- Email: [email protected]
History as obstacle to change: a neo-institutionalist analysis of police reform in Hong Kong
ARTICLE IN PRESS
International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
International Journal of the Sociology of Law www.elsevier.com/locate/ijsl
History as obstacle to change: a neo-institutionalist analysis of police reform in Hong Kong$ Raymond W.K. Lau* School of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University of Hong Kong, 30 Good Shepherd Street, Homantin, Hong Kong Accepted 5 February 2004
1. Introduction Since 2001, the Hong Kong Police (HKP) has adopted the slogan ‘we serve with pride and care’. Its origins date back to the mid-1990s when the HKP launched its Force Strategy on Quality of Service (FSQS) to transform itself into a ‘service of quality’. What has FSQS achieved so far and what are its future prospects? We consider this question by employing the neo-institutionalist perspective in organizational theory.1 The institutionalist perspective examines organizational development through analyzing how organizational members act in the institutional context. To understand what the perspective is about, it is useful to follow March and Simon (1984, 1996) by contrasting it to two popular ways of seeing organizational action. One is by means of individualistic theories of action such as rational choice theory— the individual social actor rationally balances costs and benefits to maximize personal gains in everything that s/he does. The other is by means of what March and Olsen refer to as ‘contextual’ theories of action, in which actors are seen as acting according to their extra-organizational collective identity such as ethnicity or $
The author is grateful to the anonymous referee for his/her helpful suggestions. *Tel.: +852-2768-5728; Fax:+852-2391-3184. E-mail address: [email protected] (R.W.K. Lau). 1 An organization is also often called an institution, but an institution is not necessarily an organization. For instance, market institutions span diverse business organizations. In this paper, though, the term ‘institution’ is used with reference to the organizational context only. Incidentally, there are different institutionalisms in economics, political science, etc., but we focus on the institutionalism based upon sociological concepts. 0194-6595/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijsl.2004.03.001
ARTICLE IN PRESS 2
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
class (e.g. workers act as members of the working class irrespective of the organizational context in which they work). Both individualistic and ‘contextual’ theories, therefore, see organizational action as being exogenously determined—the rational choice actor brings his/her calculus from outside the organization; the worker’s actions are determined by his/her extra-organizational class identity. In contrast, the institutionalist perspective sees actions in the institutional context as being determined endogenously by the organization. Institutionalist analysis in organizational theory traces its origins to the ‘old’ institutionalism of Selznick (1949, 1957). Building upon it, March and Olsen formulated their neo-institutionalist framework, according to which an organization shapes members’ identities and interests—and hence shapes how they act. Specifically, an organization’s history—past policies, past success or failure, past interaction with its environment and the like—becomes institutionalized, that is to say, materialized into organizational goals, beliefs, aspirations, structures (with their associated roles), systems and entrenched procedures and practices. Members are coopted into these organizational goals, beliefs and the like, socialized into these organizational roles, rules, norms and the like, and act accordingly in the institutional context. Hence, because of the institutionalization of an organization’s past and because members act on the basis of being shaped by this institutionalization process, the organization’s history constitutes an obstacle to organizational change. How then does change ever occur? Selznick and March and Olsen all emphasize the importance of extra-institutional impetus and an organization’s adaptation to it in understanding change.The usefulness of the neo-institutionalist perspective for the examination of FSQS, which aims to transform the HKP, is obvious. From such a perspective, it is necessary to examine FSQS by addressing several issues: (1) the institutionalization of the HKP’s history or traditions and how this process creates obstacles to change; (2) the factor(s) giving rise to FSQS, which neo-institutionalism tells us are likely to derive externally; and (3) whether or not the factor(s) in (2) are strong and sustained enough to overcome the institutionalized constraints to change. Under point (1), we shall specifically look at how the HKP’s past has been institutionalized into premises (goals, values, beliefs), structures, processes (e.g. procedures), practices (e.g. norms) and attitudes. Before providing an outline of our substantive arguments, another aspect of neoinstitutionalist theory is worth mentioning. For Selznick and March and Olsen, organizational members’ co-optation into the organization is fundamentally normative, that is to say, based upon conscious value commitment. In contrast, some recent sociological neo-institutionalist analyses (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991), inspired by social phenomenology, regard this co-optation as being routine and nonreflective. In social phenomenological terminology, organizational members are shaped and act dispositionally instead of normatively. To illustrate the difference hypothetically, an officer may take short-cuts because being normatively committed to policing as a ‘way of life’ s/he thinks s/he is protecting the weak against the predatory in doing so; in contrast, an officer who takes short-cuts dispositionally does so (without thinking or normatively feeling anything about it) simply because
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
3
that is what one does. The normative and the dispositional views actually complement one another, because within the same organization, some members may act out of normative commitment and others dispositionally, and on the individual level, a member may act normatively in some respects (or at some time during his/her career) but dispositionally in other respects (or at other times during his/her career). Moving on to our substantive analysis of FSQS, Section 2 explains how the HKP initially developed into a corrupt colonial force with institutionalized paramilitary features, whose priority was upholding public order for the authoritarian colonial regime. It will further be explained how under the external impetus of the British government’s policy to change the colonial governance style in the early 1970s, the HKP was then successfully transformed by the 1980s into a professional agency generally free of corruption with the double functional priority of law and order. But with this transformation deeply marked by the HKP’s institutionalized traditions, law and order were upheld with a coercive arm. It was as such an organization that the HKP abruptly embarked upon FSQS under the impact of external environmental change, namely, the last colonial governor Chris Patten’s radical overhaul of the public service in the run up to Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July 1997. This external impetus and FSQS’s details are explained in section 3. Section 4 analyzes how the HKP’s institutionalized features are instrumental in the formation of a coercive enforcer police mentality that is inimical to FSQS’s objective. Moreover, once Patten’s politically motivated external pressure for change has faded, there exists no external impetus either for the HKP’s institutionalized features to change or for the public to be really treated like customers by police. For these reasons, FSQS’s achievements to date have been limited to some superficial changes, while its future prospects look unpromising. FSQS’s ultimate objective is to transform Hong Kong’s cop culture. While the present paper’s focus is on FSQS as a whole instead of on cop culture alone, it is useful to situate our analysis within the existing police culture literature. In this literature, Chan (1996, 1997) has provided a well-known study of the failure of New South Wales’ reform. In Section 5, we shall explain the similarities and differences between Chan’s analysis and ours, and show how our analysis complements Chan’s, thereby enabling a more all-round understanding of the issue. The research for this paper is based upon the existing literature, official documents and data, loosely structured in-depth interviewing with 12 anonymous police informants arranged through personal networking conducted in 2001–2002, informal discussion with a number of other police officers over the same period and personal communication from various police sources. The anonymous informants, three of whom have recently retired, ranged from constable-turnedinspectors to senior management officers, and comprised of nine male and three female officers coming from diverse police units with diverse experience. They did not constitute a statistical sample, but such a sample is unachievable since the HKP is very sensitive to this research’s subject matter and officially arranged interviews are likely to produce less than authentic data. Furthermore, statistical sampling would not be particularly useful in in-depth interviewing. In the following,
ARTICLE IN PRESS 4
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
quotations are mostly taken from the anonymous interviewees, but for convenience all fieldwork data will be referenced as ‘author’s interviews’.
2. The HKP’s traditions Hong Kong was colonized by Britain in 1841. In Jeffries’ (1952) thesis, colonial police forces go through three developmental phases: improvised arrangements to secure basic law and order, establishment of a paramilitary force and development into a civilian force. The HKP’s development up to the 1860s roughly conformed to Jeffries’ first phase. It then began to be established as a paramilitary force (Crisswell and Watson, 1982). This paramilitary era lasted up to the early 1970s. From 1974 to the 1980s, under extra-institutional impact, the HKP underwent a major transformation, as a result of which it became a professional agency with the double priority of law and order. But this transformation did not lead to Jeffries’ third phase because it was deeply marked by the HKP’s paramilitary traditions, such that the HKP enforced law and order with a coercive arm. It was as such an organization that the HKP launched FSQS. In the rest of this section, we examine the HKP’s traditions from its paramilitary era to its ‘coercive enforcer’ era. In the British colonial paramilitary model, the police’s primary function was to maintain public order without using the military, with law enforcement being a secondary concern. Being armed, the police was directly accountable to the head of the state executive. The practice was to police strangers (the indigenous population) by strangers (the police staffed and controlled by aliens). Police lived mainly in barracks, and police stations were heavily fortified (Andrade, 1985; Anderson and Killingray, 1992). The head of the HKP, known since 1938 as the Commissioner, was appointed from London initially but later by the colonial governor. Holding the rank of policy secretary (equivalent to minister), he enjoyed operational autonomy and reported directly to the governor. Reconstituted in the late 1860s, the HKP was organized into squads deployable militarily and housed in fortified barracks; several new police stations came into service in the 1870s, all built like fortresses with high walls, barbed wire and perimeter guard posts. Europeans filled the officers’ ranks (inspector and above), while the rank and file (constable to station sergeant) were recruited mainly from South Asia. Though local Chinese were also recruited, they remained a minority until the South Asian contingent departed en masse upon India’s and Pakistan’s independence in 1947, whereupon barracks were replaced. The first local inspectors and gazetted officers (superintendent and above) were recruited in 1936 and early 1960s, respectively. In 1966–1967, local police, for reasons remaining inadequately researched, generally played an active role in suppressing widespread anti-colonial riots. Only after this did the number of local inspectorate officers begin to exceed Europeans (Gaylord and Traver, 1995). Meanwhile, in the wake of the 1925–26 communist-led general strike, the Emergency Unit (EU) and the Anti-Communist Squad, which became the Special
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
5
Branch (SB) in 1938, were established. The functions of the EU, which remains in existence today with state-of-the-art military hardware, were to deal with civil disturbances and take control at the scene of major incidents. As a political police, the SB reported directly to the colonial governor bypassing the Commissioner until its dissolution in 1995 on the eve of Hong Kong’s return to China (Schloss, 2001). The Police Training Contingent (PTC) was later created to provide anti-riot training. All new recruits underwent PTC training early in their career, and refresher training was provided to serving police. PTC graduates returned to serve at local units, but when required the Force, the HKP’s term to refer to itself, was instantly mobilizable into full Internal Security Structure by forming PTC graduates into antiriot squads. Police stations underwent regular ‘station attack’ dry runs. After the 1966–1967 riots, the PTC was replaced by the Police Tactical Unit (PTU). Instead of returning to local units, graduates were deployed to do a tour of duty at PTU. Thus, PTU became a permanent anti-riot unit, with the EU as a further backup. The Force continued to be instantly mobilizable into full Internal Security Structure. Training at both the Police Training School (PTS, for new recruits) and at PTC/PTU was militarized. Discipline, loyalty and group solidarity were emphasized (author’s interviews). Despite Hong Kong’s economic transformation into an export-oriented industrial economy since the early 1950s, law enforcement took a back seat to public order up to the early 1970s. The tolerance of the police–triad symbiosis strikingly evidences this (Sinclair, 1983; Gaylord and Traver, 1995). Crime was kept under ‘control’ by police protecting triad-operated vice in return for bribes paid in an organized manner and shared by locals and Europeans alike, a long existing practice that reached its peak in the 1950s to 1960s. The 1966–1967 riots revealed that the authoritarian colonial regime enjoyed little legitimacy among the grassroots population. Official enquiry showed that official corruption was a social time bomb, while there existed deep antipathy against the police (Scott, 1989). Britain appointed Murray McLehose as the new governor in 1971, signifying her intention to change the colonial governance style by establishing the colonial regime’s legitimacy through social reforms (Lo, 1993). Concerning corruption, an Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) had actually been created within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 1952, but despite this, as seen, organized police corruption continued to thrive. In 1971, the setting up of an anticorruption body independent of the HKP, first raised in 1960, was re-raised by the government. The HKP objected, but since Britain intended a change in governance style in Hong Kong, the government forced a compromised deal on the HKP: the ACB was separated from the CID and upgraded into the Anti-Corruption Office (ACO). Given 3 years to produce results, the ACO showed greater investigative determination than its predecessor, and in 1973, it investigated into Chief Superintendent Peter Godber. But Godber managed to flee Hong Kong, sparking massive public outcry and street protests (Lo, 1993). Meanwhile, in 1972, British management consultants were engaged to look into civil service reform. Their report revealed that the police, then commonly known as ‘licensed rascals’, was widely hated (author’s interviews, Grant, 1992, p. 70). Hence,
ARTICLE IN PRESS 6
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
if the colonial regime was to successfully change its governance style, reform of the HKP was imperative. In 1974, making use of the Godber scandal, McLehose set up the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) despite the HKP’s continued objection, and made the HKP implement several major reform schemes (Lo, 1993). The ICAC soon prosecuted organized corruption syndicates at one police station after another. Its ‘zero tolerance’ tactic sparked a huge protest by several thousand off-duty police in October 1977. McLehose was forced to grant an amnesty for corruption offences committed before January 1977 (Miners, 1995). This concession to the police notwithstanding, the era of organized police corruption had ended for good. Even before the ICAC’s formation, the police–triad symbiosis had begun to collapse due to the ACO’s establishment, partly as a result of which the violent crime rate soared (Traver, 1991). The government set up the top-level policy steering group Fight Violent Crime Committee in 1973. Reconstituted into the Fight Crime Committee (FCC) in 1975, it exists up till now. The government’s concern about crime was unsurprising. The triads did not disappear because the police–triad symbiosis had been broken. But from now on they would have to be kept under control by regular law enforcement means. Hence, law enforcement acquired increasing importance for the HKP, which commenced a long-term programme to professionalize its law enforcement capabilities. For instance, the beat radio was introduced in July 1977. The modernization of equipment continued throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. A subtle and crucial, but unofficial change reflected this professionalization. As a historical legacy, framing-up was still relatively common even after the ICAC’s formation. But it soon rapidly declined, such that the rule of law had become generally established among police by the mid-1980s (author’s interviews). Thus, impacted by extra-institutional factors, the HKP was transformed from a corrupt colonial force focusing on public order into a professional force that became generally free of corruption, especially organized corruption, with the double priority of law and order. The HKP (1996) expressed this double priority in the mid-1990s when it stated its vision to be that ‘Hong Kong remains one of the safest and most stable societies in the world’. After the 1966–1967 riots, Hong Kong entered a period of sustained socio-political stability. Thus, the continued importance of public order can be partly understood as resulting from the HKP’s very institutionalization of it. But it should also be noted that in the early 1980s, Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997 was put on the public agenda, as a result of which Hong Kong entered a period of relative political turbulence, especially since the late 1980s which has lasted until now. This external factor clearly constitutes another reason for the continued importance of public order to the HKP. Despite its transformation, given the HKP’s paramilitary traditions, it continued to maintain public order by coercive practices. For instance, it strictly enforced the draconian colonial Public Order Ordinance (POO), with assemblies of three (later 20) persons or more being required to apply for advance permission; even when
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
7
permission was obtained, protesters were compelled to break up into smaller groups when their number exceeded the above limit; and loudhailers were routinely forbidden.2 Similarly, in raising law enforcement’s priority, the HKP’s paramilitary traditions became institutionalized into coercive anti-crime practices and tactics such as PTU saturation policing (in which police patrolled in groups in classic paramilitary manner), street-level stop and search procedures and roadblocks. Roadblocks, for instance, often converged several lanes of traffic into a single file with each car having to stop for inspection, thereby sometimes causing huge congestion. It should be noted that roadblocks were used routinely, and not only when major incidents had happened. The HKP seemed unconcerned about whether or not the social cost of the inconvenience caused to innocent motorists was justified. One routine hard anti-crime practice was carpet-search-like checking of nightspots, on occasions involving hundreds of police. The Commissioner hailed such operations as ‘highly successful’ in 1990, stating that ‘thousands of premises have been visited and numerous people have been checked. The crime preventive and deterrent value of such measures is incalculable’ (Commissioner’s annual report, in HKP, 1990, p. 5). Nightspots were routinely checked whether or not there was intelligence to justify it. In checking nightspots, upon entering the premises and turning on all lights, police often immediately commanded ‘men on the left, women on the right’ and then proceeded with identity checks, as if everyone was a potential suspect (author’s interviews). All the above hard anti-crime practices remain intact today. It will be shown later that this has serious implications for FSQS. The effects of the HKP’s institutionalization of its traditions on its post-1974 transformation are also evident in another respect. Of the reforms undertaken in 1974, some were aimed at improving police– public relations. At the local level, the post of Police Community Relations Officer (PCRO) was created at the then relatively senior rank of chief inspector—the same rank as the head of the local CID. Initially, officers posted to the PCRO were groomed for promotion. However, when the post of the local CID head was upgraded to superintendent rank in the early 1980s in an overhaul of the HKP’s structure, the PCRO remained at chief inspector grade. By then the post had become a sinecure (Grant, 1992, author’s interviews). Evidently, the PCRO’s declining fortunes were at least partially the result of institutionalized beliefs arising from the HKP’s paramilitary traditions concerning the relative importance of civilian police work. Thus, in the early 1990s, Grant (1992) found a ‘virtual consensus’ among senior commanders in degrading such work. Police–public relations work has since been regarded, along with other postings such as training, as non-‘core’ duties, in
2 In 1989, students’ protests in Beijing sparked massive sympathy demonstrations in Hong Kong, which made the POO unenforceable. Since then, political activists have often openly flouted the POO, often with impunity, because they are perfectly aware that since the Tiananmen crackdown and with Hong Kong’s return to China, they are protected by American attention paid to their protests (communication from anonymous political activist).
ARTICLE IN PRESS 8
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
contrast to the ‘core’ duties of operational law and order postings. In promotion, this distinction officially makes no difference, but informally it has itself been institutionalized into the practice of giving much greater weight to operational postings (author’s interviews).
3. Extra-institutional change and the launching of FSQS The government initiated a neo-liberal public sector reform programme in 1989, in accordance with which in 1990 the HKP appointed a British consultancy firm to make reform recommendations. In early 1992, the firm advised the HKP to copy the latest British practices (Hui, 2001).3 The recommendations were eventually taken up as a result of another external intervening event. Chris Patten became the last colonial governor in October 1992. He immediately went about radically overhauling Hong Kong’s political and administrative structures. With regard to administrative reform, government departments were asked to regard the public as clients not supplicants. In 1994, he vowed to develop a customer-based service culture in the public sector (Hui, 2001). All departments including the HKP were obliged to conform under Patten’s highpressure tactics. Thus, adopting the British consultants’ recommendations, the HKP created the Service Quality Wing (SQW) in 1994. In March 1995, the Commissioner publicly pledged to transform the HKP into a ‘service of quality’. Two months later, SQW launched FSQS. An intense Force-wide promotional campaign followed. Two documents, Force Vision and Statement of Common Purpose and Values (HKP, 1996), collectively known in the Force as ‘the Values’, were promulgated in 1996. Three Force-wide series of ‘Living-the-Values’ workshops have since been held (Jiao, 2002). The Recruit Police Constable (RPC) syllabus, unchanged for almost 20 years, was revised in 1998 in order to instill ‘the Values’ in new recruits. The old syllabus focused on legalistic education, weapons training, internal security training and drill; only a few percent was devoted to service-related subjects. In the new syllabus, six sessions directly or indirectly related to service are added. Plans as of mid-2002 were to add one session on ‘customers we are facing, internal and external’ and another on ‘conflict management’. The existing subject ‘communication skills’ would also be revised to ‘focus on practicing customer service’ (HKP, 1998, 1999, 2002, author’s interviews). To gauge the public’s perception of the HKP, three public opinion surveys (POS) in 1995, 1999 and 2001, and two customer-satisfaction surveys (CSS) in 1998 and 2000 have been conducted. Staff opinion surveys have also been conducted. These surveys will continue to be conducted regularly. 3 In 1989, the London Metropolitan Police vowed to transform itself from a ‘force’ to a ‘service’ and issued a Statement of Common Purpose and Values; in 1990, the national Quality of Service initiative was launched (So, 1999).
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
9
4. FSQS: achievements so far and future prospects The HKP’s top management seems satisfied with the findings of the POS and CSS conducted so far (HKP, 2000, 2001a, b). The 1999 and 2001 POSs evaluated the level of confidence in the Force, satisfaction with its performance, appearance and physical fitness, recording positive responses in all areas. Respondents were most satisfied (apparently in descending order) with the Force’s professionalism, efficiency, modernized image, freedom from corruption and being ‘caring’. In the 2000 CSS, respondents were sampled through five channels of contact with the police: Report Room, dialing the emergency 999, crime office, contact at scene and dialing police station, and expressed general satisfaction. Interestingly, the political party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (2002) or DAB conducted its own surveys on the public’s perception of the HKP and other law enforcement agencies in 2000 and 2001. In both years, the HKP had by far ‘the worst impression’ on the public—in 2001, rated so by 47% of respondents, compared to 20.5% for the second worst. Hence, it would seem complacent for the HKP to count too much on its own surveys. Actually, the very design of the 2000 CSS appears problematic. Beginning in 1997, police stations were being refurbished under FSQS. In the 2000 CSS, respondents were asked questions such as how satisfied they were with the ‘clarity and accuracy of signage leading to crime offices’. While such things do constitute part of service, they are clearly not of core importance. Hence, a more theoretically informed assessment of FSQS’s results and prospects is necessary. First, consider the institutionalization of the HKP’s traditions and its implications for FSQS. Organizationally, all the public order structures such as PTU and EU remain except for the SB’s dissolution in 1995. In terms of processes, the Force remains readily mobilizable into full Internal Security Structure; ‘station attack’ dry runs are still conducted regularly. Especially crucial is the process of the rookie’s on-the-job ‘initiation’ into the Force. The rookie is given a local assignment upon graduation from PTS. Within a couple of years, s/he undergoes PTU training for 2 months. Until a few years ago, s/he was then deployed to do a tour of duty first attached to the Field Patrol Detachment (FPD), a purely paramilitary unit dealing with illegal immigration, and then to a PTU company (note the military terminology) in urban areas. Though FPD has now been replaced by the Border Division and PTU deployment in urban areas usually does not involve dealing with public disorder, it is characterized by distinct military features: special beret, group street patrolling, the routine utilization of PTU in militarized anti-crime operations such as sweeps and searches, and the like. After the tour of duty at PTU, the rookie returns to local assignment and the smarter ones are immediately attached to the local vice squad (author’s interviews). Hence, the ‘initiation’ focuses on frontline operational duties. Furthermore, PTU training and deployment constitute a police’s real ‘baptism’ into the Force. The sense of group loyalty and solidarity is established much more strongly in PTU training and deployment than at PTS. All police recall with pride and delight their PTU class and the PTU company to which they were deployed (author’s interviews). The sense
ARTICLE IN PRESS 10
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
of coercive power gained from PTU’s militarized experience is highly instrumental in forming a coercive enforcer mentality among police. As one informant remarks, ‘PTU is not about service at all’. Another concurs: ‘PTU is antithetical to the service ethos’. Evidently, the institutionalization of the public order priority in the organizational form of the PTU and in processes, especially of rookies’ ‘initiation’, is inimical to FSQS. Hence, an officer found that police with PTU experience were more likely to opt for the use of ‘power/authority’ (Ip, 1990, pp. 68–9). Serving officers also do repeat tours of duty at PTU. The number of PTU trainees averaged 1,845 yearly from 1984 to 1990 and 1,827 from 1995 to 2002 (calculated from HKP Annual Report, various years and data supplied by PTU), indicating its perennial importance to the HKP. The institutionalized hard anti-crime tactics clearly exert similar effects on police mentality. One informant recently retired from the Force remarked that he now regarded many of the HKP’s practices as ‘lawful but not very reasonable’. In this statement, he has unwittingly encapsulated the gist of the HKP’s post-1974 transformation: ‘lawful’ versus previous extra-legal activities and practices such as corruption and framing-up; coercive enforcement being ‘unreasonable’ from a more enlightened perspective of protecting citizens’ civil rights. Another informant was initially very defensive about hard anti-crime practices, but eventually agreed that the rights of many innocent citizens were being infringed upon. A third informant, however, defended these practices to the very end, stating that ‘if the police are able to pick up some criminals, I don’t think inconveniencing innocent persons is a big deal’. This coercive enforcer mentality is not his alone. It was the very same logic that made the Commissioner claim, as noted, huge success for hard anti-crime tactics in 1990. Hence, an officer (So, 1999, pp. 75–7) unsurprisingly reports ‘skepticism about the viability of consumerism in policing’ and the ‘cognitive inability to change among some high ranking and experienced police officers’. One informant states: ‘police attitudes towards the public are very difficult to change’. Another agrees: ‘there’s no concept of service [among police] at all. That’s very hard to acquire’. A basic premise shared generally among police is, as mentioned, that only operational (law and order) duties constitute ‘core’ or ‘real’ policing. This is actually enshrined in the very programmatic statement of FSQS itself, namely, the Force Vision. Because operational duties are embedded in institutionalized structures, processes and practices that are antithetical to the service ethos, this premise evidently has serious adverse implications for FSQS. Thus, unless a de-institutionalization process occurs in which the above structures, processes and practices are changed, and/or civilian police work is substantially raised in priority, the attainment of FSQS’s objectives faces an uphill battle. From the neo-institutionalist view, any such de-institutionalization would likely derive from external impetus. However, external factors that bear directly on the issue all work against change. First, it is generally held, justifiably or not, that Hong Kong has thrived economically on the basis of its post-1960s socio-political stability and comparatively low crime rate. Thus, both the public and the government demand that the HKP maintain this state of affairs. This is widely understood
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
11
among police (author’s interviews). Moreover, as remarked, since Hong Kong’s return to China came on the public agenda in the early 1980s, Hong Kong has entered a politically turbulent period especially from the late 1980s onwards, which has lasted up to today. Under these circumstances, there is clearly no external demand for the HKP to make any change to its paramilitary structures and processes in relation to public order. As revealed by the Commissioner’s claim of success for hard anti-crime practices in 1990, these practices have, justifiably or not, been credited for keeping Hong Kong’s official crime rate comparatively low. In turn, the HKP has been credited, justifiably or not, by the public for this low rate. Thus, though the HKP’s and the DAB’s surveys contradict each other concerning the public’s perception of the HKP, both found the public to be well satisfied with the HKP’s performance, professionalism and efficiency (HKP, 2000, 2001 b; Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, 2002). On the other hand, even human rights activists who frequently critique the HKP’s handling of public order incidents, have never queried these practices. This shows the extent to which the local population, in an environment in which the HKP is apparently performing well in law enforcement, dispositionally takes these practices for granted. When it comes to crime, Hong Kong people ‘favor a strong police force’ (Ng, 1995, p. 70). Thus, no external factor exists which might induce change in the HKP’s institutionalized law enforcement processes and practices. For the same reasons, there is no external pressure for the HKP to change its institutionalized double priority and raise the priority of civilian work, which might enhance FSQS’s prospects. Without such pressure, the HKP’s priorities will remain entrenched. For instance, given the close connection between service quality and civilian police work, one might expect the latter’s importance to be upgraded upon the launching of FSQS. But this was not to be, as shown in the revision of the RPC syllabus for the purpose of fostering FSQS. There were 39 sessions for ‘Children and Juvenile’ subjects in the old syllabus. These were cancelled in the 1998 revision and integrated into the new syllabus elsewhere. As the total number of sessions remained unchanged at 1053, there was thus room to add new subjects and/or sessions. However, as seen, a total of only six sessions related to service were added. As one senior commander agreed, service quality is seen as a desirable add-on, but is not allowed to interfere with existing priorities. Is there any demand by the public to be treated like customers by police as an external factor that might potentially induce change favorable to FSQS? The post1997 government has been suffering from a legitimacy crisis, as a spillover effect of which, the public are now very prone to complaint against government departments, whether justifiably or not and concerning issues large and tiny. This seems to suggest that such a demand exists. But this is a mistaken impression. A British expatriate officer remarks: ‘in Britain the police address the public as ‘‘sir’’, here, to the contrary, it is the public who address the police as ‘‘ah [a Cantonese way of speech] sir’’’. This comment speaks volumes. Neo-institutionalist analyses based upon social phenomenology speak of organizational members’ non-reflective and dispositional adoption of institutional goals, practices and the like. Much of the public’s
ARTICLE IN PRESS 12
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
interaction with police can be similarly conceptualized. The HKP’s paramilitary traditions have not only impacted upon the HKP itself but also upon the public psyche. Thus, there is a common dispositional deference among the general population to coercively exercised police authority with regard to law enforcement. One illustration of this concerns illegal street vending. Arresting hawkers (street vendors) was once done by the police, but has long been transferred to the hawker control teams of another government department. These teams have full legal powers, but hawkers sometimes vigorously, even violently, resist arrest. Hence, in large operations, police escort is often requested. Although police possess no more power than the hawker control teams in arresting hawkers, when police escort is present, the operations go without a hitch. Thus, despite the public’s current proneness to complain, mostly concerning menial matters with respect to the HKP (author’s interviews), police authority in law enforcement remains undiminished. As previously noted, even human rights activists have never queried the HKP’s hard anti-crime practices. Such a situation is a far cry from one in which the public demand to be treated like customers by police. Furthermore, in the HKP’s surveys in 1999 and 2001, respondents were asked, without prompting, to mention three most important policing areas. The top five areas mentioned in both years all relate to law, crime and order. Given that, as noted, the HKP is held in high regard by all and sundry in its law enforcement performance, the HKP enjoys high credibility among the public in what they care most about policing, in addition to enjoying their dispositional deference. In this light, whether or not it is to be treated like customers that the public really demands from the HKP is questionable. Finally, Chris Patten’s radical overhaul of Hong Kong’s political–administrative structures was politically motivated. As his influence waned as 1997 drew closer, the original external impetus for change quickly weakened and completely vanished with his departure. Certainly, nowadays the police must be careful not to abuse its powers in ordinary encounters with the public. This requires politeness. Actually, superficial politeness in daily contacts with the public has generally been achieved. The principal reason is simply to avoid complaints (author’s interviews). Achieving superficial politeness is, however, not the same as replacing the coercive enforcer mentality by a real customer-service ethos. As an illustration, it will be recalled that one informant insisted that if hard anti-crime practices could round up some criminals, then it does not matter if many innocent people are ‘inconvenienced’. Interestingly, this officer nonetheless states that police should be polite to citizens.
5. Discussion and conclusion Rich in paramilitary traditions, by the 1980s the HKP had developed into a professional agency, which enforced its double priority of law and order with a coercive arm. Under changed political circumstances, its colonial-styled maintenance of public order has since mid-1989 been considerably relaxed. However, its
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
13
strong-armed law enforcement has remained unaltered. Under external impetus, FSQS was launched in the mid-1990s with the avowed objective of transforming the HKP into a ‘service of quality’. However, as a result of the institutionalization of its paramilitary traditions into premises, structures, processes, practices and attitudes on the one hand, and on the other the lack of strong external pressure for the HKP to be really transformed into ‘service of quality’, FSQS’s achievements to date beyond the improvement of police station appearance and superficial politeness in ordinary encounters with the public (the latter of which being, however, due mainly to the desire to avoid complaints in the public’s current proneness to complain against the government) have been limited, while its future prospects do not look promising. In this paper, we have examined the process of the HKP’s institutionalization of its paramilitary features, how external environmental change fed into this process (e.g. the 1925–1926 general strike leading to the EU’s establishment), how this process fed upon itself even when the organization was undergoing transformation (e.g. adoption of hard anti-crime practices when the sole priority on public order gave way to the joint priority of law and order), how the outcome of institutionalization shapes organizational members and creates obstacles to change and the interaction between these obstacles and external impetuses for change. Our research shows that members’ commitment to organizational premises is sometimes normative (e.g. some respondents showed genuine conviction with regard to what constitutes ‘real’ policing), but our fieldwork also reveals that police’s commitment to such things as hard anti-crime practices is in the case of some officers routine and dispositional. FSQS’s ultimate objective is to transform Hong Kong’s cop culture. While our purpose in this paper has been to analyze the achievements (or lack of them) and prospects of FSQS as a whole, instead of focusing on Hong Kong’s cop culture as such, it will be useful to situate our analysis within the existing police culture literature. In this literature, one of the most well-known and recent studies is Chan’s (1996, 1997) study of the failure of New South Wales’ reform. Adopting the conceptual apparatus of Pierre Bourdieu, Chan sees police practices as being generated by the interaction between police habitus and the ‘field’ or ‘structural conditions’ of policing. Though Chan argues that changing police culture requires changing both police habitus and the ‘field’ of policing, her emphasis is on changing the latter.4 There are both similarities and differences between Chan’s analysis and ours. We argue that unless extra-institutional impetus for change is strong and sustained enough to overcome institutionalized obstacles to change, fundamental organization change will not occur. To a certain extent, this is similar to Chan’s emphasis on the need to change the ‘field’ of policing, since five of the six elements that comprise Chan’s ‘field’ of policing are external to the police (see Chan, 1997). However, Chan’s emphasis also signals our differences with her, since her emphasis on extra4
As evidenced, to cite just one instance, in the section heading ‘How to Make Change Sustainable: Structural Changes’ (1997, p. 235).
ARTICLE IN PRESS 14
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
institutional factors contrasts with our emphasis on endogenously generated obstacles to change. This difference in emphasis leads on to another difference: Chan does consider endogenous factors, namely, police habitus, which she renders as police cultural knowledge, due to which officers resist change. In contrast to Chan’s onedimensional (focusing on cultural knowledge alone) analysis of endogenous resistance to change, our analysis of how endogenously generated obstacles to change are institutionalized at different levels (premises and so on) is multidimensional. Moreover, Chan’s one-dimensional focus with regard to endogenous factors is subjectivist in nature (officers’ resistance), whereas our multi-dimensional analysis of obstacles (instead of merely resistance) to change is both subjectivist (e.g. attitudes) and objectivist (e.g. structures and processes) in nature. Lastly, Chan takes police habitus as a given existing variable, whereas we emphasize that obstacles to change are created in the process of institutionalization. To point out these differences between Chan’s analysis and ours is not to imply that ours is superior to Chan’s. Quite the contrary, it is precisely because of these differences that we think our analysis complements Chan’s, thereby enabling a more all-round understanding of the issue. Finally, it is hoped that the present study not only contributes to sociological theory but also provides valuable reference to law enforcement practitioners for a theoretically informed understanding of organizational reform.
References Anderson, D.M., Killingray, D., 1992. Policing and Decolonization: Politics, Nationalism and the Police 1917–1965. Manchester University Press, Manchester. Andrade, J., 1985. World Police and Paramilitary Forces. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Chan, J., 1996. Changing police culture. British Journal of Criminology 36 (1), 109–134. Chan, J., 1997. Changing Police Culture: Policing in a Multicultural Society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Crisswell, C., Watson, M., 1982. The Royal Hong Kong Police (1841–1945). Macmillan, Hong Kong. Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, 2002. Press Release of 17 Feb 02 on Surveys on the Public’s Opinion on the HKP and other Disciplined Forces Carried out in 2000 and 2001. Gaylord, M., Traver, H., 1995. Colonial policing and the demise of British rule in Hong Kong. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 23, 23–43. Grant, I., 1992. 1997: The implications for community policing in Hong Kong. MA dissertation, Exeter University, unpublished. Hong Kong Police, 1990. Commissioner’s Annual Report. Hong Kong Police, 1996. Force vision and statement of common purpose and values. Hong Kong Police, 1998. Review and redesign of RPC syllabus. Hong Kong Police, 1999. Report on the review, redesign and implementation of RPC syllabus. Hong Kong Police, 2000. PPRB press release of 23 February 00 on public opinion survey carried out in 1999. Hong Kong Police, 2001a. PPRB press release of 21 February 01 on customer satisfaction survey carried out in 2000. Hong Kong Police, 2001b. Key findings 2001 public opinion survey (internal management information materials). Hong Kong Police, 2002. Training Development Bureau’s summary of planned amendments to basic courses for recruit police constable and probationary inspector.
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
15
Hui, K-O., 2001. Management reforms in the police force. In: Leung, A.B.L., Lee, J.C.Y. (Eds.), Public Sector Reform in Hong Kong: Into the 21st Century. Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 167–199. Ip, M.C.M., 1990.Transformation of The Royal Hong Kong Police Force from a para-military into a civilian force (1967–1989). B. Soc. Sc. dissertation, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, unpublished. Jeffries, C., 1952. The Colonial Police. Max Parrish, London. Jiao, A., 2002. Organizational behaviors and political sensitivities: policing Hong Kong after 1997. Public Administration and Policy 11 (1), 41–60. Lo, T.Wing., 1993. Corruption and Politics in Hong Kong and China. Open University Press, Buckingham. March, J., Olsen, J., 1984. The new institutionalism: organizational factors in political life. The American Political Science Review 78, 734–749. March, J., Olsen, J., 1996. Institutional perspectives on political institutions. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 9 (3), 247–264. Miners, N., 1995. The Government and Politics of Hong Kong 5th Edition. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Ng, M., 1995. Are rights culture-bound? In: Davis, M.C. (Ed.), Human Rights and Chinese Values: Legal, Philosophical and Political Perspectives. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 59–71. Powell, W.W., DiMaggio, P.J., 1991. Introduction. In: Idem, (Ed.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 1–38. Schloss, G., 2001. Return of big brother? South China Morning Post 8 March 01. Scott, I., 1989. Political Change and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Selznick, P., 1949. TVA and the Grass Roots. University of California Press, Berkeley. Selznick, P., 1957. Leadership in Administration. Row, Peterson, Evanston. Sinclair, K., 1983. Asia’s Finest: An Illustrated Account of the Royal Hong Kong Police. Unicorn, Hong Kong. So, B.K.T., 1999. The Hong Kong Police as a new paradigm of policing in a post colonial city: an analysis of reform achievement. Master of Public Administration dissertation, University of Hong Kong. Traver, H., 1991. Crime trends. In: Traver, H., Vagg, J. (Eds.), Crime and justice in Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 10–24.
International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
International Journal of the Sociology of Law www.elsevier.com/locate/ijsl
History as obstacle to change: a neo-institutionalist analysis of police reform in Hong Kong$ Raymond W.K. Lau* School of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University of Hong Kong, 30 Good Shepherd Street, Homantin, Hong Kong Accepted 5 February 2004
1. Introduction Since 2001, the Hong Kong Police (HKP) has adopted the slogan ‘we serve with pride and care’. Its origins date back to the mid-1990s when the HKP launched its Force Strategy on Quality of Service (FSQS) to transform itself into a ‘service of quality’. What has FSQS achieved so far and what are its future prospects? We consider this question by employing the neo-institutionalist perspective in organizational theory.1 The institutionalist perspective examines organizational development through analyzing how organizational members act in the institutional context. To understand what the perspective is about, it is useful to follow March and Simon (1984, 1996) by contrasting it to two popular ways of seeing organizational action. One is by means of individualistic theories of action such as rational choice theory— the individual social actor rationally balances costs and benefits to maximize personal gains in everything that s/he does. The other is by means of what March and Olsen refer to as ‘contextual’ theories of action, in which actors are seen as acting according to their extra-organizational collective identity such as ethnicity or $
The author is grateful to the anonymous referee for his/her helpful suggestions. *Tel.: +852-2768-5728; Fax:+852-2391-3184. E-mail address: [email protected] (R.W.K. Lau). 1 An organization is also often called an institution, but an institution is not necessarily an organization. For instance, market institutions span diverse business organizations. In this paper, though, the term ‘institution’ is used with reference to the organizational context only. Incidentally, there are different institutionalisms in economics, political science, etc., but we focus on the institutionalism based upon sociological concepts. 0194-6595/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijsl.2004.03.001
ARTICLE IN PRESS 2
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
class (e.g. workers act as members of the working class irrespective of the organizational context in which they work). Both individualistic and ‘contextual’ theories, therefore, see organizational action as being exogenously determined—the rational choice actor brings his/her calculus from outside the organization; the worker’s actions are determined by his/her extra-organizational class identity. In contrast, the institutionalist perspective sees actions in the institutional context as being determined endogenously by the organization. Institutionalist analysis in organizational theory traces its origins to the ‘old’ institutionalism of Selznick (1949, 1957). Building upon it, March and Olsen formulated their neo-institutionalist framework, according to which an organization shapes members’ identities and interests—and hence shapes how they act. Specifically, an organization’s history—past policies, past success or failure, past interaction with its environment and the like—becomes institutionalized, that is to say, materialized into organizational goals, beliefs, aspirations, structures (with their associated roles), systems and entrenched procedures and practices. Members are coopted into these organizational goals, beliefs and the like, socialized into these organizational roles, rules, norms and the like, and act accordingly in the institutional context. Hence, because of the institutionalization of an organization’s past and because members act on the basis of being shaped by this institutionalization process, the organization’s history constitutes an obstacle to organizational change. How then does change ever occur? Selznick and March and Olsen all emphasize the importance of extra-institutional impetus and an organization’s adaptation to it in understanding change.The usefulness of the neo-institutionalist perspective for the examination of FSQS, which aims to transform the HKP, is obvious. From such a perspective, it is necessary to examine FSQS by addressing several issues: (1) the institutionalization of the HKP’s history or traditions and how this process creates obstacles to change; (2) the factor(s) giving rise to FSQS, which neo-institutionalism tells us are likely to derive externally; and (3) whether or not the factor(s) in (2) are strong and sustained enough to overcome the institutionalized constraints to change. Under point (1), we shall specifically look at how the HKP’s past has been institutionalized into premises (goals, values, beliefs), structures, processes (e.g. procedures), practices (e.g. norms) and attitudes. Before providing an outline of our substantive arguments, another aspect of neoinstitutionalist theory is worth mentioning. For Selznick and March and Olsen, organizational members’ co-optation into the organization is fundamentally normative, that is to say, based upon conscious value commitment. In contrast, some recent sociological neo-institutionalist analyses (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991), inspired by social phenomenology, regard this co-optation as being routine and nonreflective. In social phenomenological terminology, organizational members are shaped and act dispositionally instead of normatively. To illustrate the difference hypothetically, an officer may take short-cuts because being normatively committed to policing as a ‘way of life’ s/he thinks s/he is protecting the weak against the predatory in doing so; in contrast, an officer who takes short-cuts dispositionally does so (without thinking or normatively feeling anything about it) simply because
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
3
that is what one does. The normative and the dispositional views actually complement one another, because within the same organization, some members may act out of normative commitment and others dispositionally, and on the individual level, a member may act normatively in some respects (or at some time during his/her career) but dispositionally in other respects (or at other times during his/her career). Moving on to our substantive analysis of FSQS, Section 2 explains how the HKP initially developed into a corrupt colonial force with institutionalized paramilitary features, whose priority was upholding public order for the authoritarian colonial regime. It will further be explained how under the external impetus of the British government’s policy to change the colonial governance style in the early 1970s, the HKP was then successfully transformed by the 1980s into a professional agency generally free of corruption with the double functional priority of law and order. But with this transformation deeply marked by the HKP’s institutionalized traditions, law and order were upheld with a coercive arm. It was as such an organization that the HKP abruptly embarked upon FSQS under the impact of external environmental change, namely, the last colonial governor Chris Patten’s radical overhaul of the public service in the run up to Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July 1997. This external impetus and FSQS’s details are explained in section 3. Section 4 analyzes how the HKP’s institutionalized features are instrumental in the formation of a coercive enforcer police mentality that is inimical to FSQS’s objective. Moreover, once Patten’s politically motivated external pressure for change has faded, there exists no external impetus either for the HKP’s institutionalized features to change or for the public to be really treated like customers by police. For these reasons, FSQS’s achievements to date have been limited to some superficial changes, while its future prospects look unpromising. FSQS’s ultimate objective is to transform Hong Kong’s cop culture. While the present paper’s focus is on FSQS as a whole instead of on cop culture alone, it is useful to situate our analysis within the existing police culture literature. In this literature, Chan (1996, 1997) has provided a well-known study of the failure of New South Wales’ reform. In Section 5, we shall explain the similarities and differences between Chan’s analysis and ours, and show how our analysis complements Chan’s, thereby enabling a more all-round understanding of the issue. The research for this paper is based upon the existing literature, official documents and data, loosely structured in-depth interviewing with 12 anonymous police informants arranged through personal networking conducted in 2001–2002, informal discussion with a number of other police officers over the same period and personal communication from various police sources. The anonymous informants, three of whom have recently retired, ranged from constable-turnedinspectors to senior management officers, and comprised of nine male and three female officers coming from diverse police units with diverse experience. They did not constitute a statistical sample, but such a sample is unachievable since the HKP is very sensitive to this research’s subject matter and officially arranged interviews are likely to produce less than authentic data. Furthermore, statistical sampling would not be particularly useful in in-depth interviewing. In the following,
ARTICLE IN PRESS 4
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
quotations are mostly taken from the anonymous interviewees, but for convenience all fieldwork data will be referenced as ‘author’s interviews’.
2. The HKP’s traditions Hong Kong was colonized by Britain in 1841. In Jeffries’ (1952) thesis, colonial police forces go through three developmental phases: improvised arrangements to secure basic law and order, establishment of a paramilitary force and development into a civilian force. The HKP’s development up to the 1860s roughly conformed to Jeffries’ first phase. It then began to be established as a paramilitary force (Crisswell and Watson, 1982). This paramilitary era lasted up to the early 1970s. From 1974 to the 1980s, under extra-institutional impact, the HKP underwent a major transformation, as a result of which it became a professional agency with the double priority of law and order. But this transformation did not lead to Jeffries’ third phase because it was deeply marked by the HKP’s paramilitary traditions, such that the HKP enforced law and order with a coercive arm. It was as such an organization that the HKP launched FSQS. In the rest of this section, we examine the HKP’s traditions from its paramilitary era to its ‘coercive enforcer’ era. In the British colonial paramilitary model, the police’s primary function was to maintain public order without using the military, with law enforcement being a secondary concern. Being armed, the police was directly accountable to the head of the state executive. The practice was to police strangers (the indigenous population) by strangers (the police staffed and controlled by aliens). Police lived mainly in barracks, and police stations were heavily fortified (Andrade, 1985; Anderson and Killingray, 1992). The head of the HKP, known since 1938 as the Commissioner, was appointed from London initially but later by the colonial governor. Holding the rank of policy secretary (equivalent to minister), he enjoyed operational autonomy and reported directly to the governor. Reconstituted in the late 1860s, the HKP was organized into squads deployable militarily and housed in fortified barracks; several new police stations came into service in the 1870s, all built like fortresses with high walls, barbed wire and perimeter guard posts. Europeans filled the officers’ ranks (inspector and above), while the rank and file (constable to station sergeant) were recruited mainly from South Asia. Though local Chinese were also recruited, they remained a minority until the South Asian contingent departed en masse upon India’s and Pakistan’s independence in 1947, whereupon barracks were replaced. The first local inspectors and gazetted officers (superintendent and above) were recruited in 1936 and early 1960s, respectively. In 1966–1967, local police, for reasons remaining inadequately researched, generally played an active role in suppressing widespread anti-colonial riots. Only after this did the number of local inspectorate officers begin to exceed Europeans (Gaylord and Traver, 1995). Meanwhile, in the wake of the 1925–26 communist-led general strike, the Emergency Unit (EU) and the Anti-Communist Squad, which became the Special
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
5
Branch (SB) in 1938, were established. The functions of the EU, which remains in existence today with state-of-the-art military hardware, were to deal with civil disturbances and take control at the scene of major incidents. As a political police, the SB reported directly to the colonial governor bypassing the Commissioner until its dissolution in 1995 on the eve of Hong Kong’s return to China (Schloss, 2001). The Police Training Contingent (PTC) was later created to provide anti-riot training. All new recruits underwent PTC training early in their career, and refresher training was provided to serving police. PTC graduates returned to serve at local units, but when required the Force, the HKP’s term to refer to itself, was instantly mobilizable into full Internal Security Structure by forming PTC graduates into antiriot squads. Police stations underwent regular ‘station attack’ dry runs. After the 1966–1967 riots, the PTC was replaced by the Police Tactical Unit (PTU). Instead of returning to local units, graduates were deployed to do a tour of duty at PTU. Thus, PTU became a permanent anti-riot unit, with the EU as a further backup. The Force continued to be instantly mobilizable into full Internal Security Structure. Training at both the Police Training School (PTS, for new recruits) and at PTC/PTU was militarized. Discipline, loyalty and group solidarity were emphasized (author’s interviews). Despite Hong Kong’s economic transformation into an export-oriented industrial economy since the early 1950s, law enforcement took a back seat to public order up to the early 1970s. The tolerance of the police–triad symbiosis strikingly evidences this (Sinclair, 1983; Gaylord and Traver, 1995). Crime was kept under ‘control’ by police protecting triad-operated vice in return for bribes paid in an organized manner and shared by locals and Europeans alike, a long existing practice that reached its peak in the 1950s to 1960s. The 1966–1967 riots revealed that the authoritarian colonial regime enjoyed little legitimacy among the grassroots population. Official enquiry showed that official corruption was a social time bomb, while there existed deep antipathy against the police (Scott, 1989). Britain appointed Murray McLehose as the new governor in 1971, signifying her intention to change the colonial governance style by establishing the colonial regime’s legitimacy through social reforms (Lo, 1993). Concerning corruption, an Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) had actually been created within the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 1952, but despite this, as seen, organized police corruption continued to thrive. In 1971, the setting up of an anticorruption body independent of the HKP, first raised in 1960, was re-raised by the government. The HKP objected, but since Britain intended a change in governance style in Hong Kong, the government forced a compromised deal on the HKP: the ACB was separated from the CID and upgraded into the Anti-Corruption Office (ACO). Given 3 years to produce results, the ACO showed greater investigative determination than its predecessor, and in 1973, it investigated into Chief Superintendent Peter Godber. But Godber managed to flee Hong Kong, sparking massive public outcry and street protests (Lo, 1993). Meanwhile, in 1972, British management consultants were engaged to look into civil service reform. Their report revealed that the police, then commonly known as ‘licensed rascals’, was widely hated (author’s interviews, Grant, 1992, p. 70). Hence,
ARTICLE IN PRESS 6
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
if the colonial regime was to successfully change its governance style, reform of the HKP was imperative. In 1974, making use of the Godber scandal, McLehose set up the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) despite the HKP’s continued objection, and made the HKP implement several major reform schemes (Lo, 1993). The ICAC soon prosecuted organized corruption syndicates at one police station after another. Its ‘zero tolerance’ tactic sparked a huge protest by several thousand off-duty police in October 1977. McLehose was forced to grant an amnesty for corruption offences committed before January 1977 (Miners, 1995). This concession to the police notwithstanding, the era of organized police corruption had ended for good. Even before the ICAC’s formation, the police–triad symbiosis had begun to collapse due to the ACO’s establishment, partly as a result of which the violent crime rate soared (Traver, 1991). The government set up the top-level policy steering group Fight Violent Crime Committee in 1973. Reconstituted into the Fight Crime Committee (FCC) in 1975, it exists up till now. The government’s concern about crime was unsurprising. The triads did not disappear because the police–triad symbiosis had been broken. But from now on they would have to be kept under control by regular law enforcement means. Hence, law enforcement acquired increasing importance for the HKP, which commenced a long-term programme to professionalize its law enforcement capabilities. For instance, the beat radio was introduced in July 1977. The modernization of equipment continued throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. A subtle and crucial, but unofficial change reflected this professionalization. As a historical legacy, framing-up was still relatively common even after the ICAC’s formation. But it soon rapidly declined, such that the rule of law had become generally established among police by the mid-1980s (author’s interviews). Thus, impacted by extra-institutional factors, the HKP was transformed from a corrupt colonial force focusing on public order into a professional force that became generally free of corruption, especially organized corruption, with the double priority of law and order. The HKP (1996) expressed this double priority in the mid-1990s when it stated its vision to be that ‘Hong Kong remains one of the safest and most stable societies in the world’. After the 1966–1967 riots, Hong Kong entered a period of sustained socio-political stability. Thus, the continued importance of public order can be partly understood as resulting from the HKP’s very institutionalization of it. But it should also be noted that in the early 1980s, Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997 was put on the public agenda, as a result of which Hong Kong entered a period of relative political turbulence, especially since the late 1980s which has lasted until now. This external factor clearly constitutes another reason for the continued importance of public order to the HKP. Despite its transformation, given the HKP’s paramilitary traditions, it continued to maintain public order by coercive practices. For instance, it strictly enforced the draconian colonial Public Order Ordinance (POO), with assemblies of three (later 20) persons or more being required to apply for advance permission; even when
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
7
permission was obtained, protesters were compelled to break up into smaller groups when their number exceeded the above limit; and loudhailers were routinely forbidden.2 Similarly, in raising law enforcement’s priority, the HKP’s paramilitary traditions became institutionalized into coercive anti-crime practices and tactics such as PTU saturation policing (in which police patrolled in groups in classic paramilitary manner), street-level stop and search procedures and roadblocks. Roadblocks, for instance, often converged several lanes of traffic into a single file with each car having to stop for inspection, thereby sometimes causing huge congestion. It should be noted that roadblocks were used routinely, and not only when major incidents had happened. The HKP seemed unconcerned about whether or not the social cost of the inconvenience caused to innocent motorists was justified. One routine hard anti-crime practice was carpet-search-like checking of nightspots, on occasions involving hundreds of police. The Commissioner hailed such operations as ‘highly successful’ in 1990, stating that ‘thousands of premises have been visited and numerous people have been checked. The crime preventive and deterrent value of such measures is incalculable’ (Commissioner’s annual report, in HKP, 1990, p. 5). Nightspots were routinely checked whether or not there was intelligence to justify it. In checking nightspots, upon entering the premises and turning on all lights, police often immediately commanded ‘men on the left, women on the right’ and then proceeded with identity checks, as if everyone was a potential suspect (author’s interviews). All the above hard anti-crime practices remain intact today. It will be shown later that this has serious implications for FSQS. The effects of the HKP’s institutionalization of its traditions on its post-1974 transformation are also evident in another respect. Of the reforms undertaken in 1974, some were aimed at improving police– public relations. At the local level, the post of Police Community Relations Officer (PCRO) was created at the then relatively senior rank of chief inspector—the same rank as the head of the local CID. Initially, officers posted to the PCRO were groomed for promotion. However, when the post of the local CID head was upgraded to superintendent rank in the early 1980s in an overhaul of the HKP’s structure, the PCRO remained at chief inspector grade. By then the post had become a sinecure (Grant, 1992, author’s interviews). Evidently, the PCRO’s declining fortunes were at least partially the result of institutionalized beliefs arising from the HKP’s paramilitary traditions concerning the relative importance of civilian police work. Thus, in the early 1990s, Grant (1992) found a ‘virtual consensus’ among senior commanders in degrading such work. Police–public relations work has since been regarded, along with other postings such as training, as non-‘core’ duties, in
2 In 1989, students’ protests in Beijing sparked massive sympathy demonstrations in Hong Kong, which made the POO unenforceable. Since then, political activists have often openly flouted the POO, often with impunity, because they are perfectly aware that since the Tiananmen crackdown and with Hong Kong’s return to China, they are protected by American attention paid to their protests (communication from anonymous political activist).
ARTICLE IN PRESS 8
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
contrast to the ‘core’ duties of operational law and order postings. In promotion, this distinction officially makes no difference, but informally it has itself been institutionalized into the practice of giving much greater weight to operational postings (author’s interviews).
3. Extra-institutional change and the launching of FSQS The government initiated a neo-liberal public sector reform programme in 1989, in accordance with which in 1990 the HKP appointed a British consultancy firm to make reform recommendations. In early 1992, the firm advised the HKP to copy the latest British practices (Hui, 2001).3 The recommendations were eventually taken up as a result of another external intervening event. Chris Patten became the last colonial governor in October 1992. He immediately went about radically overhauling Hong Kong’s political and administrative structures. With regard to administrative reform, government departments were asked to regard the public as clients not supplicants. In 1994, he vowed to develop a customer-based service culture in the public sector (Hui, 2001). All departments including the HKP were obliged to conform under Patten’s highpressure tactics. Thus, adopting the British consultants’ recommendations, the HKP created the Service Quality Wing (SQW) in 1994. In March 1995, the Commissioner publicly pledged to transform the HKP into a ‘service of quality’. Two months later, SQW launched FSQS. An intense Force-wide promotional campaign followed. Two documents, Force Vision and Statement of Common Purpose and Values (HKP, 1996), collectively known in the Force as ‘the Values’, were promulgated in 1996. Three Force-wide series of ‘Living-the-Values’ workshops have since been held (Jiao, 2002). The Recruit Police Constable (RPC) syllabus, unchanged for almost 20 years, was revised in 1998 in order to instill ‘the Values’ in new recruits. The old syllabus focused on legalistic education, weapons training, internal security training and drill; only a few percent was devoted to service-related subjects. In the new syllabus, six sessions directly or indirectly related to service are added. Plans as of mid-2002 were to add one session on ‘customers we are facing, internal and external’ and another on ‘conflict management’. The existing subject ‘communication skills’ would also be revised to ‘focus on practicing customer service’ (HKP, 1998, 1999, 2002, author’s interviews). To gauge the public’s perception of the HKP, three public opinion surveys (POS) in 1995, 1999 and 2001, and two customer-satisfaction surveys (CSS) in 1998 and 2000 have been conducted. Staff opinion surveys have also been conducted. These surveys will continue to be conducted regularly. 3 In 1989, the London Metropolitan Police vowed to transform itself from a ‘force’ to a ‘service’ and issued a Statement of Common Purpose and Values; in 1990, the national Quality of Service initiative was launched (So, 1999).
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
9
4. FSQS: achievements so far and future prospects The HKP’s top management seems satisfied with the findings of the POS and CSS conducted so far (HKP, 2000, 2001a, b). The 1999 and 2001 POSs evaluated the level of confidence in the Force, satisfaction with its performance, appearance and physical fitness, recording positive responses in all areas. Respondents were most satisfied (apparently in descending order) with the Force’s professionalism, efficiency, modernized image, freedom from corruption and being ‘caring’. In the 2000 CSS, respondents were sampled through five channels of contact with the police: Report Room, dialing the emergency 999, crime office, contact at scene and dialing police station, and expressed general satisfaction. Interestingly, the political party the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (2002) or DAB conducted its own surveys on the public’s perception of the HKP and other law enforcement agencies in 2000 and 2001. In both years, the HKP had by far ‘the worst impression’ on the public—in 2001, rated so by 47% of respondents, compared to 20.5% for the second worst. Hence, it would seem complacent for the HKP to count too much on its own surveys. Actually, the very design of the 2000 CSS appears problematic. Beginning in 1997, police stations were being refurbished under FSQS. In the 2000 CSS, respondents were asked questions such as how satisfied they were with the ‘clarity and accuracy of signage leading to crime offices’. While such things do constitute part of service, they are clearly not of core importance. Hence, a more theoretically informed assessment of FSQS’s results and prospects is necessary. First, consider the institutionalization of the HKP’s traditions and its implications for FSQS. Organizationally, all the public order structures such as PTU and EU remain except for the SB’s dissolution in 1995. In terms of processes, the Force remains readily mobilizable into full Internal Security Structure; ‘station attack’ dry runs are still conducted regularly. Especially crucial is the process of the rookie’s on-the-job ‘initiation’ into the Force. The rookie is given a local assignment upon graduation from PTS. Within a couple of years, s/he undergoes PTU training for 2 months. Until a few years ago, s/he was then deployed to do a tour of duty first attached to the Field Patrol Detachment (FPD), a purely paramilitary unit dealing with illegal immigration, and then to a PTU company (note the military terminology) in urban areas. Though FPD has now been replaced by the Border Division and PTU deployment in urban areas usually does not involve dealing with public disorder, it is characterized by distinct military features: special beret, group street patrolling, the routine utilization of PTU in militarized anti-crime operations such as sweeps and searches, and the like. After the tour of duty at PTU, the rookie returns to local assignment and the smarter ones are immediately attached to the local vice squad (author’s interviews). Hence, the ‘initiation’ focuses on frontline operational duties. Furthermore, PTU training and deployment constitute a police’s real ‘baptism’ into the Force. The sense of group loyalty and solidarity is established much more strongly in PTU training and deployment than at PTS. All police recall with pride and delight their PTU class and the PTU company to which they were deployed (author’s interviews). The sense
ARTICLE IN PRESS 10
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
of coercive power gained from PTU’s militarized experience is highly instrumental in forming a coercive enforcer mentality among police. As one informant remarks, ‘PTU is not about service at all’. Another concurs: ‘PTU is antithetical to the service ethos’. Evidently, the institutionalization of the public order priority in the organizational form of the PTU and in processes, especially of rookies’ ‘initiation’, is inimical to FSQS. Hence, an officer found that police with PTU experience were more likely to opt for the use of ‘power/authority’ (Ip, 1990, pp. 68–9). Serving officers also do repeat tours of duty at PTU. The number of PTU trainees averaged 1,845 yearly from 1984 to 1990 and 1,827 from 1995 to 2002 (calculated from HKP Annual Report, various years and data supplied by PTU), indicating its perennial importance to the HKP. The institutionalized hard anti-crime tactics clearly exert similar effects on police mentality. One informant recently retired from the Force remarked that he now regarded many of the HKP’s practices as ‘lawful but not very reasonable’. In this statement, he has unwittingly encapsulated the gist of the HKP’s post-1974 transformation: ‘lawful’ versus previous extra-legal activities and practices such as corruption and framing-up; coercive enforcement being ‘unreasonable’ from a more enlightened perspective of protecting citizens’ civil rights. Another informant was initially very defensive about hard anti-crime practices, but eventually agreed that the rights of many innocent citizens were being infringed upon. A third informant, however, defended these practices to the very end, stating that ‘if the police are able to pick up some criminals, I don’t think inconveniencing innocent persons is a big deal’. This coercive enforcer mentality is not his alone. It was the very same logic that made the Commissioner claim, as noted, huge success for hard anti-crime tactics in 1990. Hence, an officer (So, 1999, pp. 75–7) unsurprisingly reports ‘skepticism about the viability of consumerism in policing’ and the ‘cognitive inability to change among some high ranking and experienced police officers’. One informant states: ‘police attitudes towards the public are very difficult to change’. Another agrees: ‘there’s no concept of service [among police] at all. That’s very hard to acquire’. A basic premise shared generally among police is, as mentioned, that only operational (law and order) duties constitute ‘core’ or ‘real’ policing. This is actually enshrined in the very programmatic statement of FSQS itself, namely, the Force Vision. Because operational duties are embedded in institutionalized structures, processes and practices that are antithetical to the service ethos, this premise evidently has serious adverse implications for FSQS. Thus, unless a de-institutionalization process occurs in which the above structures, processes and practices are changed, and/or civilian police work is substantially raised in priority, the attainment of FSQS’s objectives faces an uphill battle. From the neo-institutionalist view, any such de-institutionalization would likely derive from external impetus. However, external factors that bear directly on the issue all work against change. First, it is generally held, justifiably or not, that Hong Kong has thrived economically on the basis of its post-1960s socio-political stability and comparatively low crime rate. Thus, both the public and the government demand that the HKP maintain this state of affairs. This is widely understood
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
11
among police (author’s interviews). Moreover, as remarked, since Hong Kong’s return to China came on the public agenda in the early 1980s, Hong Kong has entered a politically turbulent period especially from the late 1980s onwards, which has lasted up to today. Under these circumstances, there is clearly no external demand for the HKP to make any change to its paramilitary structures and processes in relation to public order. As revealed by the Commissioner’s claim of success for hard anti-crime practices in 1990, these practices have, justifiably or not, been credited for keeping Hong Kong’s official crime rate comparatively low. In turn, the HKP has been credited, justifiably or not, by the public for this low rate. Thus, though the HKP’s and the DAB’s surveys contradict each other concerning the public’s perception of the HKP, both found the public to be well satisfied with the HKP’s performance, professionalism and efficiency (HKP, 2000, 2001 b; Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, 2002). On the other hand, even human rights activists who frequently critique the HKP’s handling of public order incidents, have never queried these practices. This shows the extent to which the local population, in an environment in which the HKP is apparently performing well in law enforcement, dispositionally takes these practices for granted. When it comes to crime, Hong Kong people ‘favor a strong police force’ (Ng, 1995, p. 70). Thus, no external factor exists which might induce change in the HKP’s institutionalized law enforcement processes and practices. For the same reasons, there is no external pressure for the HKP to change its institutionalized double priority and raise the priority of civilian work, which might enhance FSQS’s prospects. Without such pressure, the HKP’s priorities will remain entrenched. For instance, given the close connection between service quality and civilian police work, one might expect the latter’s importance to be upgraded upon the launching of FSQS. But this was not to be, as shown in the revision of the RPC syllabus for the purpose of fostering FSQS. There were 39 sessions for ‘Children and Juvenile’ subjects in the old syllabus. These were cancelled in the 1998 revision and integrated into the new syllabus elsewhere. As the total number of sessions remained unchanged at 1053, there was thus room to add new subjects and/or sessions. However, as seen, a total of only six sessions related to service were added. As one senior commander agreed, service quality is seen as a desirable add-on, but is not allowed to interfere with existing priorities. Is there any demand by the public to be treated like customers by police as an external factor that might potentially induce change favorable to FSQS? The post1997 government has been suffering from a legitimacy crisis, as a spillover effect of which, the public are now very prone to complaint against government departments, whether justifiably or not and concerning issues large and tiny. This seems to suggest that such a demand exists. But this is a mistaken impression. A British expatriate officer remarks: ‘in Britain the police address the public as ‘‘sir’’, here, to the contrary, it is the public who address the police as ‘‘ah [a Cantonese way of speech] sir’’’. This comment speaks volumes. Neo-institutionalist analyses based upon social phenomenology speak of organizational members’ non-reflective and dispositional adoption of institutional goals, practices and the like. Much of the public’s
ARTICLE IN PRESS 12
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
interaction with police can be similarly conceptualized. The HKP’s paramilitary traditions have not only impacted upon the HKP itself but also upon the public psyche. Thus, there is a common dispositional deference among the general population to coercively exercised police authority with regard to law enforcement. One illustration of this concerns illegal street vending. Arresting hawkers (street vendors) was once done by the police, but has long been transferred to the hawker control teams of another government department. These teams have full legal powers, but hawkers sometimes vigorously, even violently, resist arrest. Hence, in large operations, police escort is often requested. Although police possess no more power than the hawker control teams in arresting hawkers, when police escort is present, the operations go without a hitch. Thus, despite the public’s current proneness to complain, mostly concerning menial matters with respect to the HKP (author’s interviews), police authority in law enforcement remains undiminished. As previously noted, even human rights activists have never queried the HKP’s hard anti-crime practices. Such a situation is a far cry from one in which the public demand to be treated like customers by police. Furthermore, in the HKP’s surveys in 1999 and 2001, respondents were asked, without prompting, to mention three most important policing areas. The top five areas mentioned in both years all relate to law, crime and order. Given that, as noted, the HKP is held in high regard by all and sundry in its law enforcement performance, the HKP enjoys high credibility among the public in what they care most about policing, in addition to enjoying their dispositional deference. In this light, whether or not it is to be treated like customers that the public really demands from the HKP is questionable. Finally, Chris Patten’s radical overhaul of Hong Kong’s political–administrative structures was politically motivated. As his influence waned as 1997 drew closer, the original external impetus for change quickly weakened and completely vanished with his departure. Certainly, nowadays the police must be careful not to abuse its powers in ordinary encounters with the public. This requires politeness. Actually, superficial politeness in daily contacts with the public has generally been achieved. The principal reason is simply to avoid complaints (author’s interviews). Achieving superficial politeness is, however, not the same as replacing the coercive enforcer mentality by a real customer-service ethos. As an illustration, it will be recalled that one informant insisted that if hard anti-crime practices could round up some criminals, then it does not matter if many innocent people are ‘inconvenienced’. Interestingly, this officer nonetheless states that police should be polite to citizens.
5. Discussion and conclusion Rich in paramilitary traditions, by the 1980s the HKP had developed into a professional agency, which enforced its double priority of law and order with a coercive arm. Under changed political circumstances, its colonial-styled maintenance of public order has since mid-1989 been considerably relaxed. However, its
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
13
strong-armed law enforcement has remained unaltered. Under external impetus, FSQS was launched in the mid-1990s with the avowed objective of transforming the HKP into a ‘service of quality’. However, as a result of the institutionalization of its paramilitary traditions into premises, structures, processes, practices and attitudes on the one hand, and on the other the lack of strong external pressure for the HKP to be really transformed into ‘service of quality’, FSQS’s achievements to date beyond the improvement of police station appearance and superficial politeness in ordinary encounters with the public (the latter of which being, however, due mainly to the desire to avoid complaints in the public’s current proneness to complain against the government) have been limited, while its future prospects do not look promising. In this paper, we have examined the process of the HKP’s institutionalization of its paramilitary features, how external environmental change fed into this process (e.g. the 1925–1926 general strike leading to the EU’s establishment), how this process fed upon itself even when the organization was undergoing transformation (e.g. adoption of hard anti-crime practices when the sole priority on public order gave way to the joint priority of law and order), how the outcome of institutionalization shapes organizational members and creates obstacles to change and the interaction between these obstacles and external impetuses for change. Our research shows that members’ commitment to organizational premises is sometimes normative (e.g. some respondents showed genuine conviction with regard to what constitutes ‘real’ policing), but our fieldwork also reveals that police’s commitment to such things as hard anti-crime practices is in the case of some officers routine and dispositional. FSQS’s ultimate objective is to transform Hong Kong’s cop culture. While our purpose in this paper has been to analyze the achievements (or lack of them) and prospects of FSQS as a whole, instead of focusing on Hong Kong’s cop culture as such, it will be useful to situate our analysis within the existing police culture literature. In this literature, one of the most well-known and recent studies is Chan’s (1996, 1997) study of the failure of New South Wales’ reform. Adopting the conceptual apparatus of Pierre Bourdieu, Chan sees police practices as being generated by the interaction between police habitus and the ‘field’ or ‘structural conditions’ of policing. Though Chan argues that changing police culture requires changing both police habitus and the ‘field’ of policing, her emphasis is on changing the latter.4 There are both similarities and differences between Chan’s analysis and ours. We argue that unless extra-institutional impetus for change is strong and sustained enough to overcome institutionalized obstacles to change, fundamental organization change will not occur. To a certain extent, this is similar to Chan’s emphasis on the need to change the ‘field’ of policing, since five of the six elements that comprise Chan’s ‘field’ of policing are external to the police (see Chan, 1997). However, Chan’s emphasis also signals our differences with her, since her emphasis on extra4
As evidenced, to cite just one instance, in the section heading ‘How to Make Change Sustainable: Structural Changes’ (1997, p. 235).
ARTICLE IN PRESS 14
R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
institutional factors contrasts with our emphasis on endogenously generated obstacles to change. This difference in emphasis leads on to another difference: Chan does consider endogenous factors, namely, police habitus, which she renders as police cultural knowledge, due to which officers resist change. In contrast to Chan’s onedimensional (focusing on cultural knowledge alone) analysis of endogenous resistance to change, our analysis of how endogenously generated obstacles to change are institutionalized at different levels (premises and so on) is multidimensional. Moreover, Chan’s one-dimensional focus with regard to endogenous factors is subjectivist in nature (officers’ resistance), whereas our multi-dimensional analysis of obstacles (instead of merely resistance) to change is both subjectivist (e.g. attitudes) and objectivist (e.g. structures and processes) in nature. Lastly, Chan takes police habitus as a given existing variable, whereas we emphasize that obstacles to change are created in the process of institutionalization. To point out these differences between Chan’s analysis and ours is not to imply that ours is superior to Chan’s. Quite the contrary, it is precisely because of these differences that we think our analysis complements Chan’s, thereby enabling a more all-round understanding of the issue. Finally, it is hoped that the present study not only contributes to sociological theory but also provides valuable reference to law enforcement practitioners for a theoretically informed understanding of organizational reform.
References Anderson, D.M., Killingray, D., 1992. Policing and Decolonization: Politics, Nationalism and the Police 1917–1965. Manchester University Press, Manchester. Andrade, J., 1985. World Police and Paramilitary Forces. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Chan, J., 1996. Changing police culture. British Journal of Criminology 36 (1), 109–134. Chan, J., 1997. Changing Police Culture: Policing in a Multicultural Society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Crisswell, C., Watson, M., 1982. The Royal Hong Kong Police (1841–1945). Macmillan, Hong Kong. Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, 2002. Press Release of 17 Feb 02 on Surveys on the Public’s Opinion on the HKP and other Disciplined Forces Carried out in 2000 and 2001. Gaylord, M., Traver, H., 1995. Colonial policing and the demise of British rule in Hong Kong. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 23, 23–43. Grant, I., 1992. 1997: The implications for community policing in Hong Kong. MA dissertation, Exeter University, unpublished. Hong Kong Police, 1990. Commissioner’s Annual Report. Hong Kong Police, 1996. Force vision and statement of common purpose and values. Hong Kong Police, 1998. Review and redesign of RPC syllabus. Hong Kong Police, 1999. Report on the review, redesign and implementation of RPC syllabus. Hong Kong Police, 2000. PPRB press release of 23 February 00 on public opinion survey carried out in 1999. Hong Kong Police, 2001a. PPRB press release of 21 February 01 on customer satisfaction survey carried out in 2000. Hong Kong Police, 2001b. Key findings 2001 public opinion survey (internal management information materials). Hong Kong Police, 2002. Training Development Bureau’s summary of planned amendments to basic courses for recruit police constable and probationary inspector.
ARTICLE IN PRESS R.W.K. Lau / International Journal of the Sociology of Law 32 (2004) 1–15
15
Hui, K-O., 2001. Management reforms in the police force. In: Leung, A.B.L., Lee, J.C.Y. (Eds.), Public Sector Reform in Hong Kong: Into the 21st Century. Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 167–199. Ip, M.C.M., 1990.Transformation of The Royal Hong Kong Police Force from a para-military into a civilian force (1967–1989). B. Soc. Sc. dissertation, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, unpublished. Jeffries, C., 1952. The Colonial Police. Max Parrish, London. Jiao, A., 2002. Organizational behaviors and political sensitivities: policing Hong Kong after 1997. Public Administration and Policy 11 (1), 41–60. Lo, T.Wing., 1993. Corruption and Politics in Hong Kong and China. Open University Press, Buckingham. March, J., Olsen, J., 1984. The new institutionalism: organizational factors in political life. The American Political Science Review 78, 734–749. March, J., Olsen, J., 1996. Institutional perspectives on political institutions. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 9 (3), 247–264. Miners, N., 1995. The Government and Politics of Hong Kong 5th Edition. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Ng, M., 1995. Are rights culture-bound? In: Davis, M.C. (Ed.), Human Rights and Chinese Values: Legal, Philosophical and Political Perspectives. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 59–71. Powell, W.W., DiMaggio, P.J., 1991. Introduction. In: Idem, (Ed.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 1–38. Schloss, G., 2001. Return of big brother? South China Morning Post 8 March 01. Scott, I., 1989. Political Change and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Selznick, P., 1949. TVA and the Grass Roots. University of California Press, Berkeley. Selznick, P., 1957. Leadership in Administration. Row, Peterson, Evanston. Sinclair, K., 1983. Asia’s Finest: An Illustrated Account of the Royal Hong Kong Police. Unicorn, Hong Kong. So, B.K.T., 1999. The Hong Kong Police as a new paradigm of policing in a post colonial city: an analysis of reform achievement. Master of Public Administration dissertation, University of Hong Kong. Traver, H., 1991. Crime trends. In: Traver, H., Vagg, J. (Eds.), Crime and justice in Hong Kong. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 10–24.