[JonnyC]

The person who said that the crimes are not reported a lot in certain asian countries is talking sense. I haven't spent long enough in HK yet to comment, but certainly in Japan they have now had to resort to having a women-only carriage on the subway trains because of the ridiculous amount of groping that went on there. A lot of this stuff never gets reported as crimes but it's a very real problem that they've had to address. This doesn't happen in the UK. I guess it depends on what you see as a worse crime, groping a defenceless woman or getting in a drunken fight, I think both are reprehensible.
You can pick out examples all the time, and yes I agree that the UK is more violent than most Asian countries. But keep it in perspective, the chance of being a victim of crime there is still very low, I have numerous friends in London both make and female and none have ever had a problem, street smarts go a long way

[pdx]

KIA, I was kidding about the insurance thing. This guy probably trolls for a living.

It's funny to see people get all offended and argue the crime stats, though. This has become one of the more entertaining threads on the forum.

I've lived in HK and many major cities in the U.S. and have repeatedly visited London and other foreign cities without freaking out about crime. If you're reasonably smart about where and when you go about your business and know how to carry yourself, you'll be fine. Anyway, most violence is committed by people you know, not strangers.

As for stranger-on-stranger crimes: Some people look like victims, no matter where they live or visit. I know a guy who managed to get mugged in Washington, D.C., on the one day he was passing through. I lived in D.C. for years without hassle, and I'm a petite Asian woman and always took the subway.

[Baron]

I heard that if you walk through bushland out in Africa, lions will eat you...but im not being a lionist i swear! Its fact, i saw it on BBC once.

[KnowItAll]

Do Asian countries have what we know as a "yob culture"? I bet they don't.

Don't under estimate MTV's influence ...

[londonstudent]

Iv lived in Britain for 15 years and Iv never witnessed any stabbings...

[essexed]

Don't under estimate MTV's influence ...

I heard that if you walk through bushland out in Africa, lions will eat you...but im not being a lionist i swear! Its fact, i saw it on BBC once.

haha.. jokers!

[kombuchakid]

LONDON
Blade runners

TIM BRYAN


He looks more than a little shifty. Unshaven, he is wearing a red hooded top, with the hood pulled over his head despite the heatwave outside, dirty faded jeans and gleaming white trainers. He is also glancing about suspiciously, reeks of alcohol and is clearly having trouble standing up.

As always, those desperate to blend in stand out a mile, even in the packed ticket hall of Old Street Tube station.

He walks on, but just as he prepares to enter the Underground he stops dead in his tracks and tries to return the way he came. He has spotted one of the new, highly publicised mobile metal detectors employed at Tube stations - not to counter terrorism but to address the surge in knife crime that is sweeping the capital.

Recent reports suggest that knives are becoming almost a fashion accessory among young men. Even schoolboys are carrying them as a matter of routine, albeit ostensibly for protection in the playground. One 15-year-old, a football prodigy with Queen's Park Rangers club in west London, was stabbed to death in a school fight recently.

At Old Street, our suspect, aged about 25, is stopped as he backtracks through the ticket hallway, accosted by three British Transport Police officers, and manhandled to the side of the hall. A plain-clothes officer, dressed in the requisite "undercover" baseball cap and tan leather jacket, motions for the man to empty his pockets.

He turns out what looks like keys, coins, notes and cigarettes. His back pockets reveal something more sinister - a 15cm-long metal object which doubles in size when the policeman flicks a switch on its side. Caught red-handed with a flick knife, the man is arrested, handcuffed and led away to British Transport Police holding cells.

Our suspect is but one of scores of nefarious characters caught out by the new scanners. In the first month of Operation Shield alone, 10,000 travellers were scanned at stations where knife crime has become a serious problem, with 100 arrested. Sixty-eight of those arrests were for carrying knives, the rest for carrying stolen goods or for drug offences.

While the scanners cannot detect drugs, they act as effective deterrents, prompting suspicious characters to stop and shy away. That alerts plain-clothes "spotters" and police watching on CCTV, who then tip off uniformed officers.

The scanners, which can be moved with ease to different robbery hotspots, have been so successful at lowering knife crime and robberies on the Tube that they will soon be employed at other major stations around the country, including Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow and Cardiff.

from a local rag

[CandiceMarie]

What a ridiculous and almost racist thread.

Yeah, Hong Kong is safe. *cough Triads cough*

Why is it that you isolate the British as those who should be grateful? Let's say for a moment that Hong Kong is safe. Shouldn't everyone else be grateful? Should the Chinese be grateful? Should the Americans be grateful? Should the Filipinos be grateful? Should't the Indians be grateful? Shouldn't every single race/nationality in Hong Kong be grateful that it is safe?

It's wrong to say who should be grateful. Stabbings, shootings and murders happen everywhere, Reporter, and yes, even in safe Hong Kong. Don't generalise. It's not cool, and it makes you look close-minded.

I've been to England. I've met nice, friendly people, mostly. And guess what? Wasn't stabbed

[Mat]

Actually you have more chances being spit at by a drunken British guy,,and for that we should hope the World Cup ends fast for them...

Damn got spat on so many times over the last few days by drunken dudes talking so close to you (and with that spark of intelligence in the eyes that you have after a dozen of Heineken) that I wish the soccer fiesta ends fast !!!!!

[Skyhook]

Hmm this is a funny thread.

Shouldnt we be thanking the British for installing their justice system, their legal constitution and their Police Training guidelines ?

HK Police are what they are because of the British. There are still a number of British employed in the HKSAR Police force, all in the top level senior jobs. Do we honestly think that policing and crime would be at their current levels if it were not for the British systems they adopted ?

Grow up, is all I can say to the original poster... Some smug local kid having a laugh, if I am not mistaken.

HK was Britains most successfully administrated teritory/colony, a great example of what can be achieved socially, most cities out there can learn by its example. And just for a little trivia, it costs the HKSAR govt 60% of its yearly budget to fund the Police force, its highest departmental cost.