| There was another negative top story about Hong Kong Police last week – the patrolling couple in Tai Po Division. After the rape case in MK police station and the seafood tour group in Po Toi Island, HKP keeps on letting the world down by different types of disciplinary misconducts. My friends often ask me why, and I do not know how to answer. As a probationary police officer and psychology student, all I can say to explain to them and make it up for our organization is “policemen are all human beings”. 
Sigmund Freud suggested that an internal drive force known as libido is an energy source for mental and physical dynamic. According to him, there are three ‘controllers’ in our minds, namely the id, ego and superego. Id is the pleasure principle; it is primitive, instinctive, impulsive and devilish. Ego is pretty neutral, it represents the innocent bit within us, and nevertheless it is the overt part of our minds. Superego represents our moral standard, ethic, values, intelligence and judgment. It is superior, like an angel. It tells you what is wrong and what is right. Therefore, Id is in opposition of Superego, and Ego is stuck in the middle and act according to the winning side. Freud also said that human minds are like iceberg. Our overt side, known as consciousness, is the visible bit of an iceberg, which is also our Ego. Whereas the other 90% of the iceberg which is buried under miles-deep ocean is where the sub-consciousness and unconsciousness lay, as known as the battle ground for Id and Superego. Human world is interesting, because we are such a unique organism. We are intelligence; therefore we have language, culture and a set of moral values and numerous ordinances, laws and regulation to control our behaviors. Nonetheless we are still primitive mammals that eat, walk, sleep and excrete. The world is all about interactions between individuals. We often have to repress our REAL DESIRE due to the social norm and expectation from others. For example, let’s go back to the news headline about the patrolling young PCs. After having seen the picture I personally, and I strongly believe that they are in love. However, police work is busy and stressful and takes up more time from a person than average. The poor couples, freshly graduated from the police college are still too green to understand the meaning of our uniform. Civilians have expectations on us so that they are super critical on police actions. When we are in uniform, we are no longer ourselves. We represent the department and the government. In the psychology sense, the Superego would override our Id, and Ego has to act professionally. But sometimes, things get out of control. Young couples on patrol have overgrown Id because they are still young; the Superego is not strong enough. Their Id, in this case represents the pleasure principle which would be the passion, lust and primitive desires to seek happiness inside them; is too strong to get hold of. They think they are acting sensibly. If we were able to interview them there and then, they would probably tell you “Hey, we aren’t holding hands so I do not see any problems, everybody takes picture!” The purpose of disciplinary training from Police College is to implant a set of enforcement values for our Superegos so that our Id in the unconsciousness is in good control. The pleasure principle for young people is often ‘bigger’; this is why the term ‘immature’ is coined on them. Immaturity and age is not the only factor, stress can also aggravate our lust and weaken our superego. Policing is extremely stressful. We work long hours, we work shift, we deal with criminals, we get complained from the public, and from our bosses; we always have to act professionally and in order to do so, we have to be emotionally detached. So what about our real emotions? What about the true side of our minds? What do we really want to do and say? Most of the time, we have to repress these impulses and bury them miles deep down the ocean. Freud somehow said “The capacity of our unconsciousness is limited, like a balloon, it would explode if you let too much in.” To me, this theory suits to explain the different police disciplinary misconducts recently, especially the rape case in MK police station. A professor had taught me that rape cases are often ‘hate crime’, which means rapists rape not because of their uncontrollable sexual urge, but their hatred towards women or something else which is transformed into sexual impulse and, the rape action. Police officers are often frustrated by their work. In a disciplined organization individualism is not emphasized. Lack of recognition is the major reason for drop in performance. Without recognition, they no longer see the need of repressing their Id and meet the expectation from the public. This is a vicious cycle. More negative news will pop up, police will receive more negative comments and the public would become more cynical to our actions. There are more and more restraints to police officers, the stress would only intensify. Better counseling is needed for police officers, especially for officers at the frontline. I believe that when needs are met, people would obey in exchange. This is human nature. |
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