Public assessments of the police and policing in Hong Kong
| Author | Maggy Lee,Michael Adorjan |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865816656721 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2017, Vol. 50(4) 510–528
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865816656721
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Article
Public assessments of the police
and policing in Hong Kong
Michael Adorjan
University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada and Centre for Criminology,
University of Hong Kong
Maggy Lee
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract
This paper presents the findings from a focus group research study on public assessments of
the police and policing in Hong Kong. The main findings indicate that while people have
generally positive views about police effectiveness in responding promptly to and fighting
crime, they have decidedly mixed views regarding stop and search and public order policing.
By drawing on the multi-dimensional framework of trust proposed by other policing scholars,
we suggest that a useful way to conceptualize public assessments of the police and questions
of satisfaction and trust of policing in Hong Kong is to distinguish between people’s instru-
mental concerns about personal safety and crime and their affective concerns about the
process of policing and the symbolic role of the police in maintaining a particular way
of life. The paper concludes by reaffirming the value of sociologically informed, qualitative
policing research that examines questions of police-citizen relationship and legitimacy within a
broader socio-political context.
Keywords
Focus groups, Hong Kong, public order policing, public perceptions of police, satisfaction with
the police, trust in police
Date received: 1 January 2016; accepted: 16 May 2016
Introduction
There is a strong tradition of research on public assessments of the police in criminology.
As Wu and Sun (2009, p. 170) pointed out, such research is important because ‘‘how the
public conceptualize and evaluate police can directly or indirectly shape the way they
respond to police, the political support and cooperation they render to police, and their
willingness to participate in police and community anticrime programs and efforts.’’ The
Corresponding author:
Michael Adorjan, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB, Canada
T2N 1N4.
Email: madorjan@ucalgary.ca
former British colony of Hong Kong provides an important case study for this type of
research, as the relationship between the police and the policed has remained precarious
since the return of sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. Public opinion
surveys of public attitudes toward the police indicate that citizens have become increas-
ingly divided and less satisfied with the performance of the police in recent years, par-
ticularly in the period leading up to and since the high profile clashes between the police
and protestors of the ‘‘Occupy Movement’’ in 2014/15.
1
In the latest poll of November
2015, 52.6% of those surveyed under The University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Poll
Programme were ‘‘satisfied’’ with the police while 24% were ‘‘dissatisfied’’ with the
police.
2
But what do people actually mean when they say they are satisfied or dissatisfied
with the police, especially in a post-colonial society such as Hong Kong?
In this paper, we examine public assessments of the police and policing in Hong Kong
based on 30 focus group discussions conducted between 2011 and 2013 as part of a
research project about public perceptions of crime and criminal justice in Hong Kong
(see below). We asked people about their views of the police’s ability to combat crime,
maintain order, solve social problems, and reduce their fear of crime in their neighbour-
hood; their encounters with the police if any, and the ways in which such interactions may
impact upon their assessments of police and police action. Overall, this study advances the
existing literature on people’s assessments of the police in two main areas. First, this study
confirms the need to extend beyond single-indicator measures of satisfaction in order to
gain a more nuanced understanding of the multidimensional and sometimes contradictory
nature of public assessments of the police in Hong Kong. A number of policing scholars
have written about the importance of researching beyond asking people to tick the ‘‘police
are doing a good job’’ or ‘‘police are doing a bad job’’ box (Jackson & Bradford, 2010;
Loader & Mulcahy, 2003, p. 35). More importantly, scholars have pointed to the concep-
tual and analytical distinctions between key concepts of public assessments of the police,
such as satisfaction and trust (Sun, Wu, & Hu, 2013; Van Craen, 2012), trust and confi-
dence (Cao, 2015; Jackson & Bradford, 2010), and trust and legitimacy (Hawdon, 2008;
Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Huo, 2002). The foundational psychological insights of
Tom Tyler’s distinction between people’s sense of justice based on process and on out-
come have also inspired numerous criminological studies on public attitudes toward the
police and the rest of the criminal justice system and on the question of legitimacy. These
studies, initially conducted in the United States (Tyler, 1990; Tyler & Huo, 2002), inspired
subsequent research in the United Kingdom (Jackson & Bradford, 2010; Loader &
Mulcahy, 2003), Hong Kong (Chui & Cheng, 2015) and China (Sun et al., 2013;
Tankebe, 2008). To date, there has been a lack of systematic examination of public per-
ceptions of police in Hong Kong through a qualitative framework which contextualizes
the above concepts in terms of the lived experiences of citizens. Local surveys, though
offering useful longitudinal descriptions, have given us few insights into the varied and
inter-related judgements that citizens make concerning the performance and motives of
the police. Given the complex nature of police work and social relations between the police
and the policed, more research is needed to throw light on what citizens actually think and
feel about the quality of police behavior.
Second, this study addresses the key question of whether and how the structural
relations of the police vis-a
`-vis the state have shaped public assessments of the police.
Clearly, police are ‘‘the state made flesh’’; they are ‘‘the most direct representatives of the
Adorjan and Lee 511
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