The Hong Kong Police Force is the primary law enforcement, investigation agency, and largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. It was established by the British Hong Kong government on 1 May 1844. The 'Royal' title was bestowed upon the HKPF for their efforts in quelling communist riots in 1967. The Royal Hong Kong Police Force (RHKP) reverted to its former name after the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to People's Republic of China.
Pursuant to the one country, two systems principle, HKPF is officially independent of the jurisdiction of the of Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, which may not interfere with Hong Kong's local law enforcement affairs. All HKPF officers are employed as civil servants and hence required to uphold their political neutrality.
The HKPF consists of some 34,000 officers, including the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force, civil servants, and its Marine Region (3,000 officers and 143 vessels as of 2009); this represents the second-highest police officer-citizen ratio in the world.
A police force has been serving Hong Kong since shortly after the island was established as a colony in 1841. On 30 April 1841, 12 weeks after the British landed in Hong Kong, Captain Charles Elliot established a policing authority in the new colony, empowering Captain William Caine to enforce Qing law in respect of local inhabitants and "British Police Law" for "non-natives". By October 1842, an organised police force (still under the direction of Caine who was also Chief Magistrate) was routinely bringing criminals before the courts for trial. Caine's role as head of the police force ended when its first Superintendent was appointed on 22 February 1844, Captain Haly of the 41st Madras Native Infantry. The formal establishment of the force was gazetted on 1 May 1844.
During World War II, the Kempeitai recruited former Chinese and Indian officers in the Japanese military police unit from 1942 to 1945.
The 1950s saw the commencement of Hong Kong's 40-year rise to global prominence, during which time the Hong Kong Police tackled many issues that have challenged Hong Kong's stability. Between 1949 and 1989, Hong Kong experienced several huge waves of immigration from mainland China, most notably 1958–62. In the 1970s and 1980s, large numbers of Vietnamese boat people arrived in Hong Kong, posing challenges first for marine police, secondly for officers who manned the dozens of camps in the territory and lastly for those who had to repatriate them. The force was granted the use of the title ‘royal’ in 1969 for its handling of the Hong Kong 1967 riots—renaming it the Royal Hong Kong Police Force
In 1974, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was created to give government wide-ranging powers to investigate corruption. At the turn of the 1980s, the Hong Kong Police Force began marketing itself as "Asia's Finest".
The recruitment of Europeans to the force ceased in 1994, and in 1995 the Royal Hong Kong Police took responsibility for patrolling the boundary with China. Prior to 1995, the British Army had operated the border patrol. The force played a prominent role in the process of the handover of sovereignty in 1997 and continues to perform ceremonial flag-raising on each anniversary.[citation needed] With the handover of sovereignty, the police force dropped the prefix "Royal" from its name.
In the 2010s, the police force played a prominent role in relation to the 2014 Hong Kong protests and 2019 Hong Kong protests. Following Chris Tang's appointment as the Commissioner of Police in November 2019, the police force changed its motto from "We serve with pride and care", which had been used for more than 20 years, to "Serving Hong Kong with honour, duty and loyalty." The Economist suggested that this change would curry favour with the central government of China.
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