A research note on community policing: The missing (democratic) link in local governance in Hong Kong

This study investigates how community policing takes on its actual meanings in the specific circumstances of contemporary Hong Kong. Hong Kong people place tremendous stake on the rule of law, which has always become one of the acclaimed 'core values' distinguishing the post-handover Hong Kong from the rest of China. Against this social background, this paper argues that largely due to the non-democratic structuring of local governance, law is inadequate to maintain a locally given order, and then community policing vested with the necessary police discretion is very often adopted to accommodate the real needs in the local community. This argument is based on the inductive analysis by using a case study of the policing of a marketplace in Hong Kong. It has been found that the local governmental institution consistently calls for the police's strict enforcement of law in order to resolve the community problems generated by the routine operation of the marketplace. On the other hand, the police are actually working against such a call by discretionarily handling the extra-legal arrangements in the marketplace. Taken together, the current study reveals that one of the actual meanings of Hong Kong's community policing is defined by the contradictory juxtaposition situated between the official ideal and local reality.