Public assessments of the police and policing in Hong Kong

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 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 increasingly divided and less satisfied with the performance of the police in recent years, particularly 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 neighbourhood; 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 conceptual 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 confidence (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 outcome 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 perceptions 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-à-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 state for citizens” given their highly “visible,” “uniformed” presence on the streets and their “crucial involvement in social intervention and law enforcement” (Punch, 2000, p. 322). In the socially and politically divided context of postcolonial Hong Kong, questions about the ability of the state to command trust and legitimacy in the eyes of the public—and, by extension, whether the policed see the police as trustworthy and legitimate—are open and empirical. As Cheung (2009, pp. 2–3) observed, the failing “hybrid administrative state” has suffered from “a culture of distrust,” a “policy impasse and the lack of capacity to deliver results” and has lurched from “one legitimacy crisis after another since 1997”:

The failure of governance can be diagnosed with respect to systemic defects, decline of state capacity, and the crisis of social cohesion and shared vision…More fundamentally, it has to do with the post-1997 problems of institutional incompatibility resulting from a political regime originating in colonial times having to cope with post-colonial needs and demands.

The multidimensional nature of public assessments of the police

Advancing knowledge in citizen perceptions toward police requires careful attention to interrelated yet distinguishable concepts of trust and satisfaction. One of the challenges conducting research into this area is that various emphases and sub-categories are often theorized to be linked to these concepts, each with theoretical and epistemological implications regarding how findings are interpreted. Satisfaction has been distinguished from trust as “a retrospective assessment of specific police actions and performance” based on past and present experience (Sun et al., 2013, p. 647; Van Craen, 2012, p. 12). Trust, in contrast, has been defined as “positive expectations about the future behavior and performance of allies” (Stoutland, 2001, p. 233). This future orientation of trust is consistent with Tyler and Huo's (2002, p. 61) concept of “motive-based trust,” which concerns “inferences about the intentions behind actions, intentions that flow from a person's unobservable motivations and character.” When decoupled from procedural justice, motive-based trust is shaped by shared social bonds and the understandability of an authority's actions. In their study of respondents who had contact with police, motive-based trust and procedural justice separately and significantly increase deference to a third party's effort to solve a problem (Tyler & Huo, 2002). Stoutland (2001) also suggests four dimensions of trust in the police. First, “do they (current or potential allies) share our priorities or motives? Can we trust the police to share our priorities?” Second, “are they competent? Do they have the requisite knowledge and skills to fight crime, enforce the law, and protect public safety?” Third, “are they dependable in fulfilling their responsibilities?” Finally, “are they respectful? Can we trust the police to be respectful, courteous, and fair in their interactions with us?” (Stoutland, 2001, p. 233).

Furthermore, it is useful to distinguish between “instrumental” accounts of police, involving assessments of the effectiveness of institutions (for example, competence and dependability of police in combatting and preventing crime), and “expressive or affective” accounts where people are “more concerned with both how they are treated by the police and other agencies, and by a wider range of factors” that indicate whether police are “successful in maintaining, and indeed in representing, order, stability and cohesion” (Bradford & Myhill, 2014, p. 2). Tyler's seminal work on process-based judgments of procedural justice and motive-based trust is central to our understanding of people's expressive accounts of the police. Procedural justice involves “public judgments about the fairness of the processes through which the police make decisions and exercise authority” (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003, p. 514). There is a growing body of research evidence in the United States and United Kingdom in support of procedural justice theories (and the relative importance of “trustworthiness,” “respectful treatment,” “neutrality” and “voice” in different types of police-citizen encounters) and that perceptions of fairness of the procedures by which the police exercise their authority bear more weight in public assessments of police than perceptions of the outcome (e.g. Bradford, 2014; Tyler, 2001). In this formulation, procedural fairness is based on assessments of the “quality of decision making,” which include (among others) “whether legal authorities have behaved impartially,” and the “quality of treatment,” which concerns whether “the police have treated individual citizens with respect, dignity, and courtesy” (Tankebe, 2013, p. 111). Researchers also suggest that trust is based in public perceptions that the police and policed share broadly similar values or moral positions (Jackson & Sunshine, 2007; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). Jackson and Sunshine (As 2007, p. 216) argue:

The public look to the police to defend and reassert the moral structure when that structure is felt to be under threat. …Symbolic concerns about social order may be just as important in driving public confidence in policing as worries about falling victim of crime.

Police and the policed in Hong Kong

There is a chequered history of fraught relationships between the police and the policed in Hong Kong. During the early twentieth century in colonial Hong Kong, the police existed as an institutionalized paramilitary presence answerable only to an alien government and “enforced law and order with a coercive arm” (Lau, 2004, p. 4; see also Jiao, 2007, p. 5; Traver, 2009, p. 61). Corruption was widespread, with the police holding a reputation among many sections in the public as “licensed rascals” who actively took bribes and held connections to triad organized crime networks (Jiao, 2007, p. 4; Lau, 2004, pp. 5–6). There is a long history of internal dissent and the use of political policing against “subversives” and public order policing against those deemed a threat to peace and order in Hong Kong. Public riots in the 1950s and 1960s revealed widespread antipathy and disconnection among Hong Kong citizens toward the colonial government, which behooved the government to amend its image and to instigate a series of reform programmes including with the police (Cooper, 1970; Jones & Vagg, 2007; Yep & Lui, 2010). As Jones and Vagg (2007, p. 320) remind us, “criminal and administrative sanctions, its resettlement programme, its paramilitary and public order capacity, its political policing and its ‘heart and minds’ policy” were all indicators of the colonial regime's “nervousness about civil unrest” especially during the 1950s and 1960s. “Policing and criminal justice in this context were inevitably tools of government, and to some extent tools for social engineering, a means of maintaining social order in the face of a range of threats, and of repressing political dissent and protest” (Jones & Vagg, 2007).

Concerted efforts were made to transform the public image and reputation of the police from the 1970s, as consultant surveys undertaken for the government showed that the public “hated” the police (cited in Lau, 2004, p. 65). One key development was the handing over of the investigation of syndicated police corruption to the newly established Independent Commission against Corruption in 1974. There has been some recognition of the importance of the police as a “service of quality” and the involvement of local businesses and administrative bodies in community policing, for instance, through the short-lived Neighbourhood Police Units Scheme in the 1970s, the “Quality of Service Initiative” in the 1990s, and the discretionary arrangements of police power in established communities (Chiu, 2011; Lau, 2004; Martin and Chan, 2014). Nevertheless, the extent to which the Hong Kong police have moved away from its paramilitary history is debatable (Jiao, 2007, p. 45). Despite the instigation of a public service model which emphasizes better communication and engagement with its customers, the paramilitary traditions instilled during the colonial era continue to “deeply mark” present-day policing practices and protocols (Lau, 2004, p. 4; Traver, 2009, p. 62). The “institutionalization” of the HKPF's paramilitary traditions into “structures” (for example, Police Tactical Unit (PTU)), “processes (training, ‘station attack’ dry runs, rookies’ ‘initiation’)” and “practices (hard anti-crime tactics such as PTU saturation policing, stop and search procedures and roadblocks)” have directly impacted upon the formation of police mentality and the police-citizen relationships (Lau, 2004, pp. 74–75). Indeed, policing has been premised on a model of police presence and law enforcement, resulting in Hong Kong being one of the most heavily policed territories in the world. In 1995, Hong Kong had 625.8 police officers per 100,000 population (compared to 243.6 in the USA, 247.3 in England and Wales, and 264.3 in Singapore). This has continued after Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China in 1997. By 2013, Hong Kong had 450.7 police officers per 100,000 population, “the fifth most heavily policed territory in the world” after Russia, Turkey, Italy and Portugal (South China Morning Post, 17 October 2013). It is also important to note that foot patrol remains dominant over vehicular patrol in Hong Kong (Jiao, 2007, p. 228). Police officers frequently patrol dense urban streets in pairs and are therefore relatively visible in the community.

These historical and institutional developments of the Hong Kong police provide an important backdrop to our understanding of the relationship between police and the policed and public assessments of police in Hong Kong today. Surveys conducted in 1999 and 2001 by the HKP evaluating public satisfaction with the police indicated positive responses, with participants most satisfied with (what appears to be descending order): “the Force's professionalism, efficiency, modernized image, freedom from corruption and being ‘caring’” (Lau, 2004, p. 9). Official crime victimization surveys of both victims of crime and the general public also consistently indicate an average of about 90% satisfaction in police performance in response to reporting of crime victimization (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 1999, p. 19; 2007, p. 13). Specifically, among those who reported crime victimization to the police in 2006, 89% considered the manner of police staff dealing with them as “good or very good,” while 85% rated the quality of police service as “good or very good” (Wong, 2012, p. 321). Similarly, the 2006 United Nations International Crime Victimisation Survey found “the vast majority of [Hong Kong] respondents (95.3%) considered that the police in their area were doing a very good job (14.2%) or a fairly good job (81.1%) at controlling crime” (Broadhurst, Bacon-Shone, Bouhours, Wa & Zhong, 2010, p. 37). Furthermore, “the majority of HK respondents (93.5%) either fully agreed (12.2%) or tended to agree (81.3%) … that the police do everything they can to help [people and be of service]” (Broadhurst et al., 2010).

One main limitation of these large-scale surveys is the difficulty in unpacking what Hong Kong citizens actually mean when they assess the police and police action. Indeed, citizens can have a high level of satisfaction in some elements of policing and a low level of satisfaction in others (Bradford, Jackson & Stanko, 2009). Following in this vein, we argue it is crucial to conceptualize the sources of public satisfaction and trust in policing from two contrasting perspectives (Bradford et al., 2009; Bradford & Myhill, 2014; Jackson & Sunshine, 2007). The first is an outcome-based “instrumental” account where “people believe the police, courts and prisons are there to “fight” crime, and place trust in these institutions when and to the extent that they judge them to be effective in this task” (Bradford & Myhill, 2014, p. 2). The second is a process-based “expressive or affective” account where people are “more concerned with both how they are treated by the police and other agencies, and by a wider range of factors” that indicate whether police are “successful in maintaining, and indeed in representing, order, stability and cohesion” (Bradford & Myhill, 2014, p. 2). These two accounts are not mutually exclusive; rather, they reflect how people make sense of the complex realities of police work and how policing impact upon different social groups in their everyday life in Hong Kong. As we will argue below, both accounts are important in shaping public level of satisfaction based on past and present police actions and trust regarding future expectations of police.

Research methodology

Through a qualitative design employing focus group discussions, we explored perceptions of policing among a broad cross-section of Hong Kong citizens with or without personal encounters with the police. Between 2011 and 2013, we conducted 30 focus groups with 156 discussants. A broad cross-section of Hong Kong citizens were included, ranging from those living in private and public housing, middle-class communities, “satellite” towns to areas near the Hong Kong-mainland China border. 64% of participants were female; 50% were aged 16–29 and 42% aged 30–59, with a small number of retired persons; 50% of the sample were living in private housing, 38% in public housing, and 12% in subsidized housing. ⁴ The majority of participants were born in Hong Kong (70%), and are female (64%). Half of our discussants (50%) are aged 16–29; 42% are aged 30–59, with a few in the retired age group. Half the sample have a junior-secondary education (51%), the second-highest percentage (21%) hold a Bachelor's university degree qualification. In terms of employment status, the highest percentage of discussants (37%) are in full-time paid work, with the second highest (27%) being students. Only 3% of the sample is unemployed.

Our sampling criteria specified that all participants had to be of Chinese origin, permanent residents of Hong Kong, and over 16 years of age. A non-probability, snowball sampling design targeted a wide range of sources for participant referrals, including NGOs (these include community organizations and organizations advocating for children and youth as well as the socially disadvantaged groups living in “cubicle” homes) as well as personal and professional networks (these include volunteers in local schools and contacts in highly skilled professional groups). Participants also helped refer us to other contacts to broaden the class and neighbourhood coverage of the project. Regular meetings were held with the research team to determine where sampling was being concentrated, and adjustments were made during the course of recruitment. Focus group sessions lasted an average of 1.5 h and were conducted in Cantonese and fully transcribed and translated. Focus groups were held at locations on or in close proximity to members' own “turf,” in order to help participants feel comfortable and facilitate open and dynamic discussions (see Adorjan, Forthcoming). Venues included community centres, churches, private clubhouses and residences, university campuses, local schools, places of work, non-governmental organization offices, and food courts.

Using NVivo software for qualitative data analysis, prominent themes emerged through the tracking of coding “nodes” both across and within groups. In total, 1900 coding references across the 30 focus groups were made. While a number of idiosyncratic nodes were coded which referenced specific events salient at the time (e.g. particular news events on policing), certain key themes began to emerge that were directly related to satisfaction (e.g. “reporting—waste of time” or “reporting—positive experience”) or assessments of respect and fair treatment (e.g. “rude police,” “mainland police worse”) and specific encounters such as stop and search (e.g. “ID checks—supportive or positive,” “ID checks—negative”). Public order policing was initially coded at a general node titled “police vs. free society,” but subsequently unpacked into several sub-themes demonstrating the range of responses (e.g. “protests—pressure from management,” “protesters—unfairly treated”). Theme saliency is analyzed, and indicated below, by reference to both number of focus groups where a theme was discussed (N), as well as the number of references made across these groups (R): (N, R). For example, if 20/30 groups expressed concern for robbery in their region, and if 240 references were made to robbery across all 30 focus groups, this is indicated as (20N, 240R).

Instrumental accounts—Competence and dependability of police as crime fighters

For the majority of participants who have not had personal encounters with the police, both satisfaction and trust in the police is linked to lay evaluations in police competence in combating what they regard as “crime problem,” from more serious crimes like rape and homicide to minor forms of street crime and delinquency. Overall, participants—especially older ones—expressed a high level of satisfaction with police performance based on their assessment of the existing condition of the crime problem and the low crime rate in Hong Kong. Police trustworthiness is also strongly linked to people's views about police competence in fighting crime. Overall views on technical competence of the police are positive in areas such as investigating crime, making arrests, maintaining security, crime prevention, police training, and street patrolling, with 29/30 groups making positive references (p. 300), alongside 25 groups making far fewer numbers of negative references (p. 112). There is no discernible gender and class difference, though a smaller proportion of younger participants (aged 16–17) made positive references regarding the technical competence of the police than older groups. Altogether a total of 16 out of 30 groups also identified the police as efficient. References to police efficiency were distributed fairly uniformly across all social groups with or without personal encounters with the police. One member of a group of males, 50–59, living in private housing said,

The police will arrive at the scene in ten minutes after receiving your call and [the turnaround time] is OK. Overseas in Washington, New York, you would not see police reaching the scene in 10 minutes, [not even] in 30 minutes. It would be useless even if they got to the scene.

While the majority of participants in the 30 focus groups expressed high level of satisfaction with and trust in the police (27N, 132R), those with direct experience with the police were more likely to make specific reference to the types of crime and low-level disorder they felt the police were unable to address. These include domestic violence, triads, minor cases such as theft, neighbourhood incivilities and other “signal crimes” that impact on their quality of life and sense of safety (Innes, 2014). As we discuss elsewhere, “incivilities may be perceived through signs of social disorder such as encounters with “troublesome” youths or the presence of parallel goods traders from mainland China; or through physical signals of disorder such as discarded syringes and insufficient illumination” (Lee and Adorjan, Forthcoming). For example, one group of middle-aged women in their 40s living in private housing expressed cynicism about the police's ability to address domestic disputes:

In the family at the end of our corridor, the husband is always fighting with his wife. When they had serious fights, we would call the police. The day after, they would continue to fight … What do you expect the police officers to do? Would they arrest the husband? Even if they arrest the suspect, he would come back. Problems are not solved. Not solving the root causes.

Overall, then, our study confirms the importance of people's instrumental concerns about crime in shaping their level of satisfaction with the police (i.e. their assessments of specific police actions and performance in the past). Police competence to effectively enforce the law, control crime and maintain high levels of safety does matter, and people tend to associate police competence and dependability with the consistently low crime rates in Hong Kong. More importantly, our study suggests even though the public continues to value the crime-fighting role of the police, people make nuanced judgements about what constitutes “crime” problem in the neighbourhood and community safety within the context of their everyday life (Lee and Adorjan, Forthcoming).

Affective accounts—Respectfulness in street-level policing

Apart from assessing the police in terms of their effectiveness in fighting crime and “getting results,” participants in our focus groups also expressed their level of satisfaction with the police and police trustworthiness in terms of the process. There were a greater number of groups expressing positive views about how the police generally treat people in terms of their demeanour, attitudes and behavior (p. 27) than negative (p. 20), with a significantly greater number of references (i.e. expressed views coded) as positive (p. 134) than negative (p. 60). Older participants were generally more positive about police officers being fair and impartial in dealing with people than younger participants. Positive views of police in Hong Kong were further underscored by comparisons to the police treatment of social groups in mainland China. A total of 12 groups made negative references to the mainland Chinese police, who were perceived as “aggressive,” “rude,” and tending to “beat people up.” These negative references were more or less uniform across sex, age and class.

Notwithstanding the participants' positive views about police treatment of social groups in general, a substantial proportion of participants had reservations about two specific aspects in street-level policing that resonate with procedural justice approaches to policing—treatment with respect, and neutrality. A total of 21 groups made 50 positive references about the police generally treating people fairly and with dignity, while 27 groups made 143 negative references. Of those who had personal encounters with the police, young men (aged between 16–39) and those living in public housing estates in working class areas who have been stopped by the police were particularly dissatisfied and critical of police actions on the streets. In Hong Kong, police have extensive powers to stop and search under various police force, immigration, public order, drugs, and weapons related ordinances. Against a total population of 7.12 million, police conduct an annual average of around two million “stop and question” and “stop and search” actions against any person “who acts in a suspicious manner,” is suspected of having committed or intending to commit any offence, or simply required to produce proof of identity for inspection (Government of Hong Kong, 2013). These annual figures represent “four times as many identity checks and on-the-spot searches as their counterparts in New York and London” (Boehler, 2013). How and whether the police exercise such powers in a fair manner is difficult to determine as there is no publicly accessible data on the age, gender and ethnic profile of those who have been stopped on the streets, though some local activists take the view that “ethnic minorities, especially South Asians, [are] more likely to be stopped and searched” (Boehler, 2013).

In Hong Kong as elsewhere, most young people come into police contact at crime scenes or during “stop and search” sweeps or Identity Card checks in areas populated by working-class youth. Identity Cards have become “a pervasive fact of life” since its introduction after the Second World War. Against a rising tide of illegal immigration from Indochina in the 1970s, the “ID card became a principal means of controlling this influx” with all persons above the age of 15 required by law to produce them, on request, to the police (Greenleaf, 2008, p. 76). One young male recalled his encounters with police identity checks and was resigned about being picked on by the local police “on a daily basis”:

My hair was dyed [blond] and I also dressed like a hood. [Police officers] always ask for my ID when I walk past them. When they're patrolling and have nothing to do, when they see a hoodlum, see a [youth with] dyed-blond [hair], they would not think twice, they would consider a dyed-blond as a gang member. They would check my ID; I then continue doing what I was doing after they are done with my ID.

Affective accounts—Police as maintaining political order?

If affective concerns about whether police officers treat people fairly and with respect in stop and search were confined to sections of young people especially in working class neighbourhoods, lay evaluations about police neutrality in public order policing provoked the fiercest debates across our focus group discussions. In Hong Kong, public order policing has become a highly contentious aspect of police engagement with the community. While the majority of our participants have not attended protests themselves, they spoke of forming their perceptions through local newspapers, television and social media. Our focus groups had highly polarized views about the process of public order policing: there were many negative references to police handling of public order events as well as a fair number of strongly sympathetic comments (13 groups made 34 sympathetic comments while 18 groups made 79 negative comments). Males and females made a roughly equal proportion of positive references regarding the process of public order policing, though significantly more males made negative references than females. Older participants were generally more positive about police actions in public order policing than younger participants, with those aged between 20 and 29 years of age particularly critical of the police motives and actions. Class did not appear to have any discernible influence on participants' views on public order policing.

Debates about the police role in representing social values in the context of public order policing were frequently expressed among the focus groups regardless of age, gender and class. A significant proportion of participants made a clear distinction between police as “crime fighters” and their political role in public order policing. In a focus group of women in their 20s from lower to middle class districts in Hong Kong, one participant expressed,

Maybe it's because we are always let down by the government. The police are one part of the government … my trust in them is dragged down due to their ways of operating … I think that the police often safeguard the government's interests more than protecting citizens.

Overall, then, our findings show decidedly mixed perspectives that speak to the challenges facing the police during public order events, especially politically charged protests. Citizens had strong opinions about this aspect of policing, and it was clear from the focus group discussions that the politics of policing touched a core nerve in Hong Kong.

Conclusion

This study seeks to fill a lacuna of knowledge regarding public perceptions of police in Hong Kong. As we have shown, knowledge on public perceptions of the police in Hong Kong is limited by extant surveys that typically focus on single indicators and therefore cannot do justice to the multidimensional nature of public attitudes, values and experiences. This exploratory study seeks, through focus group discussions, to unpack the under-explored “commonsense epistemology of trust,” with specific attention paid to “the subjectivity of actual and potential trustors as a central theoretical and empirical concern,” especially in political economies outside of the Anglo-global north (Hardin, 1993, quoted in Goldsmith, 2005, p. 447). Our research buttresses existing studies that indicate public satisfaction with and trust in the police is in part based on perceptions of police effectiveness to combat crime. In the low-crime society of Hong Kong, public assessments of technical competence and dependability of the police as crime-fighters were generally positive. But this is only part of the story. People are attuned to the complex and nuanced nature of police work on an everyday basis. As a number of classic studies in police sociology have highlighted, police are not only crime-fighters but also “peace-officers” (Banton, 1964) and “street corner politicians” (Muir, 1977). In this context, assessments of police performance in crime and incivilities do matter in shaping Hong Kong people's level of satisfaction with and trust in the police.

More importantly, our focus group study confirms the importance of understanding research participants' meaning frames (for example, their general assessment of the state of law and order, subscription to the normative views and concerns in the society or to the moral authority) and adopting a multi-dimensional framework of trust. Hong Kong people care about fairness and respectfulness when the police deal with members of the public rather than effectiveness narrowly defined. Our findings show that young people who tend to bear the brunt of police-initiated encounters of “stop and search” were the most vocal in expressing dissatisfaction about personal encounters with street level policing; some were almost resigned to the fact that they would continue to be treated as “police property” (Lee, 1981). Similarly, tensions are most evident in discussions around public order policing which have provoked the fiercest debates across our focus group discussions. Debates about the process of policing and motives of the police are most notably related to public order policing, when citizens look to the police as a strong and active symbol of the values that underpin a particular way of life. In this context, our research findings, while preceding the high-profile Occupy Movement public protests during the fall of 2014, reveal signs of discontent among sectors of an alienated populace amidst ongoing debates about democratization in post-colonial Hong Kong. Clearly, these debates about the politicization of public policing, the role of the police in criminalising and controlling dissent, and the impact on the relationship between the police and policed, will not go away.

Assessments of respectfulness, trustworthiness and neutrality are ultimately bound up with broader questions of legitimacy of the police. Legitimacy has been defined as “a property of an authority or institution that leads people to feel that authority or institution is entitled to be deferred to and obeyed” (Tyler, 1990, p. 25). Trust in police procedural justice can be a strong predictor of moral alignment (i.e. the belief that the police share one's values, norms and sense of right and wrong), which is a dimension of perceived police legitimacy (Van Damme, Pauwels, & Svensson, 2015, pp. 18, 29). Given the current deficit of political legitimacy vis-à-vis democratic representation in Hong Kong, the administrative state and, by extension, police have tended to rely on a narrow instrumentalist discourse of outcome (e.g. a robust economy and low crime rate, respectively) to maintain legitimacy (see Alagappa, 1995), requiring the police to maintain Hong Kong's international reputation as a very safe place for law-abiding citizens (cf. Tankebe, 2008). By contrast procedural justice approaches to policing focus attention on the rights and entitlements of the policed and those groups whose compliance with the law may be problematic. Sunshine and Tyler (2003) note that fairness in treatment is a “key antecedent” for legitimacy and a significant component of procedural justice, as “fair treatment at the hands of police officers should promote identification with the social group the police represent—the imagined local or national community” (Bradford, 2014, p. 23; Tyler, 1990). If the Hong Kong police are serious about fostering public trust and police legitimacy, they need to convince frontline officers of the importance of treating people with fairness and respect within a process model of policing. A declining trust in the police may lead to declining feelings of obligation to obey the police and the law (Tyler, 1998), raising the possibility that compliance may become increasingly problematic. Indeed, whether young people's compliance in stop and search can be understood as a sign of “true” police legitimacy or merely “dull compulsion” (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012, p. 165) remains an open question. As Tankebe (2013, p. 106) observes, “dull compulsion is also commonplace under conditions of colonial rule where people acquiesce to those in power (that is, feel an obligation to obey them) but do not accord genuine legitimacy to them.” Other recent studies have argued emotion acts as a mediating factor in assessments of police procedural justice—for example, anger and frustration may be linked to experiencing procedural injustice (Barkworth & Murphy, 2015, p. 256). These insightful observations raise epistemological questions related to how trust and legitimacy is empirically discerned. We do not draw any definitive conclusions about youth assessments of the police in the context of Hong Kong based solely on our focus group discussions, but we do concur that projections of compliance should not be taken to be indicators of legitimacy per se (see also Van Damme et al., 2015).

Overall what our study reveals is the complexities of policing a divided and restless society and the urgency of developing a sociologically informed criminology of policing studies in post-colonial societies such as Hong Kong. As with any study, there are limitations that need to be acknowledged and care taken in interpreting findings. We have explored public perceptions of fairness and effectiveness of the police in Hong Kong in broad strokes. Will the methods implied by “process-based” policing in the global North work to foster trust and legitimacy in Hong Kong? More research is necessary to ascertain whether and in what ways procedural justice—and the relative significance of its associated dimensions—is more important to people in interactions with the police than obtaining outcomes that they regard as fair or favorable in specific situations. Furthermore, recent formulations suggest legitimacy can be examined through considerations of legality, procedural justice and effectiveness (Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012, p. 166). Our findings explore questions of effectiveness and to a degree procedural justice but not legality per se. Future research on police legitimacy should invest in the explication of all three components more systematically. Some have suggested that, beyond comparing legal systems and the position of police across countries, a country's history may offer further explanations (Van Damme et al., 2015, p. 29). This seems especially prescient when considering post-colonial societies, where assessments of both police effectiveness and moral alignment are caught up with the politics of identity, state, and citizenship.