Tips for Smart Cops Series

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Recording Stop & Question and Stop & Search Activities in Notebook

An important part of the duties of frontline police officers is to deter criminal activities. Interception by officers is considered an effective way to achieve this goal, but they have to carry out their duties in a professional and cautious manner. Officers should never conduct Search and Question (S/Q) or Stop and Search (S/S) on a "random" or "routine" basis, and every action has to be fully justified and reasonable.

After each and every interception, a proper documentation of the action must be made in their police notebooks, including the legal powers based on which the person is being questioned or searched. The documentation provides proper accountability for the actions taken by the officer concerned, and also helps officers recall the actions they have taken on a particular occasion. Officers are hereby reminded of the following procedural guidelines.

By virtue of FPM 44-03(12), it is lawful for police officers to record details of police S/Q and S/S activities. In all cases where a police officer exercises statutory powers, the minimum notebook entry should consist of:

i) The date, time and location of the S/Q and S/S;

ii) The legal powers based on which the person is being S/Q and S/S, e.g. the person is suspected to be an illegal immigrant and is S/Q by Police under Section 17C of the Immigration Ordinance, and

iii) The basic personal particulars sufficient to identify the person, e.g. the name and the Hong Kong Identity Card number.

(This column is contributed by Complaints and Internal Investigations Branch)
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