KC DIST disseminates anti-crime messages on Internet
Kowloon City District (KC DIST) Police Community Relations Office is disseminating anti-crime messages on the Internet with the assistance of the Baptist University.
KC DIST's initiative serves as another example of the application of IT for police work.
Since early January, KC DIST's "Kowloon City Anti-crime On-line Learning Programme" has been hammering home crime prevention messages in Baptist University's on-line classroom known as "Virtual Integrated Teaching and Learning Environment" (VITLE) platform (http://www.iLearn.com.hk).
Shortly after classes in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, as well as universities were suspended during the SARS crisis last summer, the university launched the on-line classroom to enable teachers to interact with their students and conduct lessons through the Web. All classes have resumed now but the VITLE support to schools and the wider community is continuing.
The VITLE platform has struck Kowloon City District Police Community Relations Officer, Chief Inspector Alex Leung Sheung-kui, as an ideal medium to reach more students, parents and teachers for crime prevention messages. "My School Liaison Officers have been conducting crime prevention talks in schools. The university's on-line classroom is a good supplement to the school talks and will enable us to reach more students and parents, as well as other sectors of the community!" he noted.
Soon Mr Leung approached Dr Yung Man-sing of Baptist University's Education Studies Department, and managed to get the "Kowloon City Anti-crime On-line Learning Programme" off the ground early in January. Since then it has been disseminating messages of different topics through recorded interviews.
In order to attract more young students, the university has arranged for TVB children programme presenter Ms Vicky Tong to conduct the interviews. The interviews, each lasting about seven minutes, are conducted in the university's studio, and uploaded on the "Anti-crime On-line Learning Programme" after being edited by university staff and students.
For the launching interview, Mr Leung spoke on the various aspects of theft, including the law, the penalties and the serious consequences of committing theft offences. In the second interview released in February, he highlighted the seriousness of bullying. The third episode in March will cover abuse of psychotropic substances by youngsters. As more people have abused the use of the 999 service, wasting a lot of police resource, the next topic will be "How to properly use the 999 service".
"Each interview will feature a different topic. The topics that we're considering for upcoming interviews are prevention of triad infiltration into schools, computer crime, scam, violence in families and traps for summer job seekers. We'll arrange different subject officers to give the interviews," Mr Leung said.
If resources were available, Mr Leung plans to improve his on-line project so as to reach a wider cross-section of the community. "My objective is to make it more attractive to students by improving the presentation format and by bringing in outdoor location shooting. My ultimate objective is to reach other sectors of the community!" he noted.
For the short term, Mr Leung plans to seek Junior Police Call members' views and comments as "users", and their participation in the production work. He will also issue questionnaires to school principals and teachers, parents and members of teacher-parent bodies in Kowloon City to canvass their views and suggestions on his project.
Mr Leung's next plans are to seek the support of the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and District Fight Crime Committee in Kowloon City, and to link up his project with the websites of relevant government departments or bureaux and youth organisations, such as the Federation of Youth Groups, etc. "All these will depend on how much support I can get from the parties concerned," he noted.
"I would like to take the opportunity to thank Dr Yung Man-sing and his staff and students for all their help and support, especially assistance for the studio and production work. Improvements to the project will certainly require more financial resources, and I hope they would be forthcoming," Mr Leung concluded.
CIP Alex Leung hopes to further improve his on-line project