Hong Kong: Safest City in the Industrialized World - Research Paper

Introduction

Hong Kong is considered one of the safest cities in the industrialized world today. Since the wake of the 21st Century, Hong Kong has consistently recorded low overall crime rate per capita. This trend was first observed in the seventh Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (7th UNSCTOCJ) survey conducted by the United Nations between the year 1998 and 2000 (Broadhurst, Wa, & Yee, 2007). The 7th UNSCTOCJ study recorded overall crime rate in Hong Kong at 1185.7 per 100,000 populations (Chan, 2013). Comparatively, according to Lau (2004), the rate was lower than England & Wales (9766.7), Canada (8040.6), France (6403.8), South Korea (3262.6), Japan (1924.0), and Singapore (1202.6). However, it was higher than Thailand (931.0), Malaysia (717.5), China (288.7), and Philippines (106.0).

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Notably, according to Transparency International, countries that recorded lower crime rates than Hong Kong in the 7th UNSCTOCJ such Thailand, Malaysia, China, and Philippines had higher corruption perception index (CPI) by the year 2006. The contradicting crime rate records indicate that such countries may have under-reported their official crime rates in the UN survey. Transparency International ranked Hong Kong 15th out of 163 countries that took part in the 2006 CPI (Broadhurst, Wa, & Yee, 2007). It was thus perceived as one of the countries with the lowest corruption rates in Asia.

Furthermore, Hong Kong is said to have recorded a 37 year low crime rate in 2016 when crime rates dropped by 13.2% in the first half the year. There was significant decrease in various criminal activities including violent crimes, blackmail, deception, and other miscellaneous thefts. For example, the number of violent crimes recorded in Hong Kong declined steadily from the year 2012 to 2016. First half of the year records for violent crimes stood at 6.453 in 2012, 6,074 in 2013, 5,418 in 2014, 5,297 in 2015 and 4,945 in 2016 (Block, 2017).

However, there have also been claims that the statistics of safety are not finite numbers and they are not at all true because many crimes that happen in the countryside go unreported, and are thus never captured in the surveys or the country's national crime records. Cheng (2019) argues that crime is everywhere in China but most of it at first is invisible because people who are not in the lower caste of society have relatively lower chances of becoming a victim. Also, there is a great divide between wealthy cities that are kept spick-and-span as the showpieces of the country and the lawless countryside where literally anything can happen (Broadhurst, 2004). This situation is slowly morphing together into one massive and looming societal issue.

Research Questions

• Is the decreasing crime rate in Hong Kong as a result of inconsistent official crime reporting or better law enforcement efforts?
• Which kinds of crimes are included in the official government crime records in Hong Kong?
• What is the relationship between the crime trends and incarceration rate in Hong Kong?
• What is the relationship between the crime rates and the size of the police service and in Hong Kong?

Research Objectives

• To determine whether the decreasing crime rate in Hong Kong is as a result of inconsistent official crime reporting or better law enforcement efforts
• To determine the kind of crimes included in the official government crime records in Hong Kong
• To explore the relationship between the crime trends and incarceration rate in Hong Kong
• To establish the relationship between the crime rates and the size of the police service and in Hong Kong

Literature Review

Official Crime Trends in Hong Kong

Crime refers to an action of overt omission or commission that goes against the law and can result in punishment. Examples of common crimes in Hong Kong are deception, indecent assault, rape, arson, blackmail, drug offenses, burglary, robbery and homicides (Siegel, & Senna, 2005). Crimes are not only closely related to human life, but they also reflect the state of the society. The Global Crime Index based on a study conducted between 2015 and 2017 suggested that crime rates are highest in Asian countries that are undeveloped. The statistics ranked Hong Kong 33 among Asian countries.

The rate of crimes in Hong Kong began to decline in the mid1990s. In 1997, the country recorded a total of 67,367 cases of crime, which was the lowest in the decade. However, the downward trend was disrupted from1998 when the crime rate in Hong Kong rose significantly (Broadhurst, 2005). This disruption of the downward trend has been attributed to the handing over of Hong Kong to China in 1997. As soon as Hong Kong was included in the Chinese territory, it began to experience major changes in its social development and economic growth. The Asian financial crisis hampered the country's economic growth even further. Hong Kong's GDP growth rate took a sharp downturn, falling from 5.09 in 1997 to -5.88 in 1998 (Broadhurst, 2005). Consequently, the rate of crime grew in the same year.

According to Leung (2019), the statistics presented in the city's Legislative Council in 2019 indicate that number of crimes reported in Hong Kong in 2018 was 54,225. It means for every 100, 000 people living in Hong Kong, 728 crime cases were reported. The figure represents a drop of 3.2 percent from the 2017 statistics and the lowest crime rate since the year 1970. The overall rate of crime has been dropping steadily for the last 12 years running.

Despite the downward trend in overall crime rate in Hong Kong, the rate of social media scams keep rising. Social media scams such as deception doubled between 2017 and 2018. A total of 2,064 financial loss cases were reported in 2018 totaling to US$63.7 million (Leung, 2019). This was more than twice the total amount of money lost in fraud cases in 2017.

Under-Reporting and Victim Surveys

The Hong Kong government has been conducting regular Crime Victim Surveys to address the problem of under-reporting which occurs systematically in normal crime situations. The United Nations also conducts International Crime victim surveys for the same purposes (Block, 2017). The surveys are conducted in ranging span of years to determine the real risk of becoming a victim of a criminal activity. The last victims survey conducted by the Hong Kong government, for example, was done in 2006. It studied 17,602, interviewing about 50,000 individuals aged 12 years and above. The sample represented a population of two million households with 5,674,600 persons (Lau, 2004). The surveys were limited to crimes against individuals and households, leaving out commercial and corruption crimes. According to Shaw, Dijk, and Rhomberg, 2003), the surveys are conducted repeatedly after every few years to demonstrate the crime rate trends and the impact of anti-crime policies.

While the crime victim surveys are important for capturing unreported cases of crime, they also have their own weaknesses. Their accuracy depends on the honesty, memory and willingness of the respondent to cooperate. Using face-to-face interviews helps to improve the quality of victim surveys by eliminating inconsistent and ambiguous responses. Also, selecting large samples increases the validity of the survey outcomes because it leads to more reliable estimates (Van Kesteren, Mayhew, & Nieuwbeerta, 2000). Unfortunately, the samples for some crimes may be so small even with large survey samples.

Conceptual Variables

The current study will employ quantitative research methods to determine the relationship between the conceptual variables. The independent variables in this study are the accuracy official crime reporting in Hong Kong and law enforcement efforts aimed at controlling crime. The independent variable is the rate of crime in the city of Hong Kong. The adopted research design is descriptive because the researcher is only interested in establishing associations between variables. Being quantitative the study has an objective stance and will deal with logic and number.

Statement of Hypotheses

• The decreasing crime rate in Hong Kong is as a result of better law enforcement efforts rather than inconsistent official crime reporting
• Hong Kong's official government crime records openly include all reported cases of crime
• The crime trends are negatively correlated with incarceration rate in Hong Kong?
• Crime rates are negatively correlated with the size of the police service and in Hong Kong

Theoretical Framework

The current study is based on the efficiency model for crime reduction. The model is based on the assumption that if the state provides the police with all the resources they need to apprehend more offenders, the number of crime cases will reduce (Gardiner, 1971). Countries where the police do a good job and have low crime rates do not have any reason to misrepresent their crime statistics. On the other hand, countries where the police do not have the resources needed to apprehend most offenders would have high crime rates (Chan, Beh, & Broadhurst, 2003). Hence they would be shy to openly report their crime statistics.

Methodology

Research Design

Since the current study seeks to gain in-depth understanding of the research problem, the researcher will conduct a correlational study. Correlational research design fits the purpose of current study, which is to test the existing theories put forward by past studies to account for the decreasing crime rate in Hong Kong. One theory is that Hong Kong's declining crime rate is not real because the government has been deliberately underrepresenting the reported number of crimes in its official statistics. Secondly, the study seeks to test the theory that the decreasing crime rate in Hong Kong is an outcome of better law enforcement efforts by the police. The research design will enable the researcher to examine the relationship between the decreasing crime rate in Hong Kong and official government crime reporting methods as well as law enforcement efforts.

Methods of Data Collection

The researcher will collect unchanging and numeric data. The primary data collection method will be document review. The method will involve taking numeric data from existing public records. The sources of data will be official government records on crime, incarceration, and police recruitment trends as well as numeric records from studies conducted by independent non-governmental agencies such as Transparency International and Human Right watch. The researcher will focus on annual reports.

The openness of official government crime data will be measured by comparing the data reported by the Hong Kong government from its Crime Victims Surveys and the UN International Victims Survey for Hong Kong. The study will use the outcomes of the victims survey conducted in 1999 and 2006 to show trend. The researcher will determine the disparity between the figures reported by the government and the UN in their victims survey to represent openness in government reports. Little or negligible disparity in figures for each specific crime will indicate high openness in official government crime records and vice-versa. Law enforcement efforts will be measured in terms of the number of incarcerations and the population of police in each year. The rate of crime will be measured as the number of reported crime cases against persons and households per100,000 population. This measurement will be based on the population as at the time of the study.

Analytical Method

The data analysis will be based on convergent reasoning. The researcher will perform linear regression analysis to model the relationship between the variables under study. This identifies the strength of relations...