Creating ‘good citizens’ through community policing: A study of youth police club in the colonial Hong Kong

Abstract

This study examined the implementation of community policing in Hong Kong with reference from the evolution of the police youth club: Junior Police Call (JPC) programme which targetted the student population. The JPC was established in the 1970s and widely regarded as a very successful community policing initiative of the Royal Hong Kong Police (RHKP) to re-legitimise itself after the territory-wide social confrontation in 1966 and 1967. We analysed the reflection from JPC administrators and participants in a police district with a large school children population, to explore the strategy adopted by the police authorities to practice this community policing programme uncommon in colonial policing. Our study found the police strategically resocialized the youth with the collaboration with schoolteachers and local elites. However, the successful creation of ‘good citizens’ was still overshadowed by her concern for the emergence of social consciousness that might delegitimize the colonial governance.