Kevin Wan*, in his 40s, resigned from the Hong Kong police force after a career of over two decades.
“I no longer felt proud being part of the force. They lost their sense of mission to serve the community and uphold justice,” he said. “I didn’t want to turn into someone I despise.”
The reputation of the Hong Kong police service, once called the finest in Asia, took a nosedive after its crackdown on mass anti-government protests in 2019 was widely criticised. Wan said he felt uneasy being part of an establishment that employs intensifying measures to deal with ordinary people.
This month, the police force announced the easing of recruitment criteria such as weight and height thresholds “to maintain competitiveness in the human resources market”. Candidates can wear glasses or contact lenses for eye tests, and those who failed public examinations can also take the police force’s own Chinese and English-language written tests instead.
Wan, who has moved abroad, is not surprised that the force had to ease recruitment requirements due to the dwindling number of applicants. “After the wave of protests, police have become the target of hatred in society. A lot of us have a low self image because people are ashamed to be associated with us.”
The new measures were implemented after the failure of other actions to boost flagging interest. In 2022, police dropped the requirement for applicants to have lived in Hong Kong for seven years. Other attempts to boost numbers have included raising the retirement age of police from 55 to 60, and a recruitment drive dubbed “Never Too Late” to attract recruits over 30, stressing competitive salaries, housing and generous welfare.
According to official figures, the government department with the highest number of vacancies is the police service, which has a vacancy rate at 18% as of May 2022. In a force with more than 33,000 officers, there were more than 6,300 vacancies in the first quarter of 2022 – an increase from the previous quarter when there were 5,706 vacancies.
The number of new police recruits in the past three years has continued to fall well short of targets. The number of new constables fell from 43.5% of the target in 2019-2020, to 36% in 2021-2022.
Police have said a drop in the 15-29 age group of the working population and the post-pandemic business recovery have led to recruitment challenges.
But observers say the lack of enthusiasm to join the police demonstrates that Hong Kong society has not recovered from the trauma of the 2019 protests. The mass imprisonment of activists and pro-democracy figures since the national security law was imposed by the Chinese mainland government three years ago further contributes towards resentment of the police force, which now has a national security unit to deal with political offences.
According to the US-based Hong Kong Democracy Council’s report on political prisoners, there have been 10,615 political arrests in Hong Kong since the start of the mass anti-government protests in June 2019. There are at least 1,457 political prisoners in the city – close to a 50% increase since May last year.
“Police have a very bad image in society so it has lost its appeal among young people. Who would want to be a policeman when the whole society despises the profession?” said Prof Chung Kim Wah, a social scientist formerly with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
After the violent confrontations between police and ordinary people in the 2019 protests relations remain cool and the sense of resentment remains deep, analysts say.
“During the protests, the police were so inhumane,” said Daniel Kwok, a former district councillor. “Even though it offers a high salary, people’s perception of the police is so bad that people would think twice before joining – no one wants to be ostracised by their friends and families.
“Like that division between the army and people after the Tiananmen crackdown, there will still be a wound after decades.”
Chang Ping, an exiled Chinese writer, said he believed people’s reluctance to join the police force indicated that Hongkongers remained committed to values such as justice and fairness, and were unwilling to be associated with the establishment they saw as having failed them.
Wan says he is just glad he is no longer part of the regime.
“Although I’ve given up my job and the good salary, I’ve been set free.”
* name changed to protect identity
