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Knives retrieved during an “Operation Sceptre” week of action by the Metropolitan Police, at an undisclosed location in London in July 2017. In 2018, the British capital recorded 131 murders, its highest in a decade, more than half of them from stabbings. In the 12 months to June 2018, there were a record 5,570 knife attacks. Photo: AFP/Metropolitan Police
OpinionLetters

Letters | Safe Hong Kong a far cry from the UK and its violent streets

  • Law and order prevails in Hong Kong and citizens are safe to walk the streets. In the UK, gun crime, stabbings and robbery are a fact of life
Crime
Letters
Letters
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I was reminded by constant dispiriting news from the UK, over out-of-control crime, how, in 1974, the Independent Commission Against Corruption was formed in Hong Kong to tackle a police force unable or unwilling to get to grips with rampant corruption within its ranks and in the wider community.

Governor Murray MacLehose negotiated with the British government for police officers from the UK to form the backbone of the new commission, as UK officers were rightly held in high regard throughout the world.

Fast forward some 45 years, and the Hong Kong Police Force is highly regarded throughout the world, law and order prevails in Hong Kong and citizens are safe to walk the streets.

How the ICAC cleaned up corruption in Hong Kong
In the UK, the situation is reversed. Murder, gun crime, stabbings and robbery are a daily occurrence, a fact of life. Burglary is widespread. The police are viewed with disdain by criminals and the law-abiding public alike.
‘Violent scourge’ in London as murder figures overtake New York

The UK has a minister for justice who declares he does not want to criminalise youths carrying knives, notwithstanding the knife crime epidemic in London and elsewhere, and he now intends to install phones in every prison cell to assist prisoners, that is, including hardened criminals, in their “rehabilitation”. Unbelievable!

It makes one glad and appreciative to be living in Hong Kong. And very, very sad over the disintegration of law and order in the UK, due to a combination of liberal thinking and political correctness among politicians and senior police officers alike.

B.J. Carroll, Ap Lei Chau

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