Global Issues in Contemporary Policing

John Eterno, Arvind Verma, Aiedeo Mintie Das, Dilip K. Das, John A. Eterno, Arvind Verma, Aiedeo Mintie Das, Dilip K. Das

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315436951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Ciberseguridad

This book addresses six areas of policing: performance management, professional and academic partnerships, preventing and fighting crime and terrorism, immigrant and multicultural populations, policing the police, and cyber-security. The book contains the most current and ground-breaking research across the world of policing with contributors from over 20 countries. It is also a suitable reference or textbook in a special topics course. It consists of edited versions of the best papers presented at the IPES annual meeting in Budapest.

Satisfaction and Community Connections III

Paradigm Shift in Hong Kong Public Order Policing 8

WING KWONG YUNG
SANDY CHAU

Contents

Introduction

Refugee Town

Command and Control Model

Rapidly Emerging Political Identity

The Emergence of Political Groups in the 1980s

Emergence of More Political Groups after the Tiananmen Square Incident

Legislative Changes That Govern Public Order Policing in Hong Kong

Paradigm Shift in Public Order Policing as Adoptions of Different Crowd Theories

Conclusion

Appendix

Appendix I

Basic Law

Appendix II

Bill of Rights

References

Abstract

In this chapter, we analyze a paradigm shift in public order policing in Hong Kong. During most of its colonial history, the police force adopted a more classical theory of crowd control that could be called the command and control model of public order policing. This model emphasizes that a crowd is often irrational and could therefore be easily influenced by disruptive elements. This classical model permeated almost every aspect of public order policing before the 1980s. During that period, the police force was preoccupied with controlling political opposition in order to maintain public order as reflected by the Public Order Ordinance (Law of Hong Kong Chapter 245, November 17, 1967). In the years leading to the transfer of sovereignty in 1997 and later, a paradigm shift has taken place in that the police force now adopts a theory that can be referred to as the service-oriented model. This approach focuses more on differentiation and facilitation in order to manage crowd control in the context of a rapidly changing society. The reasons for such a paradigm shift are also discussed in this chapter.

Introduction

The main argument in this chapter is that there was a paradigm shift in Hong Kong public order policing at around the time the sovereignty was transferred in 1997. The public order in this chapter is understood as an absence of disorder where ordinary people are able to carry out their business in a quiet and orderly fashion in the public domain and with people behaving sensibly, rationally, and respecting each other.

The exercise of public order policing in Hong Kong is governed by relevant legislation, which was enacted and revised in response to the underlying societal–polity transformations before and after the change of sovereignty. In this chapter, we shall first explain the legislative changes relating to public order as subject to the sociopolitical pressures developing in Hong Kong. Next, we interpret the paradigm shift in public order policing as a reflection of the changes within Hong Kong’s internal population composition as well as the influence of relevant external legislation. These changes have caused the Hong Kong Police Force to adopt a different crowd theory in interpreting and managing public order situations.

Refugee Town

The concept of public order policing is best understood in Hong Kong from a historical perspective. From a city of immigrants in the 1950s to a city of emigrants in the run-up to 1997, the refugee mentality has diffused into the political, economic, and social lives of Hong Kong Chinese.

Politically, the prevalence of the refugee mentality meant that there was a sort of a priori acceptance, or better, tolerance, during the British colonial rule (Wong and Lui, 1992). As outlined by Lau (1997), a substantial proportion of Hong Kong Chinese came to Hong Kong either to flee political persecution and turmoil or to seek economic opportunities. This meant that there was a strong sentiment against the Communist regime in China in Hong Kong, which naturally became a core element of the Hong Kong Chinese identity. Besides this mentality, people in Hong Kong also had a very strong work ethic and placed a high value on education. As a city of immigrants, it is generally regarded that before the 1970s, the don’t rock the boat mentality prevailed among the mainland refugees living in Hong Kong.

Sociologist Lau Siu Kai (1997) explained that the civil society in Hong Kong was very much separated from its polity. Ordinary people were more interested in improving their livelihood rather than participating in politics, which was divorced from the everyday life of most of the populace.

Before the 1970s, the administrative absorption of politics or the boundary politics of the political structure was well maintained. The colonial government adhered to a positive nonintervention policy and left the industrial sector to develop (Chiu, 1994). From the 1970s, there was a relative openness and fairness in terms of the social mobility of Hong Kong society (Wong and Lui, 1993; Lui, 1997). As the local economy took off, a more educated middle class emerged who were able to climb the social ladder (Lui, 1997).

Command and Control Model

The classic model of crowd control, which can be referred to as a command and control model, permeated almost every aspect of public order policing in the days of Hong Kong as a British colony. This command and control model was used in many British colonies throughout the world and in other entities as well, in a more conservative era.

A basic pattern can be identified whereby public order policing emphasized this classic theory of the crowd. Before the 1980s, public order policing reflected a concept of the crowd as irrational and therefore easily influenced by undesirable elements. This in turn was associated with a strategic emphasis on the removal, the containment, or the disruption of agitators through the use of force, lest they manifest their ability to hijack the crowd. When it was not possible to achieve this, then a strategic and tactical shift toward the use of force against crowds as a whole was evident.

The classical view of crowds is probably best expressed by Gustave Le Bon, a French psychologist whose book The Crowd was first published in 1895. It is still widely cited today and has been called the most influential psychology text of all time. Le Bon argues that when people become anonymous within the mass, they lose their individual identity and forget their normal values and standards, and their ability to think, reason, and judge is impaired.

One of the most familiar assumptions of classical crowd psychology is what one might call the agitator view. According to classical crowd psychology, crowd members are mindless and, thus, easily influenced by unscrupulous individuals to cause disorder.

Before the 1970s, Hong Kong was governed by a very authoritarian style of colonial rule. In 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution in China, the revolutionary furore spilled over into Hong Kong. Left-wing workers instigated a long period of bloody riots in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Police lost 10 men during the turmoil but used an iron hand in suppressing the riots after it was known that Beijing had no intention of resuming sovereignty over Hong Kong. For its efforts in suppressing the riots in 1967, the Hong Kong Police were granted the Royal prefix in 1969; this made the Royal Hong Kong Police one of only five forces in the Commonwealth that received this honor.

The Public Order Ordinance (POO) was first enacted as a result of the 1967 riots. From then on until the 1980s, there was a high degree of restriction on public assembly. For any public assembly with three or more persons, an application for a public procession license was required or the gathering would be considered unlawful under the POO.

The POO required the organizers of public gatherings in Hong Kong to issue a seven-day prior notification to the commissioner of police. The POO also placed restrictions on noise control during public meetings and limited meetings on private premises to not more than 500 people.

Traditionally, in Hong Kong, public event organizers were willing to negotiate with police and other related stakeholders to make concessions. However, the post-1980s groups who insist in fighting for their human rights would frequently refuse to compromise, making the chance of peaceful resolution impossible.

Rapidly Emerging Political Identity

In Hong Kong, earlier immigrants were mostly penniless refugees from southern China. Only a handful of Chinese from places such as Shanghai were wealthier industrialists. There was basically no middle class in Hong Kong in the 1950s and the 1960s. However, by the 1970s, a new locally born generation was slowly growing up in Hong Kong to fill the middle class vacuum.

Before the emergence of a social and political identity, public order was quite easily controlled in Hong Kong as the police force was not shy to use force on the one hand, and on the other hand, most people in Hong Kong were just busy making money and not involved in the political process.

Social unrest became more common from the 1970s. For instance, the Chinese Movement in 1970, the Protection of Diaoyu Islands Movement in 1971, the Anti-Corruption Movement in 1973, the Golden Jubilee Incident in 1977, and the Yau Ma Tei Boat People Incident in 1978 all gave rise to a group of social leaders (contenders). They became the social activists and opinion leaders striving for the parochial interests of specific communities.

Stepping into the 1980s, the Sino-British negotiations over the sovereignty of Hong Kong triggered a decade-long politicization and mobilization process (Ma, 2002). By 1984, the British might have thought that they could run Hong Kong and have a free hand to change the political system before 1997. China certainly disliked the idea of any form of rapid democratic development being implanted in Hong Kong. Xu Jiatun (director of the Xinhua News Agency at that time) stated on November 21, 1985, that all political reform during the transition period must adhere to and be in tune with the constitutional structure as laid down in the Basic Law. The British later generally agreed that the political development in Hong Kong before 1997 had to comply with the Basic Law.

The social movements in the 1970s and the 1980s were spearheaded by the local middle class and professionals; these groups later formed the backbone of the prodemocracy movements. This new generation, described by Ma (2002), as a locally born, better educated elite, had a stronger Hong Kong identity and were more sympathetic to western values such as democracy, social equality, freedom, and human rights. Their social mobility signified the relative openness and fairness of the Hong Kong society in the 1970s (Wong and Lui, 1992, 1993; Leung, 1996).

This new middle class, who took for granted China’s relative openness in the 1980s, has a perception of China that is greatly different from their parents. They have vocally challenged China’s concept of c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Editors
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Section I Leadership and Accountability
• Section II Analysis
• Section III Satisfaction and Community Connections
• The International Police Executive Symposium
• Index