinance is ��to provide for the preserva-tion of good order and cleanliness within the Colony of Hong Kong��.38 The Ordinance was amended on 26 December 1845.
The Ordinance later to be called Summary Offense Ordinances (1933),39 regulated vice activities, offensive weapons, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, public nuisances, sanitary conditions, health threats, building maintenance, environmental protection and employee conducts, among others. In sum, anything and everything that disturbed the peace and well-being of a ��well ordered�� community, in the British�VEuropean image.
The Ordinance starts with prohibiting any person from throwing or causes to be throwing filth, rubbish or offensive matters into the public, drainage40 or around the house and neighbourhood.41 It also prohibits caus-ing a nuisance to others and obstruction in public roads.42 It prohibits erect-ing unsafe buildings and spreading inflammatory materials in and around the premises. It prohibits trashing into the sea43 and failing to raise the sunken boat from the sea. It prohibits driving on footpath and driving in a furious manner, not giving the right-of-ways to horses, cars or people. It pro-hibits barking and dangerous dogs,44 and annoying and disturbing noises. It prohibits displaying and selling obnoxious and adulterated good/drinks, and cautioned against damaging and defacing government property.
In terms of criminalisation of immoral, offensive and dangerous con-ducts, the Ordinance prescripts against:
1. Houses of prostitution
2. Gambling shop
3. Offensive weapons
4. Unlawful assembly
5. Not reporting unlawful assembly, riotous conducts, insult of female and drunk in public; using profane and indecent languages; chal-lenges to fight and offensive gestures likely to cause breach of peace45
6. Begging46
7. Indecent exposure
8. Bathing on the street
9. Not being ��able to give a satisfactory account of himself and his way of living��47
10. One ��who being abroad at night-time shall not give a satisfactory rea-son for so being��
11. Pretend to tell fortunes or exercise magic arts, or impose on credu-lity and superstition with a view to gain
12. Defraud people with counterfeit
13. Play noisy and obstructive games in public through fare
14. Resist and obstruct Justice of Peace and police in the exercise of duties
15. Domestic servants and employees leaving employers without ade-quate notice and timely replacement
16. Employee absent from duties without leave so as to injure or endan-ger the employer��s property48
17. Employee willfully disobeys lawful and reasonable orders
18. Guards or watchmen sleeping on duty
19. Cruelty to and multination of animals without necessity
In violation of the above, and upon conviction, the offender was ordered by the Justice of Peace president to make good his transgression, or risk-enhanced punishment (Section 2). The Superintendent of Police and other officers were authorised by the Chief Magistrate to abate any observed nui-sance, for example, requires the fixing up of any damages done (Section 3).
V: The Police Laws and Role of HKP
For the study of policing of Hong Kong in the 1840s, the above set of police laws is instructive.
First, for a long time, there was no definitive knowledge of what the role and functions of the HKP were. With the material above, there is a better idea. While Ordinance No. 5 of 1844 does not tell us what HKP actually did, it informs of what the colonialists had in mind: Hong Kong (European and Chinese) residents should behave like a British gentleman.49 In China�VHong Kong traditionally, (not) doing what ought to be done or ���� (bugai) is in context of time, place, people, circumstances or situation, as with deviating from the norm, high (Victorian) or low (customary).
The substantive provisions ��good order and cleanliness��, individual or collectively, were codes for good citizenship and cultural correctness. Viewed in this light, HKP was acting at all times as cultural, not legal, agents. Recall Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. There, Professor Higgins was not only teaching English. He was teaching manners. In effect, he was trying to transform Eliza Doolittle into a lady, through the teaching of English; the HKP, in effect, was asked to operate as Professor Higgins did. The best example on using police to teach correct manners was when the General Commander of Armed Forces, Major General D��Aguilar could not go to sleep at night as a result of bamboo beating by night watchmen. To resolve his frustrations, an order in the council was issued pursuant to Section 1 of No. 5 of 1844 to stop such kinds of nuisance, once and for all.50
Second, the Ordinance did not regulate conduct; it controlled-lifestyle decisions and punished status. As such, it was not what a person did but who the person was that attracted police attention. Thus, not being ��able to give a satisfactory account of himself and his way of living�� really punished peo-ple (mostly Chinese) for being in the wrong place (Peak) at the wrong time (walking out at night).51 Provisions against playing noisy and obstructive games in public through fare really regulated (Chinese) collies who worked on the street and engaged in gambling in between jobs,52 or more commonly still, hawkers trying to ply for trade in loud voices: ��Some colorful customs�Xirritating and a nuisance to people in the 1880s�Xare now rare�KStreet cries are an example. Tradesmen�Xknife�Xsharpeners, seasonable lychee-sellers�Xseldom call out business now in residential areas, as in 1880s and still in 1970s��.53 Since Chinese need to venture out at night, somehow; collies need to take a break, somehow, and hawkers need to make a living, somehow, and the Ordinance promises to make their life difficult, with HKP as their enemy (contempt) or friend (bribe).
Third, the Ordinance showed that HKP at that time had many duties, and was relative to a different audience, for example, Chinese versus Europeans, and situations, for example, curfew versus storms. They were jack-of-all-trades and a troop for all seasons, and reasons. By design, the HKP was the only ��executive�� agency in town, responsible for and capable of carrying out the policies of the Governor, a benevolent dictatorship. In this regard, the HKP was more like a general police agent than a specific one, at the disposal of the Hong Kong chief executive, with the advice of the Legislative Council and consultation of the Chinese community notwithstanding.
Fourth, in the 1840s and 1850s, policing in Hong Kong came close to the historical and original conception of police. Police, as an urban agency, existed to promote the overall order, safety, security and welfare of Hong Kong. However, the HKP could not be conceptualised with the original idea of police for a number of reasons. First, the original conception of role, functions, responsibilities and powers of police had little relevancy when transported to Hong Kong. Colonial officials thus needed to rethink and adjust mindsets about police role and relationship in Hong Kong, especially in the earlier years and before it took a definite shape. Second, the role and relationship of HKP evolved as it matured and mutated over time, growing with Hong Kong. This included mission creep and identity re-orientation. The best description of HKP at this time is that the HKP was an instrumen-tality of the state to protect Western values and British interests, in the name of transcendental values, high morality and universal rights.
Finally, the debate over whether HKP was a colonial force should be resolved in favour of a civil mandate by the provisions in and application of this Ordinance. In many instances, HKP officers were found deployed as sanitary agents, to keep the street and drains clean, as a public service:
Capt Haly, as part of his police duty, has cleansed all the drains in the upper bazaar. The part of Queen��s Road in our vicinity (beneath the upper bazaar) is now fragrant�K. His procedure of holding back a head of water then letting it rush through the drains morning and evening has carried all the filth to the sea. We are sorry he is returning to India with his regiment.54
Mrs Milne and Vesey are contracted to government to fix the drains but week after week nothing is done and now the hot weather is almost upon us. They should not turn over the soil now and expose us to the noxious disease-causing fumes in the decomposing granite subsoil. We prefer instead to rely on the Police Superintendent sluicing the drains daily�K. The latest plan we hear is to form a 6�� diameter brick arched tunnel under Queen��s Road with branches joining at every junction to carry off the sewage. With our surfeit of labourers they should complete this in 3�V4 months but the work should only be done in winter�KThat part of the island that has a sandy soil overlying hard rock is free of disease. This is characteristic of land between Captain Burd��s house and Dr Anderson��s dispensary.55
VI: Police Leadership and Policing in Hong Kong
Soon after the PFO was promulgated, Mr Charles May was hired from London and appointed as Captain Superintendent of Police in Hong Kong on 3 September 1844. Inspector May is the first trained policeman in Hong Kong. He came to Hong Kong after serving 9 years with the London Metropolitan Police (LMP) (7 November 1835 and 7 October 1844). After arrival, May was instructed by Governor Davis by and through Chief Magistrate Caine to develop a plan for policing in Hong Kong.56
Before Superintendent May took office, Chief Magistrate William Caine was the law and order authority. Caine is a stern and industrious military officer. He took his law and order duties seriously, if not personally. At that time, the political status of Hong Kong had yet to be finalised. The Hong Kong government did not have a coherent governing philosophy and admin-istrative policy. By and large, it abided by a live and let live, see how it goes through mentality. By analogy, Caine could be described as someone similar to the new sheriff in the Wild, West of frontier America.57 Caine was given a free hand to keep the criminals at bay. Lacking resources, Caine treated Hong Kong as a penal colony and enforced the law as if it was a military justice code, with public flocking, branding and deportation liberally admin-istered. Still, disorder and violence remained unabated.
Thus, when Mr May came into the office, he had his job cut out for him, that is, trying to steer HKP into a civilian police force, with little guidance and still less resources.
First, the population of Hong Kong increased exponentially. The growth rate was beyond what the meagre police capacity and resource could handle.
Second, the people who came to Hong Kong�Xsoldiers, sailors, labourers and artisans�Xwere not the cream of the crop. They were more likely to be people with a shoddy past or criminal background.
Third, the people who came to Hong Kong were young, male, single, ambitious and aggressive, with outcasts and desperados in the mix. Most, if not all, lived for the moment, caring little about what the future might bring. They otherwise had little bonding to the society.58 They were primed for crime, given the right opportunity.
Fourth, there were a lot of opportunities. There were also a lot of seduc-tion and temptation, and overall bad influences. Overall and for most of the time, there were more motivated offenders and fertile opportunities than the availability of capable guardianship and existence of a secured environment.
Fifth, people could come and go as they like, over from China, across from Kowloon or travel by sea everywhere. This made prevention and detec-tion of offenders very difficult.
Sixth, May was not given many financial or human resources to work with.
Seventh, May had difficulty of recruiting and training the right kind of people to join and stay as police officers. The Chinese were reluctant to join the police, due to cultural aversion, political rejection and legal liability. The morality (corruption, vice), integrity (honesty), loyalty (nationalism, anti-foreignism), competence (uneducated, cannot be trained) and dependency (lazy, bad habits) of the Chinese could not be trusted.
Eighth, May could not get enough qualified and dependable expatriates to join the police.
Ninth, the European and Indian police contingent did not understand Hong Kong culture or speak Chinese language, without which they could not communicate with local people and investigate crimes.
Finally, it was impossible to police Hong Kong beyond Victoria or the Peak.
Mr Charles May was the first-ever Captain Superintendent for the HKP.
He was appointed as the Superintendent of Police with Mr Thomas Smithers and Mr Hugh McGregor on 18th March 1845, with this govern-ment notification:
In consequence of the arrival from England of Mr. May, the Superintendent of Police, all burglaries, robberies, assaults, nuisances, and other matters connected with duties of the Police, instead of being reported to the Chief Magistrate as heretofore should in future be at once brought to the notice of the Superintendent of Police, at the Central Police Station near the old Market Place.59(76)
He was also the first to have trained and worked as a British police force before coming to Hong Kong. His mission was to organise the HKP in the image of LMP. As observed by Robert A. Bickers:
The SMP (Shanghai Metropolitan Police) was founded on the model of the Hong Kong Police Force, itself based on London��s Metropolitan Police. Over the years it looked directly to the Met for ideas about structure and practice, but also stiffened itself with a Royal Irish Constabulary backbone�KIts Sheikh element meant that it liaised with the British Indian army experts and recruiters, and recruited senior personnel from colonial police and military forces in Malaya�K60
No sooner had Superintendent May been appointed was he faced with three problems: how to shape the HKP��s development, operation and iden-tity, frequent riots and pervasive corruption.
First, there was the issue of how HKP is to be funded, to support the establishment, development and operation of HKP. England took a minimal-ist approach in colonial governance. She wanted colonies to pay for their own police. Hong Kong business people were reluctant to pay disproportionately for policing the Chinese communities. The Chinese felt no obligation to pay for a colonial police to lord over them. In 1845, the first Rating Ordinance, Ordinance (No. 2 of 1845) was enacted to pay for HKP out of property assess-ment, for example, 13% at Victoria and Hill district at 8.75%. Since then, it has been called Police Rate or in Chinese Chai Heung (�t��) literally means ��Police Pay��. In time �t�� was raised to cover many of the municipal expen-ditures, such as the expense of public lighting, water supply, the fire brigade and so on.
Second, indigenous Chinese, especially at the bottom, had negative expe-riences and low opinions of the Chinese police, resulting in civil disobedi-ence and riots. For example, on 25 March 1846, local Chinese expressed displeasure with the Chinese police stationed at West end of Victoria and stated a serious riot requiring the deployment of a large contingent of HKP led by the Superintendent coming to the rescue.61
Third, the HKP had a problem of corruption since its inception. In April 1845, a complaint of police officers taking bribe (��contribution��) was lodged with the Chief Magistrate, who in turn investigated into the case to no avail.62
VII: Conclusion
This chapter describes and discusses HKP reform in the 1840s. Particularly, it provides an historical overview on how the early colonialists tried to establish law and order in Hong Kong, which to them must have been a herculean task.
��The Police Laws and Role of HKP�� points to the fact that, under colonial rule, the role of HKP was very much a moral qua cultural agent, more so than a law enforcer or order maintainer per se. This is so because the various laws were drafted in such a way as to penalise Chinese age-old personal habits, for example, gambling, economic activities, for example, hawking and yelling, and traditional custom, for example, night watch and gonging.
The ��Police Leadership and Policing in Hong Kong�� allows comparison and contrast of two very different police personalities and with it, exposure to two distinctively different styles of policing in Hong Kong. First came Caine, a no-nonsense military officer turned police chief who believed in stern mili-tary discipline and harsh punishment as a way to reform the Chinese and deter crime. Then came May, an experienced police Bobby from LMP com-ing East, who was committed to establishing an effective police force system and efficient patrolling process to prevent crime, catch criminals and protect victims.
Beyond personality and style, both Caine and May suffered from a gross lack of resources�Xmaterial, financial and human, in keeping criminals/pri-vacy at bay and Hong Kong (European) safe, in the face of ruthless despera-dos, listless migrants and illusive pirates.
Finally, given the historical circumstances, these two early police lead-ers were confronted with the limited resources they had to work with, and it is best to call their shared policing style as ��entrepreneurial policing��, which is characterised by a high degree of improvisation, flexibility and pragmatism.
��Entrepreneurial policing�� requires taking charge of people who can see risk and seize opportunities. It needs leaders who have a strong character, independent mind and innovative spirit to inspire the crowd and discipline their body. Thus, we can expect police chiefs of the time to have strong per-sonality in order to take charge and run the show.
We can also be fairly sure that these people dislike rules and hate the system. They rather reply on their personality traits and leadership skills to get things done, in driving deadbeat people and building new programmes.
As it was, this trend of entrepreneurial policing would change with the ��HKP Reform in 1950s��. Before looking into ��HKP Reform in 1950s��, it is necessary to be familiarised with the ��Hong Kong Police Reform in 1950s: Context and Framework��. The next chapter turns to this discussion.
Endnotes
1. HLCHK, 29.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 89.
4. As used here, institution of social control means the consistency and persistency of form and functions of control by way of internalisation of norms or mainte-nance of disciplinary structure, in the family or at workplace. Being new to the governance of Chinese people, with an uncertain prospect, the colonialists were hard pressed to come up with any institutions of control, such as police, court, jail and still less institutionalisation of social control. L. G. Zucker, The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence, L. G. Zucker, American Sociological Review, 42(5): 726 n�V743 n, 1977.
5. ��Organizing is the function of management which follows planning. It is a func-tion in which the synchronization and combination of human, physical and financial resources takes place.�� See ��Organizing Function of Management�� MSG (n/d). http://www.managementstudyguide.com/organizing_function.htm
6. For analysis of social control in Hong Kong, police and policing are an impor-tant agency and activity. There is a need to clearly distinguish between policing of subjects (British nationals [U.K.] and naturalised [H.K.]), and Hong Kong inhabitants (Chinese national turned British subjects). For example, to the British colonisers and Chinese migrant workers, there were no institutions and institutionalised social control, formal (e.g., police) or informal (e.g., family). But to the local Hong Kong residents�Xvillagers (before British), there were both institutions (e.g., family, clan) and institutionalised (village head, mag-istrate) social control. At the current juncture, the author is only interested in exploring social control, including policing, from the British perspective.
7. ��8: William Caine��. In: G.W. Endacott, A Biographical Sketch-Book of Early Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), pp. 60�V66. Captain William Caine (1798�V?) was the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1854 to 1859. He was the acting Governor of Hong Kong between May and September 1859. Caine was also the Chief Magistrate, who was the head of pre-Hong Kong Police Force from 1841 to 1844. Later, Caine became the Colonial Secretary and Auditor General Captain Cain was born in England in 1798 and served in the British Army��s 26th (Cameroonian) Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War against Napoleon in Spain. His regiment was later transferred to Hong Kong and he began his long association with the colony.
8. M. S. Gaylord and H. Traver, Colonial policing and the demise of British Rule in Hong Kong, International Journal of Sociology of Law, 23(1): 23�V42, 1995. (This section discusses the origin and development of Hong Kong, particularly how it transformed itself from a colonial [discriminatory�Vcoercive] force into a more democratic [indigenous�Vservice oriented] organisation, as 1997 approached.)
9. The term traditional, not Imperial, is used here to make clear that in China of the ancient times, laws follow morals, of the secular and customary kind. This is because morality in China, unlike those of the West, is weaved from daily inter-course below (being secular in solving problems of human intercourse) than conjured up above as a secluded and prolonged exercise of speculative thought (being philosophical in dealing with logical issues).
10. C. Munn, Scratching with a Rattan: William Caine and the Hong Kong magis-tracy, 1841�V1844, Hong Kong Law Journal, 25: 224, 1995.
11. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, The History of the Laws and Courts of Hongkong, Tracing Consular Jurisdiction in China and Japan and Including Parliamentary Debates, and the Rise, Progress and Successive Changes in the Various Public Institutions of the Colony from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 2 Vols. (T. Fischer Unwin, 1898), p. 92.
12. Heavy punishment was used during the early Ming dynasty to deal with law-lessness in the realm by Emperor Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang (������). http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/43650126.html?loc_ans=149491992
13. S. E. Hamilton, Watching over Hong Kong: Private Policing 1841�V1941 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004), p. 16.
14. Governor Davis was appointed on 16 July 1844.
15. P. Lim, Forgotten Souls: A Social History of the Hong Kong Cemetery (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011). For social conditions of the time, see Chapter 16: ��Hong Kong Society in This Period��. For government policy and practice, see Chapter 18: ��Government Measures and Their Effect on Society��. (The HKP officers lived a shabby life, suffering from lack of amenities at work, few marriage opportunities, no family ties and low social and economic status. They were asked to control huge illegal enterprises. There was tremendous pres-sure to perform and a lot of opportunities for abuse or corruption. E.g., in Wan Chai Squeezing Club), p. 378.
16. J. F. Davis, The Chinese: A General Description of the Empire of China and Its Inhabitants (London: Charles Knight, 1836); 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, Vols. 1 and 2 (London: Charles Knight & Co., Ludgate Street, 1841). In 2 volumes; and Sir J. F. Davis, A Vocabulary, Containing Chinese Words and Phrases Peculiar to Canton and Macao, and to the Trade of Those Places (Honorable Company��s Press, by P. P. Thoms, 1824).
17. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, pp. 155�V166.
18. R. Buckley, Hong Kong: The Road to 1997 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 12 June 1997), pp. 4�V5.
19. Ibid., p. 5.
20. See also Ordinance No. 3 of 1953. On 2 December 1853, the legislature passed Ordinance No. 3 of 1953 titled: An Ordinance to extend the duties of Chinese Tepos appointed under Ordinance No. 13 of 1844; to determine their emol-uments; and to provide for the amiable settlement of civil suits among the Chinese population of Hong Kong. For eventual failure of this Ordinance, see B. Hsu, The Common Law in Chinese Context (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1992), p. 12.
21. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, op. cit., note 49, p. 339.
22. C. Mum, The criminal trial under early colonial rule, In: Tak-Wing Ngo (ed.), Hong Kong��s History: State and Society under Colonial Rule (New York: Routledge, 11 September 2002), pp. 43�V73, p. 66.
23. J. M. Loo, N. Raylu and T. P. Oei, Gambling among the Chinese: A comprehen-sive review, Clinical Psychology Review, 28: 152�V1166, 2008. (��Social gambling is widespread among Chinese communities as it is a preferred form of entertain-ment�K. Cultural differences exist in patterns of gambling when compared with Western samples; however, evidence is inconsistent�K�� (Abstract).
24. T. P. Oei and N. Raylu, Gambling and problem gambling among Chinese. 2007. This is a report submitted to the Research and Community Engagement Division, Queensland Office of Gaming Regulation, Queensland Treasury for the fulfillment of a research grant no.: 2002001746 awarded to Professor T. P. Oei. http://www.olgr.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/249945/gamblin-gAndProblemGamblingAmongChinese.pdf
25. http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%97%E8%8A%B1
26. Gambler and informers, In: G. Bickley (ed.), A Magistrate��s Court in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Proverse, 2005), pp. 331�V337.
27. G. Bickley (ed.), A Magistrate��s Court in 19th Century Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Proverse, 2005), p. 331.
28. China has an integrated and holistic legal system, substantively and procedur-ally, criminal and civil. What matters is whether things being done conform to moral principles espoused by the sage scholars, with Confucius in the lead. The actions of all people�Xofficials versus public, sage versus base, are judged by one uniform standard, that is, whether it is morally correct and appropriate in context (��ying gai���X��what should be the case��). What is right versus wrong is self-evident to people and eminent in nature. Chinese philosophy affects people��s reaction to deviance. Nothing should stand in the way of doing jus-tice, which amounts to seeking the truth and punishing the deviant. General response to social disorder turns on the corrigibility of the offender. The cor-rigible people should be re-integrated and for those who are incorrigible, they should be punished, and exterminated. The ultimate purpose of punishment are two: transformation through education and suppression by incapacitation (capital punishment, exile). Punishment ranges from persuasion, prevention, cooptation and suppression. B. E. McKnight and H. Kuklick, Law and Order in Sung China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 30 October 1992), Chapter 1, especially ��Basic Belief�� (pp. 6�V9) and ��Responses to Deviance�� (pp. 11�V15). In order to reform, offenders need to tell everything. In order to excommunicate, offenders are expected to fest up. In order to do justice, officials need to know the truth, most of the time by way of confession.
29. In August 1886, there was a major police scandal involving illegal gambling. Fifty-three Chinese policemen (��lukongs��) were on the take from the owner of a gambling establishment. G. Bickley (ed.), Magistrate��s Court in Nineteenth Century Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Proverse, 2005), p. 336.
30. With colonialism, structural corruption is obtained when the demand for cul-tural goods (here gambling) does not match with the supply of legal activities.
31. Friend of China 28.9.43 edition.
32. Friend of China 30.3.44 edition.
33. http://www.hklii.hk/eng/hk/legis/HKHistLaws/1890/72.html
34. Friend of China 5.3.44 supplement: The government has published a set of rules to suppress vagabonds by the regulation of small boats in the harbour.
35. F. L. Wang, Organizing through Division and Exclusion: China��s Hukou System (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).
36. W. Huen, Household registration system in the Qing dynasty: Precursor to the PRC��s Hukou system, China Report, 32(4): 395�V418, 1996.
37. This was followed up by Ordinance No. 8 of 1866 that was passed:37 ��An Ordinance to make further Provision for the Maintenance of Order and Cleanliness with the Colony of Hong Kong�� (16 August 1866). The Ordinance Section 8 provides that no person in Victoria should keep or give away any poultries that are considered as a health hazard, such as a pig: Section 8 in a per-tinent part provided against ��The keeping of pigs, or other animals likely to be injurious to the public health, within the city of Victoria without special license from the Registrar General is strictly prohibited�K�� The Ordinance further pro-hibits the keeping and selling of adulterated food, liquor and provisions.
38. Friend of China 23.3.44 edition. ��Editorial�Xfor over two weeks there have been no robberies. The Chief Magistrate may be congratulated but we think it is D��Aguilar who deserves the credit. He has augmented the police force. The boat regulations have likely also helped. The Superintendent has since been busy clearing the drains daily. We hope he continues to have enough help to do this, as it is too late now to do all the things we should have done to avoid another feverish summer. A survey is to be made of Happy Valley. Hopefully the stag-nant malarial water there will soon be drained��.
39. Chapter 228. The Summary Offences Ordinances. (1st January 1933). To amend and consolidate the law relating to summary offences.
40. ��The abattoir has been sited on the hillside above the town and the offal and blood, and so on, trickles down a stream on its way to the sea. This stream passes beneath the market place. Some of the muck gets stuck en route and creates a really foul smell as it rots until a rain shower washes it away. The proper place for slaughtering cattle is at the seashore. We cannot use natural watercourses as sewers without first training and lining them. The local people have different ideas. For example, in Magistracy Street the residents empty their commodes each morning in the centre of the road��. Friend of China 3.8.43 edition Letter to the Editor from ��Snooks��.
41. A Letter to the Editor concerning land allocations by ��Good Faith�� in Friend of China 5.3.44 edition complained of: ��The drains up there in the Upper Bazaar are a bit smelly, and amongst the genuine traders are a few ��houses of disrepute���K��
42. ��Editorial�XLast Saturday night our Chinese residents chin-chinned the moon (the full moon�Xsheung yuet�X8th moon 15th day). They erected poles from their houses, many 20�V40 feet long, and placed lanterns on them, together with grotesque figures of men and dragons. They let-off firecrackers from morning to night along the entire length of Queen��s Road. The noise of the crackers was bad but the smell was worse. They should be allowed to enjoy their festivals but not let-off crackers on the public highway��. Friend of China 12.10.43 supplement.
43. ��The bodies of seamen dying on Her Majesty��s vessels in the harbour are lowered into boats and rowed a short way off and dumped. Does this accord with naval regulations? Is there no service for the dead��? Friend of China 3.8.43 edition: Letter to the Editor from ��Snooks��.
44. ��Letter to the Editor: Several garden houses have unchained dogs that rush upon anyone venturing through the fence to approach the house. Last Friday I went to collect a debt from a house on Queen��s Road and, on entering the garden, a dog rushed at me and savaged my right hand. I have kept a record of doc-tor��s fees for treatment and I will try to get it back from the responsible person. Meantime victims should report to the magistrate. This nuisance should not be permitted to continue��. Friend of China 2.11.43 edition.
45. ��We are pleased to see the Chief Magistrate has commenced his long threatened attack on delinquents. These people mostly lurk on the hill at the back of the lower bazaar (known to the British as Tai Ping Shan, the Cantonese name for the Peak) and the preponderance of burglars either live there or have confederates there�KA.few attempts to set fire to the housing have recently been discovered and doused. We must make sure these delinquents cannot come back�KPerhaps we should adopt the Chinese method of graduated personal responsibility. The Dutch have done this in Batavia with their Chinese. It has not been done in Singapore and robberies are also frequent there��. Friend of China 19.10.43 edition.
46. Hong Kong Crime Report: ��The beggars have also largely disappeared. We are not surprised. Several bands of them passed our doors in the custody of the police last week and were taken down to the harbour and embarked on boats for their native land (Kowloon)��. Friend of China 26.10.43 supplement.
47. These provisions were used to get rid of undesirable and unsightly people from the street, and those who were unwelcomed were out of Hong Kong. The law was set up in such a way that the police were authorised to accost and arrest any-one they like to secure order and reduce fear. For example, in 1868 alone, 427 persons were convicted as ��suspicious persons�� when the main serious criminal charges were not possible due to lack of evidence or witnesses. C. Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841�V1880 (New York Routledge, 16 December 2013), p. 347.
48. Employer (foreign) and employee (Chinese) relationship was a real problem. There was no love lost between the two, and still less trust. Friend of China 12.3.44 edition has this to report: ��Many residents have employed watchmen to protect their property but it is suspected that some of these employees are in league with robbers��. On 2 March 1844, Rev Charles Gutzlaff was appointed as the Chinese assistant to the Chief Magistrate. He was warmly welcomed and positively endorsed by an editor at Friend of China 2.3.44 edition. ��Editor�XMr Gutzlaff��s appointment is very satisfying and will be highly conducive to the impartial administration of justice. It would be difficult to find a more compe-tent person for this job��. Since then (15th March 1844), Rev Gutzlaff has offered to investigate into the character and issue certificate on an honest watchman.
49. There were very few ladies at the time.
50. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, p. 57.
51. The light and pass rules: Unenlightened law? In: G. Bickley, A Magistrate��s Court in 19th Century Hong Kong: Court in Time (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005), pp. 99�V116.
52. C. M. Fung, Reluctant Heroes: Rickshaw Pullers in Hong Kong and Canton, 1874�V1954 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1 November 2005), p. 31.
53. Ibid., p. 346.
54. Friend of China 2.3.44 edition.
55. Friend of China 30.3.44 edition.
56. David to Stanley, 21 May 1845. CO 129/12, p. 97. See also G. Sinclair, At the End of the Line: Colonial Policing and the Imperial Endgame, 1945�V1980 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), p. 175.
57. W. MacLeod Raine, Famous Sheriffs and Western Outlaws: Incredible True Stories of Wild West Showdowns and Frontier Justice (New York: Skyhorse Publishing Inc., 1 February 2012).
58. T. Hirschi, Causes of Delinquency (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969).
59. J. W. Norton-Kyshe, p. 65.
60. R. A. Bickers, Empire Made Me: An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai (New York: Colombia University Press, 2003), p. 65.
61. Ibid., p. 79.
62. Ibid., p. 80.
284
Policing in Hong Kong
285
HKP Reform in the 1950s: Context and Framework
283
8
HKP Reform in the 1950s: Context and Framework1
In 1945, following the end of the Second World War, Hong Kong started along the final stretch of road in its history as a British Crown Colony. At that time, nobody could predict with any degree of certainty the way ahead�K
Brian Hook (1997)2
The fundamental political problem of the British Colony of Hong Kong is its relationship with China and not the advancement to self-government and independence as in the case of most British colonies.
Hong Kong Governor Grantham (1948�V1958)3
Introduction
In its long, winding and storied history, the HKP has gone through four distinctive reform periods4 worthy of note,5 namely, the ��formation period�� (1845),6 the ��reorganisation period�� (1872),7 the ��modernisation period�� (1950s)8 and finally the ��decolonisation period�� (1990s).9
In each of the above reform periods, the HKP saw the need to change�Xto adjust its vision and mission, organisation and process, administration and operation, and ultimately ethos and identity, to fit the time. Through the years, the HKP has transformed itself from a colonial policing force in 1844 with a coercive policing style to a post-colonial civil policing with a service orientation in the 1990s informed by professional practices. From its inception (1844) to now (2014), the HKP has assumed the role of defending the government regime, with corresponding formidable militaristic internal security capacity, unchanged.10
The first two reform periods (1844, 1870) helped in building the founda-tion for later reforms to follow. In the process, they generated much policy debate from the top (within the Hong Kong colonial administration) and criticism from the bottom (mostly with the commercial establishments and expatriate residents).11
The last two reforms (1950s, 1990s) were for self-renewal as compelled by history and in search of destiny. In the 1950s, the HKP had to rebuild its organisation and expand its operations after WWII to confront new chal-lenges and reformed visions. In the 1990s, the HKP had to realign its vision and mission in anticipation of 1997.12 All of the above reforms, in one way or the other, were an adaptation to changed conditions of Hong Kong.13 In the 1950s, the Chinese were coming to help reconstruct Hong Kong, in their image. In the 1990s, the British were departing, keen on leaving a legacy.
This chapter and the next chapter are discussions of reforms to the HKP, focussing on the modernisation period (1950s), for reasons to be discussed later. This chapter mainly aims to provide a ��context and framework�� for the next chapter to expand and expound upon.
Invariably, depending on the research purpose, analytical framework and evaluative benchmark, there are bound to be disagreements as to when, how and how long a reform period should be labelled, such as whether it is a rebuilding or reconstruction process.14 Rebuilding calls for revisiting the old. Reconstruction entails engaging the new. Issues with periodisation aside, there is no denying that post-WWII Hong Kong reforms of all kinds�Xpolitical,15 social16 and economic17�Xand types�Xeducation,18 welfare19 and prison20�Xis a transformational process: ��The combined effects of reconstruc-tion and expansion helped shape the beginning of a transformation of the education system, from the uncertain imitations of foreign models to a more self-sufficient, home-bred and home-grown arrangements��.21
After WWII, the Hong Kong society changed fundamentally and radi-cally. Similarly, criminal justice agencies at the time, the HKP and Prison Department, changed into different organisations from what they were a decade ago, in appearance, outlook, role and ethos. WWII offered a unique opportunity for HKP-bound researchers to conduct cutting-edge research into Hong Kong post-war recovery, and with it, the rehabilitation of police. There is few, if any, HKP research in this era.
These two final chapters investigate into HKP reform and development in the 1950s to the 1960s, as compared with the HKP reform in the 1840s and after the 1990s. At heart, this is a case study22 of new beginnings for the HKP. According to John Kotter, an organisation change guru, transformational change is ��to make fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a new, more challenging market environment��.23 By ��new beginning��, this chapter observes that the HKP was able to ��re-engineer�� and ��transform�� itself, alternatively, in vision and mission, organisation and process, theory and practice, and culture and identity. This research finds that after the reform of the 1950s, the new HKP bore little resemblance to the old HKP before WWII.
��Police reform in the 1950s�� is the main focus of this research. This chap-ter provides the necessary context to inform the research into HKP reform. It is organised as follows. Section I: ��Research Data�� describes the data con-sulted and the analysis framework adopted. Section II: ��Contexts of Reform�� discusses a number of contexts that help in understanding the HKP reform of the 1950s, such as social, political, cultural and law and order contexts. Section III: ��Direction of Reform�� illuminates as to where the HKP is head-ing with the reform, gathered from official pronouncements, for example, commissioner of police or governor of Hong Kong, or private opinions, for example, experts. After being informed of the ��context and direction�� of the reform, the study proceeds to discussions of ��process and methods of reform�� in ��Decolonisation�� (Section IV) and ��Localisation�� (Section V).
Chapter 9 will pick up and conclude on ��process and methods of reform�� with investigation into ��localisation��, ��legalisation��, ��modernisation��, ��commu-nalisation�� and ��organisation�� on the way to provide an overall ��conclusion�� to this book.
I: Research Data
To observe the change in the HKP, particularly at the policy and legal levels, the LegCo archives on governor�Xexecutive policy speeches and legislative debates on bills are used. For police law and ordinances,24 two databases are used: Historical Laws of Hong Kong Online25 and Hong Kong Legal Information.26 For the 1950 reform process and outcome, the Hong Kong Police Magazine (HKPM) (����ĵ�����x) (1951�V1962) data is used as the primary data source.27 For contextual information, relevant data on HKP reforms library�Xbooks, journals, government reports and media accounts�Xresearch materials are used, such as Hong Kong Journals Online (HKU).28
The HKPM was launched in September 1951 by the then acting HKP commission Maxwell. It was a first-of-a-kind effort to promote communica-tion within and without the HKP. In its inaugural editorial, Commissioner Maxwell made it clear that the magazine had internal as well as external audiences. It was meant to be a communication tool between colleagues (vertically and horizontally) and with the public (inside and outside of Hong Kong). It was designed to inform colleagues of what was going on in and around the HKP. It also served personal enrichment purposes. The ulti-mate goal was to build up a corporate identity that the HKP and Hong Kong people could be proud of.29 Besides the aforementioned communication and information sharing functions, HKPM also serves vital lifelong education and self-promotion functions.
Thus, the first issue of HKPM covered a range of subjects, from a pair of Chinese police inspectors sharing their training experiences in the United Kingdom,30 to a specialist discussing the intricacies of ballistics and fire-arms,31 to officers discussing what was going on in the HKP,32 to hobbyists within the HKP enlightening readers on the fine art of Chinese porcelain.33
Each of the HKPM contains standard features, including an editorial, around the police news items, sports news, gossip columns from divisions, and professional and personal interest articles. When HKPM was first pub-lished, it had 36 pages. A year later, it grew to 44 pages. There was never a lapse of publication, except during the riots when the pages were substan-tially reduced. In 1956, a Chinese version was introduced, with contributions mainly by Chinese rank and files.
In terms of data collection, the HKPM was read through and through two times. The first time was to familiarise its content, looking for tell-tale signs of police reform�Xdirection, plan, measures and impact. In the process, thematic structures of the reform process were developed, for example, how has post-WWII geopolitical concerns (e.g., aversion to Communist China) or socioeconomic conditions (e.g., influx of migrants) in Hong Kong came to impact upon policing in Hong Kong. The second time was to select data�Xevidence to support my observation that the HKP has made marked changes in ��decolonisation��, ��localisation��, ��legalisation��, ��modernisation��, ��communali-sation�� and ��organisation��.
II: Contexts of Reform
A. Social Context
In 1950, Hong Kong, coming out of WWII, was exposed to a huge popula-tion explosion with hordes of immigrants�Xparticularly refugees from war-torn China.34 The refugees were a motley crowd with great energy, fortitude, resourcefulness and entrepreneurship.35 Many of them were apolitical and pragmatic.36 More than a few were nationalistic and patriotic towards China of old. They were keen on seeking survival and security, in amassing fame and fortune in Hong Kong, in whatever way they could.37 To them, Hong Kong is a home away from home. They were living in a borrowed place on borrowed time, with a ��lifeboat�� mentality.
While all the immigrants coming to Hong Kong in the 1950s were look-ing for a new lease of life, not all of them were ready to give up their past lives. Many were unable to make it in Hong Kong. These people turned to criminal groups for protection and support.38 Triads flourished, as mutual aid organ-isations, and in rare instances, as political instigators.39
The influx of this huge refugee crowd in a short period of time created insurmountable social and economic problems, for example, housing and welfare, law and order, for example, crime and gangs, and political and secu-rity problems, for example, social protests and political riots, for Hong Kong. As the then Attorney General D. T. E. Roberts put it:
We wish we could allow them to come, but we cannot afford to receive large numbers of immigrants in our overcrowded city and to add to the heavy burdens already placed upon our housing, educational, medical and social welfare facilities. Nevertheless, the government will give further consider-ation to the position of those persons who have been here for a considerable period, and who have settled down to make an honest living in Hong Kong.40
With the infusion of new blood, Hong Kong proceeded to remake itself in uncharted territory with no map on hand, compass to guide or destiny in sight. That did not stop, and to some extent actually helped, the wholesale transformation of Hong Kong��s political economy, from a regional entre-port to a global manufacturing centre. The end result was a Hong Kong fully capable and deserving of its name as one of Four Asian Tigers (�Ȭw�|�p�s) along with Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
B. Political Context
Internationally, the post-WWII political development in Hong Kong (British stance on decolonisation and democratisation) reflected post-global trend (emerging nationalism41 and self-determination42), international pressure (America insistence, U.N. conventions) and British home politics (election of Labour government, contraction of British empire43).
Domestically, constitutional reform in Hong Kong was affected by the attitude of the Hong Kong Government towards China, alternating between distrust towards Chiang��s KMT and fear of Mao��s PRC. The uncertainty over China��s civil war and ambivalence towards Mao��s intent resulted in Governors Young and Grantham taking radically different approaches to the political�Vconstitutional development of Hong Kong.
Governor Young, a seasoned colonial caretaker, wanted the Hong Kong people to have a say over their city�Vstate within the British Commonwealth, starting with the development of a sense of identity, though stop short of nationalism.44 The way forward was for the Hong Kong people to play ��a fuller and more responsible share in the management of their own affairs�� on the one hand and ��the fullest account being taken of the views and wishes of the inhabitants�� on the other. This was to be achieved through the establishment of an elected Municipal Council and broader representation of Chinese in the Legislative Council.45 With this in mind, Governor Young proposed setting up a Municipal Council consisting of 10 appointed members and 20 elected members, with equal Chinese and expatriate representation.46 According to Young, Hong Kong needed to develop an active sense of citizenship and to become capable of openly expressing and giving practical effect to the gen-eral desire of its inhabitants if it were to remain under British rule and to resist absorption by China.47
The Young Plan did not materialise, as it faced opposition from the Colonial Office, Foreign Office and Hong Kong Government.
However, Governor Grantham, an old Hong Kong hand (1922�V1937), was more cautious, and measured with political reform. Given the political threat across the border from China and security risks at home from refu-gees, it was not prudent to open up the political process to Chinese elites and grassroots. Rather, Grantham preferred a ��benevolent autocracy�� model of governance, leading off with localisation of administration at the bottom and British control at the top. Still, political liberation came to Hong Kong, start-ing with the introduction of Urban Council elections (May 1952).48
C. Cultural Context
Global�Vregional politics aside and national�VBritish agenda notwithstanding, domestically, Hong Kong was a divided city. Historically, there was no love lost between the British and the Chinese. Political, social, cultural, language and legal barriers divided the two people. Survival brought them together, and cultural competition set them apart. They lived in two different worlds. The British looked down on the Chinese. The Chinese hated the British. Try as they might have, neither trusted the other.
At the end of the day, Hong Kong was still very much a Chinese place with people having a strong ethnic identity, cultural superiority and national pride.49 Such deep-seated and volatile sentiments manifested themselves, opportunistically from time to time, as social unrests50 from anti-foreign resistances51 to patriotic rebellions to labour strikes. This prompted the colonial administrators to adopt a cautious stance in ruling Hong Kong after WWII�Xliberalisation without democratisation, localisation in lieu of democratisation, administrative responsiveness over political accountabil-ity and finally performance legitimacy in lieu of constitutional legitimacy. Ultimately, Hong Kong was much more a dependent territory, resembling a Commonwealth city-state, more so than a Crown colony.
It serves to mention at this juncture that the political reform viewed from above and social development as experienced down under were two different but inter-dependent processes or projects. Depending on one��s vantage point (where to look), perspective (how to look) and frame (what to look for) of reference,52 the vista was completely different, generating disputes and inviting debate, as to the nature and extent of political�Vsocial development in Hong Kong.53
D. Law and Order Context
On the law, order and security front, communists, nationalists and Triads roamed the streets of Hong Kong, with a menacing People��s Republic of China just across the border, which had otherwise made it known that she had no interest in taking back Hong Kong.
The situation in Hong Kong had become unstable as a result of the Chinese Communist victories over the Nationalist forces under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, and by the approach of the former to the borders of the New Territories. There was also a danger of internal unrest in Hong Kong and Kowloon, initiated by Communist agents who had infiltrated over the border with the stream of refugees�K The arrival of the Chinese Communist Forces on the frontier of the New Territories on 24th October made little vis-ible difference to life in Hong Kong. There were no alarms, for the Chinese showed no inclination to cross, but there were continual raids by Communist and Nationalist aircraft along the frontier and at Sham Chun station.54
The Hong Kong Government and its leadership at the time were taken aback, and were overwhelmed by the political and security problems, inter-national (Hong Kong indefensible)55 and domestic (Chinese nationals�XKMT vs. PRC agitations).56 A Hong Kong Secretariat official said in his resignation note: ��I saw a City stone-walled bound/A little one that can��t be found./It wasn��t there again today./I wish that it would go away��.57 More than a few observers considered the Hong Kong Government��s indecisiveness as a mark of muddled thinking.58
E. Wei Ji (Danger and Opportunity)59
The military administration in Hong Kong ended on 30 April 1946 and the colony was returned to civil administration on 1 May 1946.
After WWII, the HKP, as with the rest of Hong Kong, had to rebuild herself60 from scratch, due to a total loss of facilities, records, staff, leadership, experience, capacity and above all else institutional memory.61 Many of the European officers returned home for health-related reasons to be replaced by a new stock of officers, and more than a few with military and counter-insur-gency experience from overseas, for example, Palestine. The bulk of HKP Chinese officers rejoined the Force, after having served with the Japanese as wartime police officers. Many new recruits came from the refugee ranks, with good education and background, from Shanghai.
In 1945, the force had to be built anew. The 200 expatriate officers who emerged from Stanley Internment Camp were in poor physical health. When the camp gates opened, many went back to their former stations, determined to ensure a peaceable transition to British rule. Later, most were repatriated for medical leave; many left Hong Kong. Back from China where they had spent the occupa-tion years, many Chinese constables and sergeants reported for duty. �K.From this nucleus, a new force had to be forged�K. Duncan Maclntosh appointed Commissioner in 1946. The police force he took over was decimated, its equip-ment lost or looted, its stations largely destroyed. Strength was down to under 2000. Maclntosh, who had been a policeman in Ireland and Malaya, came to Hong Kong from Singapore, where he had been Commissioner and had spent the war in internment. He was a truly formidable individual, unbending, deter-mined and utterly professional.62
The two Chinese characters for crisis are ��wei ji�� (danger and opportu-nity). The post-war rebuilding of the HKP reflected this kind of Chinese mentality and Hong Kong spirit, that is, with danger came opportunity and without danger there would be no taking chances. The changed and chang-ing Hong Kong social and economic conditions of the time�Xgrowing pop-ulation, illegal immigration, transforming economy, menacing China�Xall took their toll on an HKP struggling to find its stabilising anchor and cre-ate a legacy. Still, the complete destruction of the old made possible for the rebuilding of a new, more modern, professional and progressive HKP, in line with international best practices:
The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong meant for the Police Force, as much as for the territory itself, a definitive line drawn across the page of history; ��a fresh start�� in almost every sense. Such a complete break is comparatively rare in any organization and brings with it both advantages and disadvan-tages. The disadvantages in terms of loss of continuity for personnel and systems are fairly obvious, although from the policing point of view the situ-ation was made much worse by the fact that almost all the pre-war records had been lost. But the advantages were considerable. Starting almost ��from scratch�� presented an opportunity to stand back and take a long, hard look at the Force and its manpower, systems and organization. Rebuilding could then be properly planned with due allowance for the changed state of the world�Xand China�Xafter years of war. Fortunately this is broadly what happened, although nothing is ever perfect.63
F. United Kingdom Thinking: China Factor
Seven thousand miles away in the White Hall, England, drained of political will, financial resource and military capacity, adopted a decolonisation pol-icy for most of her overseas possessions and dependent territories. However, Hong Kong was made an exception for economic, political and security rea-sons,64 with anticommunism dogma and Cold War mentality playing their destined role.65
While traditionally Hong Kong was by and large self-financed, England was still responsible for Hong Kong��s defence (�G7 million in 1957), infrastruc-ture construction, for example, airport (�G3 million), economic development and social maintenance.66 In the meantime, the Hong Kong Government was busy with the rehabilitation of the old social foundation and the build-ing of a new economic base.67 There were also real internal threats of social unrest in Hong Kong and external military conflict with China.
While the cost of keeping Hong Kong was considerable, the British government decided to maintain Hong Kong to check the growing threat of Communist regionally and the increasing influence of China, across the border. As the governor of Hong Kong (1948�V1958), Alexander Grantham, observed: ��The fundamental political problem of the British Colony of Hong Kong is its relationship with China and not the advancement to self-government and independence as in the case of most British colonies��.68 Furthermore:
The Colonial Office argued these costs were worth meeting because Hong Kong provided Britain with ��prestige and influence�� in Asia: Hong Kong pro-vided a demonstration in the Far East of what can be done by the West and by private enterprise, not only in economic affairs but in good government, justice, individual freedom, and protection for refugees.69
The containment of China at the time was not without its anxiety and attending costs. This was not lost on the British.70 As the U.S. Consulate observed at the time:
There always was that feeling of uncertainty. The British were very cautious; they went out of their way not to antagonize the PRC but were at the same time quite firm about their rights in Hong Kong. They tried to make sure that no aspect of the Chinese civil war would take place in Hong Kong. They were not entirely successful. The KMT organized thousands and thousands refugees who would demonstrate whenever called upon. The communists organized the labor units who would periodically take to the streets for demonstrations. The British would squelch all demonstrations as quickly as possible.71
Ultimately, British government kept Hong Kong because it was prof-itable72; Hong Kong imported more goods and services from the United Kingdom than it exported to the United Kingdom.73 The United Kingdom also kept Hong Kong because of regional security needs, that is, as a bulk-head against a revolutionised China. To the West, the Communist must be closely monitored and effectively contained:
The areas in which freedom nourishes will continue to shrink unless the supporters of democracy match Communist fanaticism with clear and com-mon understanding that the freedom of men is at stake; meet Communist-regimented unity with the voluntary unity of common purpose, even though this may mean a sacrifice of some measure of nationalistic pretensions; and, above all, annul Communist appeals to the hungry, the poor, the oppressed, with practical measures untiringly prosecuted for the elimination of social and economic evils that set men against men.74
The importance of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom, militarily and economically, after WWII is best summed up in the following speech by sec-retary of state for the colonies Lennox-Boyd in 1958:
We have to ensure good government in fortress Colonies vital to the defense of the free world �K I have in mind Hong Kong Singapore, Aden, Kenya, Cyprus, Malta and Gibraltar �K Hong Kong �K made an astonishing recovery after the war �K She has bought since the war 300 million worth of goods from the.U.K., nearly three times as much as she sold us.75
For the above political, security and economic reasons, the White Hall pursued a policy of decolonisation without granting independence, freedom without democracy and security without restrains to Hong Kong people.76
Ernest Bevin and Arthur Creech: Recommendation to the Cabinet: While we should be prepared to discuss the future of Hong Kong with a friendly [and democratic] and stable Government of a unified China, the condition under which such discussions could undertaken do not exist at present and are unlikely to exist in the foreseeable future. Until conditions change, we intend to remain in Hong Kong and should so inform other Commonwealth Governments and the United States, while refraining in public from pro-nouncements, which exacerbated our relationship with China.77
Under this set of circumstances, the HKP was allowed to develop freely and was compelled by prevailing circumstances to improvise in meeting Hong Kong��s rapid economic development needs, that is, providing for a good business environment in maintaining stability, order and security and attending to emerging social challenges, for example, illegal immigrants,78 labour unrests, street hawkers, social welfare and services for the poor and more generally enforcing law and fighting crime.79
G. Refugee Problem
On the social front, the biggest challenge to the HKP was population control, that is, the influx of people to Hong Kong. From 1945 to 1960, the population of Hong Kong increased from 700,000 to 3,000,000 (1945 (770,000), 1950 (2,200,000), 1960 (3,000,000)),80 which constituted political and economic refugees from China.81
The problem of and difficulty with controlling the ��refugee flood�� can be gauged by looking at the post-WWII prison population, immediately after the civil administration took over the British Military Administration in 1947:
16,160 persons were admitted to prison to serve sentence, 11,982 of which were for periods of under 3 months, 9216 of them being for under 1 month. A total of 7967 persons were committed for short and completely ineffective terms of imprisonment for ��Obstruction�� and ��Hawking without a licence��, this being a big factor in causing the overcrowding of the prisons and frustrating all efforts made to classify and improve the real criminals therein. Many of these per-sons were well able to pay their fines but preferred to come to prison.82
In essence, right after the war, Hong Kong prisons were turned into relief agencies as a last resort for refugees who were economically and socially ill adjusted, that is, those who were deprived or depraved, due to force of cir-cumstances. As Samuel Wallace observed of the nature and function of total institutions, of one kind or other:
In part total institutions are created because we feel some individuals in our society need to be given, forcibly if necessary, a new identity; for example, those whom we think world harm others�K(and) �Kthose we feel are incapable of taking care of themselves.83
The unexpected and unplanned influx created different kinds of problems for the HKP: controlling the border, maintaining public order and providing security. In practical terms, the HKP had to render services, abate nuisances, handle emergencies, fight crime, suppress vice and remove hawkers.
Colonial Hong Kong, from the time of its inception, prided itself on ��non-interventionism.��84 Except for essential services, for example, police, medical and emergency, Hong Kong relied on the private sector and marketplace to direct and support herself, through thick and thin. This means the Hong Kong Government did not have the desire to or capacity in thinking ahead and act-ing proactively. This also means that the Hong Kong Government and the HKP were adept in reacting to crisis85 and adjusting to evolving circumstances.
H. WWII Impact
Before proceeding, the impact and fall-out of the war effort on the governance of and policing in Hong Kong must be discussed. The focus on the impact of WWII on Hong Kong governance and policing suggests two kinds of inquiry:
First, how did the collaborative effort and established relationship in the defence of Hong Kong against a common enemy between the British govern-ment and the Chinese people, such as Chinese patriots�Xnationalists versus communists, Triad gang members and guerrilla,86 survive the war and come to affect post-war security policy and policing?
Second, how did the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong affect the think-ing of the people of Hong Kong about the British Empire and their role and relationship thereto?87
Particularly, how did the reversal of roles, with the Hong Kong Chinese police officers working under the Japanese military government in control-ling British POWs, affect their relative mindset about colonial relationship?
The WWII Japanese invasion of Hong Kong was the watershed of Hong Kong��s colonial (policing) history. It spelled the death of the belief of the British being an invincible and unquestionable imperial power as it gave birth to an empowered and emboldened Hong Kong identity. This happened in three ways. Externally, since WWII, Hong Kong was being recognised as a colony only in name.88 Internally, Hong Kong was beginning to develop an identity of its own, separate and distinct from British and Chinese ones. Third, WWII was a traumatic and life-changing event. It forced people to take sides, for or against the British versus the Japanese. In doing so, it set boundaries and inculcated identity. For the British and Chinese who fought the war and suf-fered together, they were now forever bonded to each other, not by the colour of their skin but by the mutuality of their plight, under wartime conditions. A Hong Kong community under equalitarian conditions was thus obtained.
All of the above helped Hong Kong to develop on its own terms, increas-ingly as an (relatively) independent political, economic and social entity to be reckoned with.
III: Direction of Reform
Introduction
In the main, the general direction for HKP reform came from two quarters and four sets of inputs.
The first was a 1947 HKP commissioner��s report by Pennefather-Evans,89 guiding future police reform from 1947 to 1957 (Section A). The second was a 1957 Governor Grantham HKP review summarising the achievements and prospecting the future of policing in Hong Kong during his tenure as gov-ernor (1946�V1957) (Section B). Taking the 1947 Commissioner Pennefather-Evans report (looking forward) and the 1957 Governor Grantham HKP review (looking back) together, the direction and achievements of the HKP reform can be reconstructed.
Beyond the two formal pronouncements, this section looks at four inputs: the colonial agenda (Section C), legislative agenda (Section D), HKP operational agenda (E) and Western expert opinion (F) for their individual contribution and collective wisdom of where the HKP should be heading.
A. 1947 HKP Commissioner Report
The direction of 1950 HKP reform was anticipated by and provided for, in part, by a 1947 HKP commissioner report90:
In 1947 a former commissioner of the pre-war Hong Kong Police responded to the crisis in local policing by composing the Pennefather-Evans91 Report, an analysis and set of recommendations for problems in the existing force. The chief weakness the report identified was the failure of the Hong Kong Police to inspire identification among the public it governed. Among the strategies for police reform, the report advised an increase in local hires, an expansion in operational duties, ad an enhanced of professional training.92
After about 3 months on the job, before WWII descended on Hong Kong, the Commissioner of Police Pennefather-Evans had made the follow-ing observations of the HKP:
(a) The excellence material of the Force, particularly of the European contin-gent. (b) The corruption prevalent in the Force. (c) The lackadaisical baring of the Indian Contingent. (d) The unintelligent manner in which the ��means�� has so often been mistaken for the ��end��. Systems of checking intended to ensure that men carry out their duties satisfactorily have become the main object in place of the duties themselves. (f) The inertness of the Force. There is little pride in it. There is no Officers�� Mess, no police colors, no symbols of the ��soul�� of the Force and nothing to distinguish it from being just another ��department of Government�� (p. 169).93
As to the concrete reform, Evans made the following controversial, far-sighted propositions:
1. Do away with organising the HKP along racial lines, that is, Chinese versus Indian versus British officers. In essence, do away discrimina-tory policy in terms of recruitment, training, assignment, promotion and retention. More generally, having a unified police force based on qualification, not entitlement, with uniform terms and conditions of service based on merits, not preference.
2. Police should have authority corresponding to responsibilities in role and function. Police power should be commensurate with ranks, not race or sex.
3. Since Hong Kong is a Chinese society, policing should be conducted by Chinese, with a few national contingents in specialised fields.
As for the Water Police, Pennefather-Evans offered the following ideas:
1. Organisationally, ��Water Police should be made a specialized branch of the Police and that men join, be educated and promoted inside that branch��.
2. Water Police should enjoy the same terms and conditions of service, such as pay and benefits, as the Land Police.
3. Administratively, Water Police should be divided into two parts, that is, Sea-Going Personnel and Shore Establishments.
4. Commanders of units should be of superintendent rank.
5. Water Police should have their own CID and not those from the land division, Kowloon.
6. Water Police should have their own marine and nautical school.
7. Water Police should have their own air support units and land-based stations, for example, Cheung Chau.94
The Pennefather-Evans report was well received, and it was timely for its purpose. Still, it did not please everyone, especially the old guards. Most the recommendations were adopted; some took longer than others, for example, localisation of the HKP and equal prospects for promotion and advance-ment. As a whole, it can fairly be said that Pennefather-Evans report was instrumental in shaping HKP development in the second half of the nine-teenth century, with Water Police as a case study, until 1992 when the next cycle of HKP reform started.95
B. 1957 Annual Police Review96
In 1957, the first governor of Hong Kong, Sir Alexander Grantham, retired. On the occasion of Governor Grantham��s final Annual Police Review 1957, he reflected on the challenges and achievements of the HKP.97
First, the HKP burden is increasing. As Hong Kong grew after WWII, so did the burden on the HKP. Looking into the future, the burden on the HKP was not likely to be reduced.
Second, the HKP is expanding. The HKP had been growing and expand-ing with the ��growth in the size of the Colony��.
Third, the HKP needs more human, material and modern resources. The growth and expansions of the HKP meant more officers, quarters, stations and equipment. This also meant that old equipment is replaced with new and up-to-date version.
Fourth, the HKP is building a unified Auxiliary Police. The HKP had fully integrated with the Police Reserve and the Special Constabulary, for-merly auxiliary bodies, into one with the HKP, that is, the Auxiliary Police. The newly integrated Auxiliary Police was needed ��so that in times of emer-gency the Colony will have one quickly mobilised Force instead of three separate forces��.
Fifth, the HKP is effective in keeping law and order. The HKP had been effec-tive in maintaining ��the general state of law and order�� in the colony in 1957.
Sixth, the HKP needs to control and eradicate secret societies. Secret soci-eties were an evil for Hong Kong society and a major problem for the HKP. Reducing crime required first eradicating secret societies. This was job one for the HKP.
Seventh, the HKP takes on internal security role. The October 1956 riot highlighted the need for the HKP to play a more organised, mobile and adap-tive internal security role in facing future challenges.
Eighth, the HKP requires up-to-date training. In order to deliver good ser-vice and to meet expectations of people in keeping Hong Kong safe and its economy vibrant, the HKP needed to be better and timely trained in all areas.98
C. Colonial Agenda
On 17 July 1950, a secretary of state for the colonies�� memorandum on locali-sation of Hong Kong civil services was forwarded to the cabinet. Specifically, it called for the employment of native-born administrators in the higher grades of colonial civil servants. In it, the situation of Hong Kong on this subject was mentioned:
In Hong Kong there are 395 higher civil service posts, of which 51 are at present held by local officers, mostly in the educational, medical, nursing and other pro-fessional services. There is one local-born member of the Administrative Service. In correspondence concerning a Bill to authorise the appointment of a Public Service Commission the Governor expressed the opinion that for some years to come the majority of Hong Kong vacancies in the higher posts would have to be filled from the United Kingdom; he emphasised in particular the difficulty of finding good local material for the Administrative Service and the Police.99
The policy direction for Hong Kong was clear: localisation for the HKP, but not necessarily at the expense of expatriate posting, certainly not at the very top, that is, commissioners of police.
D. Legislative Agenda
Economy and Reform
In a LegCo discussion100 of the Appropriation for 1949�V1950 Bill, LegCo member Hon. D.F. Landle raised the issue about the efficiency and cost-effec-tiveness of public service with respect to justifying huge outlay, for example, every department had its own messengers, presumably for inter-departmen-tal communication. The suggestion was to centralise. The same observation was applied to the HKP:
If Government offices were more centralised perhaps some of these would not be necessary. �K And another instance is that under the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs I notice that a Private Force is run in the form of a District Watch Force which costs some $190,000. This seems to me a relic of the past, and greater economy might be achieved if the functions of this Force were taken over by the Police.101
Human Rights and Reform
On 8 September 1948, the colonial secretary moved the council to endorse the Draft International Declaration of Human Rights annexed to the Order of Business.102 This is the first time that the issue of human rights had been brought to the forefront for considering by dint of a UN mandate.
The draft was first considered at the third session of the Human Rights Commission under the Commission of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations103 in the Spring of 1948. In proposing the motion to adopt the draft, the colonial secretary made it clear that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the lofty human rights goals set forth under the draft declaration, due to local conditions, over education. For example, Section 23 calls for universal free education for children. Hong Kong was far behind in reaching such a goal, in terms of capacity or resource:
This right is one we cannot fulfill now or next year, or I venture to say, in ten years. We must as practical men face that fact: but it does not prevent us from acknowledging that elementary education should be free and universal and from so ordering our affairs that some day, though not in ours, it will be so.104
But the colonial secretary was quick to point out that it was Hong Kong��s obligation to try, even if it failed in the beginning: ��By adhering to this draft Declaration, civilised man promises, in the words of proclamation in the preamble, to ��strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms��.105 Mindful of the circumstances in Hong Kong, the colonial secretary pointed out that the draft declaration did contain escape clause under exceptional circumstances: ��no man may use any of these rights at the expense of his neighbour��s freedom, or of public order or of the general welfare�� (Sections 27 and 28).
The draft declaration was adopted after Hon. Sir Man-Kam Lo called for its acceptance, not as an attainable realistic goal, but as a worthwhile cause to strive for.
The adoption of the motion was telling of the mindset of British-dominant Legislative Council at the time:
First, Hong Kong was no longer functioning as a colony. It was to be devel-oped as a world-class city, with human rights guaranteed by UN conventions and declarations. This was not unlike the 1990s when Governor Patton was trying to protect Hong Kong with UN treaties and international conventions.
Second, the British government accepted the fact that Hong Kong would never be like the United States and the United Kingdom with more advanced system of law, rights and justice. But it was its duty to introduce Hong Kong to those fine traditions, which set it apart from China.
Third, Chinese LegCo members accepted the fact that the Chinese were under British rule, and thus had to follow British human rights tradi-tions, even if the Chinese did not have the tradition, or otherwise felt it was inappropriate.
E. Operational Agenda106
The publication of the HKPM in 1951 turned a new leaf for the HKP. The HKPM has an ambitious agenda. Besides acting as an unofficial history of sorts for the HKP, the HKPM sought to facilitate communication between the ranks (past and present), make the HKP more transparent to the public and allow officers to reach out to the world. In sum, it sought to promote the HKP morale within and advance public relationship without. A prideful acting commissioner of police, A. C. Maxwell, had this to say about the pur-poses of the HKPM on the occasion of its launch:
The object of this magazine then, is to give us of the Hong Kong Police a means of expression, an interpretation of the Force to the Force and to the public, a medium for the spread of special knowledge and a page on which some record of the Force may be written.107
Nine years later, on the event of his retirement, CP Maxwell bid farewell to the force and had this to say about the HKPM:
The intervening years have seen a lot of changes in the Force. We have expanded rapidly and the problems of this expansion are still with us but are slowly being overcome. The magazine has grown with the Force. It has ben-efited morale and has contributed towards good relations with the Public. In this alone it has justified its existence.108
The HKP was growing and changing fast; the HKPM bore witness to such changes, within and without the organisation.
A close inspection of the content of the inauguration issue of the HKPM revealed where the HKP was heading:
First, the HKP was growing, along with Hong Kong. This is to say that HKP reform and changes were very much driven by the society it was an integral part of.
Second, the HKP was remaking itself into a modern police force. It is to observe that while the force of changes came from outside, the change management was predominately an internal affair. To this end, the HKP sent officers overseas for training as well as career development.109
Third, the HKP transformed itself from a colonial police force to a civil policing agency. This is to observe that the HKP shed its colonial armour and colours long before 1997. This started with training its frontline inspectorate officers in the United Kingdom, the birthplace of modern policing, which excelled in policing by consent.
F. Expert Opinion
The HKP reform agenda was a larger and broader post-WWII Hong Kong reconstruction�Vre-engineering plan.110 The objective was to rebuild the HKP, consonant with Hong Kong��s social, economic and political development,111 in the image of the West, beginning in earnest shortly after WWII.112 With the treatment of youth offenders, this meant having professional social work-ers, dealing with them instead of family or police: ��In countries where the practice of probation for youthful offenders is better established, and where there are more social agencies to help in the management of delinquents, the handling of juveniles has become less and less a matter for the police��.113
Juveniles needed help from the society more than punishment, and still less retribution when they violated the law. In developing an enlightened and effective juvenile policy, the society needs to forgo its knee-jerk retributive instinct and punitive reaction. It needs to dig deep to find the true causes of youth offending as it thinks long and hard about the impact of punishment on the development of youth and the future of society. In sum, Hong Kong needed a thorough understanding of the youth and the station he finds him-self in before taking action.
If Hong Kong had cultivated such an understanding, it would have found that youth offended less so because they were evil or vicious but more so because they were immature, and thus temperamental, less developed and easily influenced.114 The families, peers, community and society they found themselves with had much to do with what they did and how they behaved. If that should be the case, the society should change its ways in dealing with juveniles, instead of the other way around.
For example, ��we have those who have to commit crime because they are suffering from a deprival (a lack of food or clothes, which may cause a normal person to steal or to become a prostitute or to embezzle funds and so on). When there are a lot of crimes of this nature, we know that it is time to over-haul the law, or to look into the social life of the offenders��.115 For example, it is known that in the United Kingdom, ��Gypsy people are a law unto them-selves, for instance�Xand in Hong Kong the boat people and the rickshaw pullers have many behaviours, acceptable to themselves, which vary widely from those approved by the law��.116 In such cases, police should treat juveniles differently when their family teaches them how to conduct themselves in a normal manner.
At the end of the day:
If justice is retributive you know that the culture is primitive or unorganized and the level of moral understanding is low. If justice is deterrent you can be sure that the stability of the society is uncertain�Xfor otherwise, how could we defend a system of justice that treated A severely so that 13 would behave himself. The only justification would be that the law was being broken and it was necessary to be firm to uphold government. When the accent in the courts is upon reformation, you can be certain that there are well organized bodies in the community who have humanity at heart and the community itself has a high degree of social organization. And when the courts think in terms of ��treatment�� rather than reformation, it is obvious that we have a most sophis-ticated and enlightened system of government.117
In this regard, the message was, in rebuilding Hong Kong, she had much to learn, again from the more progressive Western society!
Discussion
The above reconstruction of ��directions of reform�� from a variety of sources creates the ability to see where the HKP has been (1957 Annual Hong Kong Police Review) and where it is heading (1947 HKP commissioner report). It also provides a sample of more important aspirational goals (Draft International Declaration of Human Rights) and operational objectives (civilisation, modernisation) to be achieved, otherwise deemed to be politi-cally possible (decolonisation, localisation) and economically viable (expen-diture bearing on reform) and socially acceptable (security over reform).118
What can be gleaned from this reconstruction of ��directions of reform�� exercise?
First, except perhaps for the fact that there was a dire need for re-estab-lishing the Hong Kong Government and reconstructing the HKP out of the ashes of WWII ruins, remnants and remembrance, there was little consensus on the direction, priority and speed of change.
Second, HKP reform was not a typical case of planned change process in organisation development, to wit: ��Organization Development is an effort planned, organization-wide and managed from the top, to increase organi-zation effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the orga-nization��s ��processes��, using behavioural-science knowledge��.119 The process of planned organisation involves the following considerations, steps and processes:
�E
Planned. OD takes a long-range approach to improving organiza-tional performance and efficiency. It avoids the (usual) ��quick-fix��.
�E
Organisation-wide. OD focuses on the total system.
�E
Managed from the top. To be effective, OD must have the support of top-management. They have to model it, not just espouse it. The OD process also needs the buy-in and ownership of workers throughout the organisation.
�E
Increase organisation effectiveness and health. OD is tied to the bot-tom-line. Its goal is to improve the organisation, to make it more efficient and more competitive by aligning the organisation��s systems with its people.
�E
Planned interventions. After proper preparation, OD uses activities called interventions to make systemwide, permanent changes in the organisation.
�E
Using behavioral-science knowledge. OD is a discipline that combines research and experience to understanding people, business systems, and their interactions.120
What happened is that the HKP leadership of the time was pressed into action by the need to create a new organisation out of clean cloth, and hav-ing to respond to fast-developing social, economic and political situations in Hong Kong, with little time to react, and still less to reflect. Under the cir-cumstances, the lack of research capacity and empirical data did not help in making informed and enlightened policy decisions.121 In 1938, Sir Geoffrey Northcote was the first to point out the problem with lack of basic policy tools, that is, data, in running good government:
In many respects the statistical information at the disposal of this Government is deficient or unscientifically arranged; there is a serious lack of machinery for the co-ordination of such statistics as exist, and in nearly every case these are crude. In such circumstances it might with some truth be alleged that figures are given to us to conceal the facts. The first-rate impor-tance of well-digested and well-correlated statistics to a Colony, which is so largely dependent upon commerce and has, for example, such grave popula-tion problems as Hong Kong, is indisputable.122
That being the case, it is fair to observe that the 1950 HKP reform was less of scientific, systematic engineering than that of ��muddling through�� process,123 as befitting the chaos and disorganisation of the time.
Third, that being the case, one can expect that the reform direction was not driven by rigorous policy analysis, but by ad hoc decision making that was driven by events and circumstances, involved in political negotiations between interested parties and stakeholders, and was based on value pre-dispositions and vested interests. In such a policy environment, neither the deliberative policy-making process nor the rational decision-making model held sway.124 Pragmatism, not principle, prevailed; personality cults and political clout were the order of the day. Here, Elizabeth Sinn aptly points out: ��Individual Governors, with different backgrounds, personalities, atti-tudes, and styles, profoundly affected the course of events and the develop-ment of institutions in Hong Kong��.125
In sum, what was missing at the time was a policy framework to structure policy decision making: As Leo Goodstadt observed in another context:
A major obstacle to assessing the impact of the data deficit on government decisions is that throughout the period under review Hong Kong had a government in which internal policies were not written down as a coherent guide to decision-making, and forward planning and strategic management were not much in evidence. This was administration with minimal policies and few statistics, which was in line with the official commitment to non-interventionism. In their approach to policy-making, however, senior Hong Kong officials took a more pragmatic view of Laissez-faire than is generally recognised.126
IV: Process and Measures of Reform
This section will discuss the 1950s HKP reform, in measures and processes. The focus here is on how the HKP transformed itself from improvisational�Ventrepreneur policing, to structured and organised policing, by way of mod-ernisation. The distinctive features characterising the modernisation reform of this period were ��decolonisation��, ��localisation��, ��legalisation��, ��modernisa-tion��, ��communalisation�� and ��organisation��.
A: Decolonisation
Decolonisation without Being Decolonised
Hong Kong was returned to China on 1 July 1997. This officially terminated the colonial stage of Hong Kong history. However, in terms of decolonisation analysis, the critical stage was 1945. This was the time when the British gov-ernment seriously contemplated returning Hong Kong to China for moral and diplomatic reasons.127 In this regard, it was George Kitson, Head of China Department at the Foreign Office, who argued forcefully and com-pellingly for the return of Hong Kong to China in late 1945. His reasoning was a simple one; it is the right thing to do. In support, Kitson rendered the famed, and much quoted, ��Isle of Wight analogy��. The analogy made clear that on the issue of returning Hong Kong, at the end of the day, it was not what the United Kingdom had done for Hong Kong (i.e., offering security and prosperity for millions) that mattered. It was how China felt about for-eigners occupying her land and lording over her citizens that held sway. In essence, on the matter of sovereignty, it was always the case of principle over expedience, nationalism over utilitarianism:
The Chinese feelings towards Hong Kong can perhaps be most easily described by using the Isle of Wight analogy. Supposing the Chinese had taken the island against our will 100 years ago and covered it with pagodas, etc., and developed it by means which they had invented and we had not learned to use, doing all this for their own purpose, although talking a great deal about the material advantages to the United Kingdom, and all the time emphasizing the value of this heaven of good government, a protection against insecurity, in the Isle of Wight. Even if they have created a heaven on earth in that small island we should have only one feeling about it. We should want it back.128
Given the above sentiment, and not being able to divest Hong Kong through decolonisation due to geopolitical reasons,129 Hong Kong was allowed to be decolonised in effect, though not in form. Hong Kong was no longer a Crown colony, but a dependent territory,130 enjoying a high degree of freedom and autonomy.131
Informed of this historical context, the HKP started to informally decolonise after WWII, incrementally but purposively, in the form of man-agement philosophy (localisation),132 administrative policies (bureaucrati-sation), operational practices (communalisation) and organisational culture (professionalism); so much so that by 1997, it had operated very much autonomously, without any conspicuous vintages of a colonial force, except perhaps (ironically) earning the prefix of ��Royal�� to Hong Kong Police for a job well done.
Decolonisation and Differentiate Policing
Particularly, after WWII, the HKP adopted a hybrid policing strategy with civil policing in Hong Kong and Kowloon and para-military policing at the border.133 ��Dual track�� administration still survived in the New Territories and the outer Islands, except in the New Towns (Tsuen Wan, Shatin), but in a much diluted and mutated form.134 James Hayes, long-time district officer from New Territories turned Hong Kong historian had this to say about New Territories administration:
It was not until the early postwar years that the Hong Kong Government institutionalized local leadership by establishing a formal system of Village Representatives in 1948, and then by setting up 27 Rural Committees in the traditional sub-districts or heung (xiang) by degrees in the 1950s. In taking these steps, they had been anticipated by the measures adopted for local management by the Japanese during their wartime occupation of Hong Kong.135
As to policing, most certainly village self-help was on the way out, ever so slowly:
Bands of armed villagers from the Tin Shui Wai region first mobilised them-selves to defend the clan from bandits who hid in remote hills�KAn ancestral hall in Ping Shan village once served as a community court, and punishment was often meted out within its sturdy stone walls before police arrived. But the Ping Shan vigilantes�Xwho obtained a licence during World War II�Xno lon-ger deal out their own punishment to those caught stealing or breaking in. �K And in the 1950s, after the Communist Party took over on the mainland, large numbers of illegal immigrants flocked to Hong Kong�KThe numbers of police could not handle the situation, so villagers formed their own 100-strong self-defence team, with police consent. But police are warning villagers frightened by recent killings and robberies that forming new vigilante teams could add to the cycle of violence.136
In emergency�Vinternal security situations, the HKP has acquired formi-dable public order policing (PTU) and highly mobile emergency response capacities (EU). On a moment��s notice, the HKP could jointly operate with British forces through an integrated command and control structure, sup-posed by seamless communication and coordination capabilities.
More significantly for decolonisation analysis, during emergencies and internal security operations, the HKP was in command and control, with British forces standing by. As to the overall policing policy in emergencies, the HKP and British armed forces were required to defer to civilian leader-ship. They all had to take into consideration the sentiment and support of the local population before using force and conducting militarised operations.137 This public order policing and internal security operational protocol had been institutionalised, and still retained today, for example, during the plan-ning of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (2005), the Legislative Council members were much concerned with the need to strike a balance between security and freedom:
Facilitating demonstrations: 12. While acknowledging the importance of upholding law and order, some Members stressed the need to strike a reason-able balance between enforcing security measures on one hand, and respect-ing the freedom of expression of demonstrators on the other. They urged the Police not to resort to high-handed action lightly and to adopt a tolerant attitude as far as possible when dealing with demonstrations during MC6. The Administration re-affirmed its high regard for freedom of expression and assured Members that the Police had always tried to facilitate lawful and peaceful demonstrations, yet without losing sight of the need to maintain law and order.138
Through the ��decolonising years�� (1945�V1997), the HKP had in effect transformed itself into a professional local law enforcement agency, in the service of the community, and assumed a highly disciplined expansive mili-tary role, in securing Hong Kong internal security139 and British national interest.140 Recalling the 1967 riot:
The left wing paid a heavy price for instigating the riots which briefly brought the Hong Kong society to a standstill�KThe general strike and food strike caused huge inconvenience to the public and the image of the left wing was particularly undermined by the bomb attack.
But to a few die-hard anti-colonialism observers, the HKP is still the ��Royal Hong Kong Police�� of yester years. As a rejoinder and closer to the facts, the title ��Royal�� was worn with pride by the HKP, before 1997. It was embraced as a badge of honor, as a validation of the public trust in the HKP��s professionalism. It was not taken as a scarlet letter, reminding people of a subservient past. It signified and symbolised that the HKP had gone through the rite of passage as a professional force, and was now capable of managing itself, without British countenance, still less approval. The HKP had come of age, on its own terms, at its own pace and in line with its own vision.
The impact of decolonisation on Hong Kong, with the drastic transfor-mation of personal attitude and racial animus on both British and Chinese parts, is best summed up by a Canadian police officer (RCMP) turned intel-ligence agent, who served in Hong Kong for 13 years (since 1967) only to return in 1987:141
Even the description of Hong Kong as a British Crown Colony �Kwas amended to British Dependent Territory in 1983 �KOn returning to Hong Kong in 1986, it did not take long to notice the differences in the manner in which the Chinese were treated by the foreign expatriates�Kfrom the manner in which they were treated during my first tour in the late 1960��s and early 1970��s. In my mind, it was positive change. They were now looked upon with more respect by the British and others and in fact the Chinese were commanding more respect. During my first tour, it was very rare to find a Chinese officer in the Royal Hong Kong Police who had attained the Gazetted rank of Superintendent. By the time I departed Hong Kong in 1991, Li, Kwan-ha had been appointed as the first commissioner of the Force.142
Decolonisation Model
The study of colonial rule and colonial policing is about purpose, method and effect of colonialism on the indigenous people.143 In the study of HKP reform in 1950s, it is about ascertaining the ideology�Xphilosophy of gov-ernance and policy�Xpractice of regulations, in the midst of decolonisation, viewed over time. Here, there is a distinctive shift in governing philosophy, from coercive to consensus, and on policy, from penal to remedial.
Decolonisation and Penal Policy
The best example of the change in colonial governance after WWII comes from the Hong Kong Government philosophy towards penal administration and juvenile justice. This is so because in the study of the colonial govern-ment and governance, how it deployed coercive resources is the best evidence of its inherent nature and adopted style of control.149 After all, it was Weber who stated: ��Monopoly over the legitimate use of force is as essential a char-acteristic of the state as compulsory jurisdiction and continuous organiza-tion in a given territorial area��.150
After WWII, there was a move to abolish capital punishment in Hong Kong and do away with corporal punishment for juveniles. But both propos-als were met with strong oppositions, from conservatives, Chinese in par-ticular, within and without the government.
With the corporal punishment abortionists, which included the acting superintendent of prison, the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Victoria, the Hon. Director of Medical Services and Dr. Adam, they argued that corporal punishment was cruel and inhuman, besides having ��no good effect and frequently does harm��. For the supporters, which included the Hon. Secretary for Chinese Affairs, the Commissioner of Police, the Director of Education, the Rev. Father Ryan and the Chairman, immediate abolition was opposed on the grounds that ��the time is not yet ripe for the abolition of corporal punish-ment in this Colony because of conditions which are peculiar to Hong Kong and because of present lack of other sanctions for the maintenance of law and order��.151
The conservatives won the debate. Capital and corporal punishment stayed. Still, the policy debate had its impact on penal administration, for example, in 1950, there were only 405 juveniles receiving corporal punish-ment, as compared to 4367 in 1949. Most of the 405 were for non-criminal offenses, such as hawking.
The liberalisation of penal policy here discussed has been taken as evi-dence of change of hearts in colonial mentality. This is to observe that, in order for colonialists to effectively control indigenous people of a different cultural orientation, it had to first obtain obedience coercively and check devi-ance punitively, until a habit of obedience was obtained; only then did surveil-lance set in. Any move away from being coercive and punitive suggested that either colonialists had given up control, that is, decolonisation, or colonised people no longer needed control, that is, ��habit of obedience��. In this way, it can be said that decolonisation implied liberalisation of penal policy.
In achieving decolonisation, the liberalisation of penal policy was a double-edged sword. To the extent liberal policy spared many Chinese from coercive punishments, it ameliorated the impact of discriminatory and harsh colonial rules. However, the promotion of liberal penal policy is just moving from one expression of colonialism to another, that is, from ��coercive�� penal policy to ��liberal�� jurisprudential thought, both of which were ��made in U.K.��
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.