Abstract
Professor Kam Wong presents a comparative and comprehensive research about the policing in Hong Kong. In his thematically organized book, he covers a great deal of issues such as police use of power and abuse, police accountability, assaults on police, beat patrol, and computer crimes.
Hong Kong is a unique region in many ways, and the author reflects this uniqueness, particularly after the transfer of sovereignty from United Kingdom to China in 1997. Hong Kong is also a prominent example of the principle “one country, two systems” where it has a capitalist economy, independent judiciary, and different political system than China. As a result, its policies regarding policing also have distinctive features with a cultural focus.
The author divides the book to seven chapters that do not follow a logical order. In his own words, this book is not “a study of the origin and development of the institutional and operational aspect of Hong Kong Police (HKP). It is a study of the ‘social history of policing’ in Hong Kong, its origin, evolution and mutation” (p. 21). In the first chapter, Professor Wong focuses on the practice of “colonial policing” by narrating the history of policing in Hong Kong since its formative years under the British rule. He opens the book with this historical background to make a comparative judgment regarding the changes in policing over the decades as well as to provide the details of the dual system.
Chapter 2 opens the concept of “police accountability” to discussion in terms of fairness and efficiency of the system. The author believes there is a void in the literature on the accountability of HKP. So, after laying out the general history, the author shifts to specific themes and examples about the complaints made to the police.
In Chapter 3, the author “investigates the prevalence, regulation and control of the HKP use of power” (p. 89). In this controversial topic, Dr. Wong offers some recommendations and details certain practices. He also includes an appendix where he lists the cases between 1963 and 1998 in which police utilized brute force. Since there is only one case in the post-1997 period, the addition of subsequent cases would have proved useful for comparison purposes.
In the fourth chapter, Professor Wong presents a critical analysis of a hot topic that got heated more in the aftermath of the tragic incident of a murder of an on-duty police officer: one officer (single beat) versus two-officer (double beat) deployment. After presenting the pros and cons of both sides, the author thoroughly discusses and puts forward his arguments for the solution of this controversy. He particularly emphasizes the importance of training and provides a great amount of numbers to back his case.
In Chapter 5, the author jumps to computer crimes, a contemporary concern in Hong Kong society. Since Hong Kong is a capitalist economy, cybercrimes related to monetary issues as well as other crimes like gambling and piracy have boomed with the advent of the Internet. Dr. Wong mainly details two aspects of this issue, the one related to government affairs and the one the Hong Kong society is concerned. He again fills the gap in the literature by concentrating on a contemporary matter.
In Chapter 6, the author deals with the police power to intercept communications with a closer look on the Interception of Communications and Surveillance Ordinance (ICO). However, he fails to display the same elaboration that he did in Chapter 4 when he discussed the patrol issues. He brings three important conventional Chinese concepts Qing (compassion), Li (Rite), and Fa (Law) to the forefront and analyzes them critically to question the legitimacy of ICO. He argues that “the ICO legislative process and statuary content did not satisfy QLF …” (p. 276).
Finally, in the last chapter, the author makes a comparison of police reforms between Hong Kong and China (between HKP and Public Security Bureau [PSB], respectively) and sheds light on the challenges and the difficulties that the reunification brought for policing in Hong Kong. When comparing both HKP and PSB, Dr. Wong examines the reforms with their beginnings and results along with the processes in between.
Overall, Dr. Wong is very competent in his field, thanks to his background on the issues of policing and law as well as his service as an inspector at HKG. His scholarly and cultural competency is visible throughout the pages when tackling with the issues from several perspectives. Yet his extensive knowledge also makes the book a little disorganized, because the author seems to have tried to convey everything he knows without any specific order. His order of the chapters seems arbitrary and his excessive use of footnotes and their length sometimes makes the following of the ideas a bit complicated. Although it is hard not to admire his knowledge and research, the presentation of this knowledge causes problems in terms of coherency. Dr. Wong fails to summarize his research at the end of the book which gives the impression of incompleteness to the reader. This sense of incompleteness diminishes the value and the contribution of the book to the literature.
Nonetheless, this book could be useful for students and scholars who are interested in policing as well as for police practitioners. With some arrangements, it could be used as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students as well.