Hong Kong Crime Rises as Police Morale Sinks : British pullout: Law and order breakdown linked to uncertainties over impending Chinese takeover in 1997.

A businessman is mugged at knife-point in one of the most exclusive hotels in Hong Kong, the densely populated British colony where not a week goes by without reports of a shoot-out between police and robbers.

In the last few years of British rule, violent crime is rising while police morale is sinking, and there are fears among some residents of a breakdown in law and order before China takes over in 1997.

The latest crime statistics, for the second quarter of 1990, show a 15% increase in violent crime over the same period last year.

Underworld gangs, which have plagued the colony since its founding in the last century, are feeding off an explosive mixture of unprecedented wealth and political uncertainty in one of Britain’s last colonial outposts.

Guns are flowing in from China, wielded by hardened criminals who sneak across the border from the Chinese mainland and shoot to kill.

As the streets become more dangerous, the Royal Hong Kong Police Force is struggling to find recruits to strike back.

Once one of the most efficient forces in Asia, it now finds itself with 2% fewer junior police officers than it needs to meet the challenge. Officers are leaving in increasing numbers and recruitment drives are failing.

The force has a complement of 26,786 officers, of which 933 are expatriates.

“In the Hong Kong context, good pay improves dignity. . . . What our junior police officers have seen are people they don’t consider as dignified as them, overtaking them on pay while the government procrastinates,” said Chief Superintendent Chris Glover.

“It is getting more dangerous, and that’s partly because guns are coming in from China,” Glover added.

“Before, only professional robbers would have a gun. Now an amateur robber might have one.”

Police say junior grade officers have been the hardest hit by pay scales they consider hopelessly low.

Recruitment for junior officers is running at roughly half last year’s figures which, in turn, represent half the numbers recruited the year before. Wastage rates are running at double the current recruitment figures.

“The police, in my view, deserve a special place in government. They are the front-line troops,” said Andrew Rennie, media consultant and former chief of the police department’s public relations bureau.

“Now 1997 is approaching, and that worries the police, but it also worries everybody else. It’s part of the general tensions affecting Hong Kong,” he said.

“And for something like 6,000 dollars a month ($770 U.S.) we expect a constable to be brave and loyal--but we don’t even pay him as much as we would pay a secretary.”

Worse than the present crisis, say police, is the prospect of the British military garrison handing over the last of its border security duties to the police in 1992.

“If there’s not sufficient staff now, we will have to face a very, very difficult situation in which we might not be able to take over, or if we do, it might be at the expense of law and order,” said Chief Inspector Li Shu-fung, chairman of the Local Inspectors Staff Assn..

Policemen, barred from taking any form of job action, hope an 18-month-old pay dispute with the government will end with them achieving the results they want.

If new recruits cannot be attracted to the force and if experienced officers cannot be persuaded to stay, police and their supporters warn that Hong Kong may lose its reputation as a model of civic order.

“I’ve lived here for nearly 18 years and I’ve always called it the safest place in the world,” Rennie said. “But now we’re getting to the point where this is no longer the case.”

Harold Traver, criminologist at the University of Hong Kong, emphasized that Hong Kong’s murder rate has remained steady over the last decade despite the recent rise in violent crime.

In the same period, the United States has seen a 200% increase in its murder rate, Traver said.

“What I’m basically saying is that I wouldn’t be too alarmed by the increase (in violent crime),” he said.

Police recorded 38 homicides in the second quarter of 1990 against 28 in the first three months. There were 85 robberies involving firearms in the second quarter compared with 59 in the same period last year.

Traver said one of the prime reasons for the rise in violent crime could be that there are increased opportunities for criminals.

“There’s never been a place like Hong Kong. This place is unique--political uncertainty combined with a high level of prosperity makes it unique,” Traver said.

With police pay negotiations now at an impasse, Glover sees a depressing future.

“Morale has been slowly declining over the past year, but the police are law-abiding people by nature and training. I think they will just leave rather than take any action.”