Is the Hong Kong Police Forces Communication Strategies Effective in Dealing with Political Challenges

This system incorporates both human and technological intelligences to provide a hybrid system of policing, both defensive and offensive. The force originally provided a wide range of services from immigrations, prisons management and firefighting services but has since evolved into a traditional police service. The Force has grown from a staff of less than fifty officers in 1844 to a record of over thirty thousand with sixteen percent being women. The force is backed up by an Auxiliary Police Force of over three thousand trained volunteers deployed on a need basis, during natural disasters and civil emergencies, as determined by the Commissioner of Police (Vagg, 1991). Despite being one of the best in the world, arguably Asia’s Finest, the force has been subject to a lot of criticism and challenges both in the professional policing and political arena.

A male officer, with over 6 years of service in the force, allegedly molested a female officer at the Police Headquarters’ wash rooms (Vagg, 1991). A civilian woman was raped in the Mong Kok police station in 2008, by a police officer. A high ranking police superintendent, Franklin Chu King-wai, was caught on camera hitting civilians with a police baton coming from a protest in Mong Kok when civilian officers were directing the protesters to move along on 26 November 2014. The Hong Kong Police Force has also come under scrutiny offer allegations of false testimonies by officers and manufacturing of evidence to frame innocent suspects (Mawby, 2013). Constable Lau Kam-wing accused a student of attacking him by approaching and hitting him on the mouth from the front while he was clearing the Mong Kok on 28th November 2014.

The autistic man was however cleared by a nursing home which offered an alibi and video evidence that corroborated the alibi evidence proving that the man could not possibly have been at the scene of the crime as told by the police. The police came under further outrage for concocting a false confession (Skidmore, 1996). Revisionism has also posed a huge political challenge in the policing Police Force. In September 2015, the police unit reported deletion of material information from the force’s website on the history of the police and groups that orchestrated the 1967 riots. Communists and Maoists that had been in the website were removed giving rise to criticisms that the police force was trying to sanitize the leftists group, who were responsible for the indiscriminate planting of bombs on the streets, and blaming it on the British colonial government (Mawby, 2013).

This was however according to the law an illegal gathering since the organizers of the event failed to submit a formal notice to hold the gathering as required by the Hong Kong Public Order Ordinance. The general public saw this as a gathering with an unethical purpose since it implied the endorsement of using excess force on arrested individuals and accorded support to the seven officers that were convicted on assault charges. Despite the fact that challenges are inevitable in all public service fields including private companies, there are measures that can be taken by the affected parties to resolve the crisis (Skidmore, 1996). In the modern day era, companies employ the use of Communication and Public Relations strategists for effective dealing with these challenges.