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Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE

Crime Case Analysis – Henry Chau case Group 4 City University of Hong Kong GE2221 Violence & Crime

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE

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Abstract Parricide by biological child is a rare event in Hong Kong. Therefore, little has been done to explore what motivate people to kill their parents and measures to prevent such incident occur in the future. This paper analysis a parricide case, which happen in 2013, by using the Hirschi’s Social Control Theory. It will present and discuss why the offender committed the crime, how did the justice system response to such incident and what can be done to improve the situation. Specifically, the most possible cause for the case is the lack of social bonds between the offender and his surroundings. In preventing similar incident, the society should provide greater resource in supporting and improving family relation.

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE

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Introduction Hong Kong in one of the safest city in the world, according to the Safe Cities Index 2015, Hong Kong rank 6 in personal safety, in which personal safety considers how secure individual citizen is from theft and violence 1(p.33, p.36). However, every year there are still people died because of homicide. For instance, in 2013, 62 people were murdered. 2One of the cases in 2013 shocked the whole community in Hong Kong. A 29 years old son, Henry Chau, murdered and dismembered his biological father and mother. Chau was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Criminology theories can be used to explain the occurrence of crimes. One of them is the Social Control Theory. It was developed in 1969 by Travis Hirschi. He made the point that human beings were born to be self-indulgent by stating that “we are all animals and thus naturally capable of committing criminal acts”3 (Hirschi, 1969, p.31). Unlike most criminology theories, the Social Control Theory was developed from the perspective of why the majority follow the law. Thus, explaining why people commit crime. The theory focus on external factors that constraint antisocial behaviour. There are four basic elements in the theory including attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. The theory presumes the existence of the social bonds and when a bond is weakened or broken then one may has deviant behavior. To put it simply, the lack of strong bonds between one and others as well as his society, he is likely to commit crime. Therefore, based on the Social Control Theory, Henry Chau commit parricide is likely due to the lack of bonding to his surroundings. In order to prevent similar occurrence, measures should be taken. Hence, it is crucial to analysis the Henry Chau case so to understand his act and the reaction of the justice system to such incident.

1 Safe Cities Index 2015 White Paper - NEC: Safe Cities. (2015) 2 Crime Statistics Comparison. (n.d.).(2016) 3 Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of Delinquency. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE

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Case Summary This is one of the most shocking parricide in the recent decades that the victims’ bodies were dismembered by the son. The 29-years old criminal, Henry Chau HoiLeung has seek help on social media platform for his missing parents, was then suspected as the murderer. The victims, Glory Chau and Moon Chau were the biological parents of the criminal. They were reported missing since 2 march 2013 until the criminal confessed and described the crime in a WhatsApp group during the police interview on 14 March 2013, and their bodies were being found on the day after interview.

The crime was organized and well-planned with knowledgeable method of dismemberment. Henry Chau claimed he was dissatisfied with life since he had experienced many suicidal thoughts after dropping out of college, being rejected by women, and unemployment. He blamed his failure on his parents and indicated that he would be reborn if they died. Victims were taken, killed and dismembered in the crime scene located in Tai Kok Tsui. The remains were found in the lunch box and the heads were in the refrigerator.

The second criminal is Chun-Kei Tse. He has a low average intelligence and tried to commit suicide in 2010 which damaged both his health and mental wellbeing. He treated Henry Chau as best friend. However, Henry Chau bullied him and threatened Chun-kei Tse that he could not prove that he is innocent in this murder issue as the dead body parts were in the flat owned by him, and Henry could harm Tse’s mum if Tse refuse to help him disposing the parts.

Chau claimed himself has mental disorder and provided the diagnosed documents as evidence, which not taken by the judge. The court held that Chau was found guilty of double murder while Tse was found not guilty on both counts of murder. Tse was charged with preventing the lawful burial of a body and jailed for a year.

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Theoretical analysis - Social Control Theory The Hirschi’s Social Control Theory focus on peers and peer groups of individuals. In this case, Chau’s deviant act can be explained from the following three perspectives, attachment, commitment and involvement, of the theory.

Attachment: (Based on mutual trust and respect that develop from ongoing interactions and intimate relations with conventional adults.) In this case, the lack of attachment on Henry Chau can be analysis from 3 type of attachment. (Parents, school, and peers relationship)

Parents: According to the theory, if individuals have strongly bonding with parents, they will have lower chance for deviant acts. This bonding can appears in respecting on parents, tend to share his/her opinions with parents, but not only follow parent’s order to reach the expectation what parents want to do. However, Chau was forced by his parents to learn what he was not interested in during his childhood, that caused bad relationship between kid and parents.

School: Teenagers spent ⅓ of day to stay in school that means the school environment, peers relationship and teachers respect can be an important part in teenager’s life during their growth. The attachment between school and individuals is based on teacher’s response on students’ capabilities which mean if students cannot handle their academic workload well or have failure on academic that not met teachers and school’s expectation, they will tend to act deviant behavior. Chau’s failure on his academic results caused lack of attachment between school and him, and that initiate his emotional problem in the future.

Peer groups: An adolescent would transfer their attachment from parents and school to peer groups through their growth, therefore, the major attachment of youth will transfer to the peer group attachment in adolescence. The attachment of peer groups occurs inhibition to deviant acts or criminal behaviors that means more attachment between individuals and peers can inhibit youth in less deviant acts. This kind of attachment is based on respect and trust with other peer, however, the offender

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE 5 in this case was identified as lack of peer attachment which caused emotional problem and unconfident personal characteristic. According to case summary, “He experienced lots of discrimination and bullying when he was sent to study abroad”, the lack of attachment to peers develop into an important and pivot element to form his delinquency.

Commitment: (Refers to individual’s investment in conventional behaviors. Include Willingness to do what is promised and respecting the others expectations.) ---- A person who decide to perform deviant behavior is based on how he/she evaluate the risk to attempt this behavior. According to the commitment component of social bond theory, the youth would consider the risk and consequence before taking deviant behavior if he/she spend enough time and energy on conventional behavior and personal goals. Therefore, if the youth have long-term commitment and expectation on conventional behavior, it will decrease the possibility on attempt deviant behavior. In this case, we can find a number of failure in his career and personal life, according to case summary, “Also, he got a number of jobs after he returned to Hong Kong, but all of those haven’t last. Because of those failure in his life and the huge debt he owed, the sense of growing desperation become the motive for the murder. ” Those failure and unclear career goals in his experience cause the lack of commitment component for him, which resulting in the less expectation of Henry Chau on conventional behavior.

Involvement: (Refers to the time and energy spent on participation in conventional activities.) ------ According to the definition of involvement component in social bond theory, if youth spent most of his/her time on conventional activities such as academic learning, sport, or other team activities within peers group, the less time is available to attempt deviant acts, further to produce inhibition function on delinquency behavior. We can find Henry Chau’s failure experience before the murder which include failure on academic grade, bullying experience during overseas study, failure on career and huge debt he owed. Those failure caused less confidence of offender to involve in peers group and turned to spend much time on playing violent game that can release the violence impulse within him. Less participation on conventional activities created

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE 6 more time and energy for Henry to think about delinquency and deviant behavior, therefore, the delinquency inhibition function of involvement have lost in this case.

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Response to crime by existing Criminal justice system Hong Kong criminal justice system composes of police agencies, the courts, and the correctional institutions. It aims to address the commission of crime and contribute to the observance of law.

The responsibility of the police agencies is to protect life and property of the public by preventing and detecting crime through investigation. To enhance fairness and human equal rights, according to Section 101 of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap.221), the police only arrest suspects and send the case to the court when evidence and suspicion of guilt are sufficient and objectively reasonable. During the investigation of Henry Chau case, the police agencies are misguided by Henry Chau’s confessions. Credited to the encouragement to the public proactively providing crime information, the crime surfaced when the police received report about Henry Chau admitted to the killings to his friends through social communication application. He claimed he murdered his parents due to his unhappy childhood. Since 1973, the police have produced Police Magazine to advise the public on the latest crime trend and crime prevention tips (The Hong Kong Police Force, 2016). It encourages the cooperation between the public and the Police to fight crime. The police responded to the crime information rapidly and arrested both Chau and Tse at last. The police agencies had successfully detected crime and apprehend suspects. However, the more than nine-hour police interrogation and 40-hour detainment of Tse was unreasonable, noted by the judge, given that Tse’s IQ is only 84, lower than average.

Both Chau and Tse were then charged of preventing the lawful burials and of murdering. Murder is the most serious crime in the Offences against the Person Ordinance in Hong Kong’s criminal law. The conviction for murder results in a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. The court system offers rights to the accused to trial by jury and to representation by counsel. For the defendants, they are allowed to due process and to be treated with fundamental fairness. With these rights, the court successfully piercing Henry’s veil and seek the truth of the case. It was believed by the judge and jury that Tse was used by Henry to commit crime and ruled him guilty to the two courts of preventing the lawful burial but not guilty to the

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE 8 murder charge. On the other hand, the first criminal, Henry Chau pleaded guilty to the murder charge and jailed for life.

Henry was sent to the correctional institutions to complete his life imprisonment before he is eligible to apply for parole. In most countries, as murder is one of the most serious crime in criminal law, offenders possibly will be subject to life sentence or even death penalty. In Hong Kong, before capital punishment was abolished in 1993 following repealing of the Corporal Punishment, death penalty was imposed for murder4 5(Amnesty International, 2009) (Hong Kong Correctional Service, 2014). Capital punishment was officially abolished in April 1993 and replaced by life imprisonment6 (Hong Kong Government Press Release, 2006). The emphasis of imprisonment has been on punishment to serious law offenders. Following England after the Criminal Justice Act held in 1967, Hong Kong designed the parole scheme which allows life prisoners to be released to preserve prisoners’ human right and to induce good behavior among prisoners. A minimum term an offender must serve before he is allowed or release by the Parole Board, called tariff, will be specified by the judge during passing a life sentence. The Parole Board focus on the tendency for prisoners’ future crime involvement, therefore, it will review offender’s past records, offence, prison record, recommendations of correctional officers and the offender’s plan for parole for consideration and decision-making 7(Chan, 1990). However, there is a debate about whether imprisonment with parole system could deter other criminals from committing murder or even reducing the likelihood of their committing crime of murder again? To advocate the establishment of parole scheme, the Secretary for Security, Mr. Lai Tung-Kwok, has released a written reply to Hon Regina Ip’s questions about Hong Kong’s recidivism rate in the Legislative Council. In April 2016, the recidivism rate in Hong Kong has declined from 36.5 per cent in 2004 to 27.1 per cent in 2013 8(The Secretary for Security, 2016). It seems that the rehabilitation programme including parole program is effective enough to prohibit the commission of homicide. However, the number of reported homicides still at the 4 Amnesty International. (December 2009). Abolitionist & retentionist countries. 5 Commissioner of Correctional Services Mr Sin Yat-kin. (December 2014) 6 Hong Kong Government Press Release. (March 2006). Press Release. 7 ChanTat-to. (1990). An anatomy of parole system in Hong Kong. The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) 8 The Secretary for Security Mr Lai Tung-kwok. (April 2016). Press Release of the Legislative Council

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE 9 range of 15-60. There is an upward trend in the number of homicides from 2015 till now as well9. Therefore, life punishment is not effective enough to deter homicide. More need to be done by the government is to focus on the root cause of committing homicide by the offenders, Henry Chau case as an example.

9Crime Statistics Comparison. (n.d.).(2016)

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE

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Recommendation in preventing parricide Hirschi claimed that when an individual has weak social bonding and unable to attach with the society would more likely to commit crime with no fear. In this case, Henry Chau insisted himself as a “loser” and blamed his failure on the society by murdered his parents as a revenge. The incident has blown the society awake and raise the awareness on how to help these minorities to build up valid social connections. Therefore, apart from the analysis, we would also discuss the additional measurements that can be performed to strength their attachments towards the society.

Family, as the bulwark of social cohesion is viewing as the primary agent of socializing to an individual. According to the report published by Chinese University of Hong Kong in 197410, it indicated that parenting style, living environment and family relationship has effect on the development of youngsters. It recognized that more young offenders have the problem of incomplete development in growing into adulthood because they are raised in broken families with unstable status. An individual that raised by a stable family with happy childhood is likely to commit crime. Therefore, in order to strengthen the family bondings and prevent social problems, the government has to put greater effort on educating citizens how to enhance family life.

Education is kind of social crime prevention which is at micro level that provides support to the families in need. Parents can learn how to deal with children that with special needs, identify the potential problems and seek for help before they are getting worse. In 1979, the Family Life Education Resources Centre (FLERC) has formed and governed by the Social Welfare Department(SWD), aiming to provide support for the social workers and promote family life education that can enrich family life and successfully prevent the crime occur. The importance of prevention has proved by the research carried by Rand Corporation11 that the damages of family problems to the individual and so as to the society would be reduced if prevention is succeed. In order

10 Ng, A. (1974, October). Social causes of violent crimes among young offenders in Hong Kong 11 Karoly, L. A., Kilburn, M. R., & Cannon, J. S. (2005). Early Childhood Intervention Programs Save Money, Benefit Children

Running Head: CRIME CASE ANALYSIS – HENRY CHAU CASE 11 to minimize the damages, enhancing the family functions by helping families to adapt and tackle special needs and stress is one of the major objective for this program.

On the other hand, the second objective is to strengthen the relationship between family members by enhancing their self-understanding and assist their role and responsibilities so that the children can be attached to the family and society during the progress of socialization. Since the offender viewed himself as miserable for his childhood, he had lack of caring in the school life and he had no one to share his thoughts because he has been bullied ever since he began his oversea studies. Peers has significant effects on the development of an individual’s personality and the experience of being bullied would to low self-esteem and build up anti-social mind. Chau has no friends nor family support in his hard days which made himself isolated from the society. He believed his miserable experience were brought by his parents because they decided to send him to Australia for high school study which violated his will. Referring to the study carried by Gotlib12, early depression in life would potentially turn into worse and serious mental disorder during the development. As such, if Chau’s parents has been educated in the early days that not to mandatorily forced him to do something he was unwilling to do so, instead they open up their mind and listen to their son’s thought and try to understand each other, Chau might not built up an extreme personality.

Breakdown of Family structure and changes in the family role give a massive hit to the children and it takes time to heal. As emphasized above, children that raised from a happy family would tend to be less possible to commit crime. The breakdown of family may cause the children feeling unwanted and less confident to speak out their thoughts because there are flaws in their family structure. They are less likely to show their emotions 13and parents cannot identify the potential problems. Therefore, the servic...