UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN HONG KONG
http://www.hku.hk/sociodep/crime_punish/
CRIMINAL JUSTICE PORTFOLIO
Assignment 8: Triads, Drugs, and Organized Crime1
At various times organized crime has been characterized as “the enemy within”, “the
second government”, the “crime confederation” or the “fifth-estate” which illegally wrings
exorbitant profits out of a country’s economy while flaunting authority and corrupting
legitimate institutions. The business of organized crime is quite literally business. It is
sustained by the sale of illegal goods and services. The types of business typically connected
with organized crime include such things a gambling, prostitution and drugs. One of the
problems with the concept of organized crime is that there is no widely accepted definition as
to what constitutes organized crime. There is no lack of literature on the subject but much of
this area has been the subject of matter of journalists and popular writers. This is primarily
due to the fact there is very little hard data on the subject. By its very nature organized crime
groups are unlikely to keep such things as membership lists or publish financial statements.
There are few other areas in the criminal justice literature that is so confused, undocumented,
and unscholarly. The lack of data and a clear-cut definition of organized crime has allowed
observers considerable scope in describing the nature and extent of organized crime.
Chinese Triad societies is a case in point. Triads have been vividly presented in
variety of films as being secret societies with elaborate rituals. The popular view is that with
the fall of Mainland China to the communists in 1949, many Triads migrated to Hong Kong.
In the late 1980s it was widely believed that with Hong Kong being scheduled to be returned
to China in 1997, many of their members would be fleeing to the U.S., Australia and Europe.
The following is typical for this period:
“The largest of such groups were the Green Pang (Green Gang), the Chiu Choas
(Chiu Chau), and the 14K. Although the Green Pang originally controlled heroin
distribution in the colony, they rely upon the Chiu Choas for supplies if Tai morphine
and opium. The Chiu Choas had important connections and members within the
Hong Kong police and controlled much of the drug traffic in the “Golden Triangle”
and throughout Southeast Asia (Hagan, F. Introduction to Criminology, 1991, p.480).
The view that one ends up with is that Triads are highly organized, secretive to the
extreme, and that they are pose a significant danger to Western society, especially in the area
of trafficking in dangerous drugs. This view of Triad societies was extended to include other
forms of Asian organized crime. One ends up with an image of Asian organized crime as
something that is about to engulf Western societies or at the very least threaten their stability
and prosperity.
The video that was shown in class is historical in the sense it was produced in the late
1980s when there was widespread concern in many parts of the world that Asian organized
crime would become a major worldwide threat. In the years since concern for Asian
organized crime has diminished. However, the illegal supply of drugs continues to be major
source of revenue for organized crime and major headache for various governments. After
looking at the video and read the attached article and then think about developing some
policies to deal with the problem of organized crime and drugs. More precisely:
Assume for the moment you are government official in someplace like Australia or
the United States and you want to combat the spread of drugs in your society. How would
you approach the problem? What policies would you recommend? Do you think it is
reasonable to try locating the cause of the problem in groups outside of your society? Is the
source of the problem Chinese triad groups, Colombian drug cartels, or is it more close to
home? What I have in mind with this last question is the idea that the supply of drugs may
come from overseas but there still must be a demand for these drugs otherwise there would be
no market for these drugs in the society.
What we want you do is to try to suggest some criminal justice policies that might
help to stem the flow of illegal drugs. Pretend you are an Australian or American politician
and want to help your country solve its drug problem and eliminate organized crime.
Politicians and criminal justice professionals have struggled with this question for years and
have not come up with anything that works. Let’s see what you come up with.
This is one assignment where you might want to work in groups. We do not expect
you write an essay on this subject. All you are expected to do is write a few pages:
 outlining your policy recommendations,
 the reasons why you think they might work, and
 possible problems, if any, in implementing your proposals.
There is no word length in this assignment. Write as much as you need to but 3 or 4
pages should be sufficient for a policy proposal of this sort.
Recommended Reading:
Chu, Yiu-Kong(1996). International Triad Movements: The Threat of Chinese Organised
Crime. Conflict Studies, 291. Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and
Terrorism.
This is available in the Department of Sociology, 12th Floor, K.K. Leung Building.
1
Hagan, F. Introduction to Criminology, 1991