Between late June and August, at least 22 underage Hong Kong students were arrested on suspicion of bullying, in many cases on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. There is a clear tendency to engage in violence and this uptick in juvenile delinquency comes on the heels of a year of sustained violence by radicals, at a time when unemployment is at a 15-year high, and formal onsite classes in schools have been suspended for months owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The associations are impossible to ignore. Baselines are shifting around the world and Hong Kong is not immune, but what makes the city more susceptible to social shocks is the preceding months of social unrest. Clearly, an extreme situation has created an unprecedented social crisis and even the most vulnerable members of society, our children, are feeling the heat of grown-up problems. And, sadly, some seem to be responding with delinquency. 

Some may argue that bullying is not new to Hong Kong, and it’s a known fact that a 2017 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development had concluded that Hong Kong had the highest incidence of bullying in schoolchildren among 54 countries and regions surveyed.

In her article Why It Seems Like Bullies Are Everywhere — and How to Stop Them, Elizabeth Bernstein writes in The Wall Street Journal, “A bully is someone who tries to intimidate another person, often repeatedly, whom he or she sees as weak or vulnerable. According to psychologists, bullies have four personality traits — called the Dark Tetrad — that often occur together: Machiavellianism, which is a tendency to calculatedly manipulate others for your own good; psychopathy, an attribute that includes a lack of empathy and a willingness to take risks; sadism, the propensity to derive pleasure from inflicting pain on someone else; and narcissism, an obsession with self and feeling that you are better than other people.”

I believe that in the difficult world that we live in, all of us harbor the Dark Tetrad in different degrees, and with social media having upended many behavioral norms held precious by our parents and grandparents, narcissism reigns supreme. But our upbringing, attributes as functional adults, which include respect for law and order and institutional norms, as well our educational and social status, generally keep us in check. Also, being digital migrants, many of us are still navigating the minefield that social media is, relying on the ethics of traditional social engagement to conduct ourselves. 

It’s vastly different for our children. They are digital natives, self-assured in a world we are still navigating and the wide world of internet has given them an unprecedented autonomy to choose role models whose behavioral norms may not be exactly championed by their parents. The first point of conflict begins here.

In families with higher educational attributes, professional achievements and a clear emotional investment in the mental well-being of children, it is easier to resolve the points of conflict because children respond positively to parental care and constructive examples set by parents and also, to care from other authority figures such as teachers.

In families where unemployment has wrecked economic stability, parents may be far more preoccupied with survival issues. With schools closed for months, not only the structure that formal education gives to even children from the most vulnerable families is lost, but also the plunge in face-to-face interaction with non-parental authority figures such as teachers leaves the most emotionally vulnerable children rudderless.

Emotional vulnerability among children undoubtedly cuts across socioeconomic lines, but in disadvantaged families, the social cost tends to be higher.  

This is perhaps where police community liaison officers can step in. Not only are they authority figures, but being in close contact with the community, they have an acute understanding of the socio-economic dynamics and perhaps a more nuanced approach to dealing with delinquency. Children must be made to understand that delinquency is punishable, whatever the provocation. We need the men and women in blue working together with parents and schools to send out the message that ultimately, prevention is better than cure.

The author is a Hong Kong-based journalist.