Unit 3 Assignment 3

BTEC Public Services

Nicola Avitabile

Diversity in The HK Police & Equality of Service

In the HK police the department should ensure that there is diversity within the team. This
is to make sure that this public service is dealing with every vase in a just and non bias
way. Police divisions around the world, for example in England, would have a variety of
ethnicities. This is to ensure understanding between the victim/culporate and the officer.
For example if there is a suspect who is a Sikh, a Sikh police officer would better approach
the suspect and understand his/her beliefs and respect religious beliefs such as not
touching his/her hair.
-Hong Kong Demographics and Police DiversityIn Hong Kong the non Chinese community is only a small 6%. The majority of this 6% are
Indonesians, Filipinos and the White. However the problem the HK police has is that there
is very little ethnic diversity to represent these different nationalities. As you can tell from
the marketing the HK police produce they are not very convincing in being diverse. In fact
most of their ads have local police officers posing in their uniforms. This really goes to
show almost how the HK police do not really prioritise cultural diversity within their work
force. Another factor which could limit cultural diversity are the requirements for example
the fact that you need to be a permanent resident, so have lived here for at least 7 years.
So to be more diverse in the HK police 6% should be of ethnic minorities to match the HK
demographics.
The only advantage I can see in this is that the police are providing locals who have been
brought up here a job and therefore brining down the unemployment rate and also giving
HK residents more job opportunities. However there are more disadvantages which
outweigh the advantages. Hong Kong has seen many cases where the police did not
handle the situation correctly based to do with a ethnic minority victim, which is analysed
further in this assignment. This means that the ethnic minorities feel less safe and feel like
they are being targeted which could be seen as racist. Also HK have very strict working
laws ad the ability to get a working visa for ethnic minorities in this country is extremely
difficult. So a recommendation would be for the HK department to allow people in Hong
Kong working as domestic helpers or seeking for a job to be able to apply as a police
officer and receive a working visa if working for the police force.
-Hong Kong Racial AcceptanceIn 2009, the Census and Statistics Department published a Thematic Household
Survey on racial acceptance (Report No. 39). The survey sampled some 10,000
households to analyse the degree of acceptance of Chinese towards various ethnic
groups. The survey revealed a disconcertingly low level of acceptance towards South
Asians, South East Asians, Africans and Arabians. The survey was not widely publicised
and the raised little awareness in the public on the prejudices faced by certain ethnic
groups in Hong Kong. According to the 2011 Census, 6.38% of the Hong Kong population
is of non Chinese minority ethnicities. Among them, the most represented minority
ethnicities are Indonesian (133,377), Filipino (133,018), White (55,236), Indian (28,616)
and Pakistani (18,042). Hong Kong Unison started to work with ethnic minorities in Hong

Kong in 2001, and throughout the years, many have come to Hong Kong Unison with
complaints of racial discrimination in various aspects of their lives.
The survey was conducted with the police recruits in 2012. The vast majority of the
respondents, 99.3%, were Chinese. The mean age group was 24. However to be a
cultural diverse service the percentage of Chinese respondents would have to be around
94% to match the 6% of Hong Kong which is not Chinese. The first part of the survey was
about the acceptance of living with ethnic minorities in their neighbourhood. Only 62%
accepted living with Pakistanis. This means a whopping 38% do not want to live with
Pakistanis. This is a very worrying statistic for upcoming police officers who will one day be
up in the ranks. The shock continues with police officers showing preference in living with
American, Japanese and the whites more than living with their own race, the Chinese. The
survey continues to look into the acceptance of different races in the work place and again
a very low acceptance for ethnic minorities and high acceptance for Americans, Europeans
and the Chinese. The officers were then asked what makes a Hong Konger and the most
favoured answer was that they are born in Hong Kong. However this contradicts they
previous answers. The recruits showed they favour Europeans and Americans and
Japanese. These races
tend to not be born in
Hong Kong. After this
survey the police
analysed that they
have to strengthen the
cultural acceptance at
the frontline and the
way police handle with
victims from different
races and ethnicities
Currently, there are
no
avenues for victims of
racial discrimination to
make complaints
against the police
force. There are no
guidelines in the
Police General Orders
on racial
discrimination.
Police officers need to be able to accept living with someone for an ethnic minority or this
will most likely affect their performance in the field. For someone from an ethnic minority
this could also be worrying if they happen to become a victim for any given situation, as
they risk not being treated fairly. My suggestion would be first of all for the HK police to set
up a online survey section for people from ethnic minorities to make any report on unjust
treatment. Also the HK police does pricing housing for some officers and they should be
placed in an area dense of ethnic minorities to learn to live with these cultures and realise
that its not what they may have thought.
In the diagram below you can see that racial acceptance in the workplace is also very
worrying. One fourth of all police in training who took this survey mentioned that they

would not be willing to accept other ethnic minorities, including nepalese, indian, african,
filipino and Pakistani to work with them. It is an obvious issue that they young trainees are
not willing to work with these cultures as it could be worrying for how they behave on duty
when confronted with situations involving people from these nationalities. If this negative
image of the HK police is to continue recruitment for the police force in Hong Kong is likely
to decrease from the ethnic minorities. In the long run this could cause a non diverse work
force resulting to more racial discrimination and other issues involving racism and unjust
treatment. On the other hand 3/4 of the police cadets are alright with working with the
ethnic minorities and this shows that there is a chance of fair treatment with ethnic
minorities in the work force.
My suggestion is for all ethnic minority police officers to be partnered up with Chinese
police officers when on duty and during the training, to decrease the level of cultural
discrimination. By working together they would learn more about each others culture and
would be able to form a bond and understanding for one another. They would see a
different perspective to how to approach things and together progress to be better police
officers with a more open mindset. This would increase the acceptance rate and boost
efficiency in the work environment.
-Positive DiscrimintaitonIn the UK 55% of Londoners are 55% are ethnic minorities only 10% metropolitan police
are ethnic minorities. However UK are more diverse with police and showcase in
marketing with a variety or races clearly being showcased to promote the variety they want
on the team. Positive discrimination is used from police departments around the world,

expecially in the UK. This is when the human resources team realise that there is a clear
lack of a particular ethnicity in an area which may require it. For example if an area in north
London which has a large community of Indians, however only 6% of that police
department is Indian they would use positive discrimination. This means that the UK police
would put advertisements in that geographical locations advertising to hire Indian police
officers, this is positive discrimination. In Hong Kong there is no positive discrimination.

Areas such as Tsim Tsa Tsui would benefit from such largely with areas like such having
large amount of ethnic minorities.
The advantages of this are that it provides a way to make sure that a good number of
ethnic minorities are given jobs within the work force. This means that in the event where a
crime is committed by an ethnic minority a police officer will know how to better handle the
situation and will be able to respect any religious beliefs. But the disadvantages are that
some ethnic minorities may just be hired because of where they are from rather than what
skills they are actually binging to the team, decreasing the quality of service. If a human
resource team is just basing their hiring on the beliefs and nationality of someone the
quality of the service will go down defeating the purpose of increasing service to everyone
from all ethnicities. My suggestion would be to aim to appeal to more ethnic minorities to
provide a larger selection of ethnic minorities who not only fit the cultural selection process
but also have the skill set required
-Police Recruitment TacticsThe HK police force use different types of tactics to recruit different police officers for the
force. Here are some example of their tactics.
1. Project Gemstone
This is a special programme that delivers a method of entering the police force for ethnic
minorities. It gives different chances and classes to provide skills, knowledge and the
language to become a police officer in HK. The programme is beneficial because it allows
other ethnic communities to be able to have a job within the police force. It also means that
other ethnic groups who do not necessarily have all the qualities to enter the police force
directly can be provided with an opportunity to learn and develop in order to become
qualified. However there are also some problems with this program. The biggest issue is
that these ethnic groups have to go through months of training in order to become qualified
before receiving police cadet training (which is where ethnic Chinese officers have direct
entry to) meaning that these people have to spend months of no pay in order to become
police officers. This may raise concerns for racial discrimination as local recruits are more
likely to progress faster whilst working for the police. I would recommend that these
programmes are carried out alongside normal cadet training as often there is a lot of free
time left over. This means that these ethnic groups can progress to becoming a police
officer faster as well as progressing faster through the rankings.

2. Posters
When the HK police are hiring they develop posters which are placed in the vicinity of the
police stations as well as on busses and in public areas such as parks. This is
Both of the HK recruitment police posters shown below present police officers looking out
to you the audience. In the first poster on the left from 2011 shows only Chinese police
officers. Almost instantly this shows a sense of racial discrimination and a lack of diversity
in the HK police force. In addition this also shows that the HK police are not taking a lot of
effort to appeal to other ethnic groups. This is a clear issue for HK as they are expected to
treat all ethnic groups fairly and in order to do that they need a diverse workforce. This
poster is the complete opposite to the recruitment poster of the London police as you can
see there is a clear diversity all in one poster.

However in the 2016 poster (on the top right) an officer with a different nationality is seen
to be placed in the back on the left hand side of the poster. This shows that HK has
developed the cultural diversity and accepting them into the workforce. This becomes
more similar to the recruitment materials of the London police, however they still are not
quite at that level as only one police in that poster in of an ethnic minority.
In conclusion it can be seen that HK are improving the level of diversity for police
recruitment in regards to posters. There is still room for improvements as the level of
diversity is still no acceptable nor reflecting the 6% of ethnic minorities in HK. I would
suggest that all future poster present pictures of other ethnic groups with the aim of
recruiting a more diverse police force. This will avoid any further cases where ethnic
minorities feel as if they are being pressed of their rights to work the the HK police.

3. Website
The police in HK have a specific subpage of their website that has been created for the
purpose of recruitment. This page present useful information such as available jobs,
requirements and interview process. Below I have take a screenshot of the page. The
page is in Chinese and English, which are the requirements for the HK police force in
terms of languages therefore not necessarily a racial discrimination factor. However at first
impression again we have a group of police officers which all seem to be from the chinese
culture, defeating their aim of increasing the ethnic minority levels of police officers and
making sure they showcase this through their hiring process. This may be an issue with
recruitment as it may
make some ethnic
minorities feel
unwanted and at a
disadvantage when
applying for a job. My
suggestion would be to
have a range of
pictures showing
officers from different
cultures performing
their duty in the work
place as well as having
videos with interviews
of them talking about
the hiring process and
how it is to work in the
police force.
-Hong Kong Racial ProfilingThe united nations universal declarations of human rights as well as hk basic laws states
that all citizens should be treated equally and fairly. However there are many cases all
over the world where this is being violated. Here is an example of a violation in the HK
police force.
Apart from these exceptional cases, ethnic minority residents tend to face more frequent
ID checks than local people. A Pakistani-born man who has been a Hong Kong permanent
resident for 10 years said he was stopped for an ID check by police 10 times in one month.
On occasion, police officers even carried out body searches in public. The man felt
oppressed and affronted because the police treated him with the assumption he was a
drug dealer or an illegal immigrant. Some ethnic minorities are even beginning to view the
police with hatred and distrust.
In my opinion this is a clear breach of fair treatment and breaking the UN law of everyone
being treated equally. The police is clearly forming a stereotype and racial profile against
this Pakistani man by labelling him as suspicious, simply because of where he is from.
This shows that the HK police force is lacking some sort of professionally in dealing with
cases of ethnic minorities and should improve their training. It is important that police
officers carry out routine ID checks, but with a range of citizens in a specific area and not
just picking on people from ethnic minorities. From my personal experience I have seen
this happening plenty of times expecially on Sundays and public holidays where ethnic
minorities are present in public places and become targets for the police.

Bibliography
http://www.amnesty.org.hk/selma/racialprofilingbyhongkongpolice.html
http://www.timeout.com.hk/big-smog/features/70040/law-and-order-a-special-reporton-170-years-of-hks-police-force.html
http://www.police.gov.hk/
http://www.police.gov.hk/info/doc/pgo/en/Epgo026.pdf
http://careers.btp.police.uk/footer/contact_us.aspx