Survey on the “Fugitive Offenders Ordinance” AmendmentBack

Research Background

The Scholars’ Alliance for Academic Freedom (SAAF) commissioned Public Opinion Programme at The University of Hong Kong (HKUPOP) in late May 2019 to conduct this survey on 29 May to 3 June 2019 with 1,002 Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong citizens aged 18 or above. The goal is to gauge Hong Kong people’s views on the amendment of the “Fugitive Offenders Ordince”.

The research instrument used in this study was designed entirely by the HKUPOP Team after consulting commissioning party. Fieldwork operations and data analysis were conducted independently by the HKUPOP Team, without interference from any outside party. In other words, HKUPOP was given full autonomy to design and conduct the survey, and HKUPOP would take full responsibility for all the findings reported herewith.

Research Design

Telephone interviews were conducted by interviewers under close supervision. All data were collected by our interviewers using a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) system invented by the research team which allowed real-time data capture and consolidation. To ensure data quality, on top of on-site supervision, voice recording, screen capturing and camera surveillance were used to monitor the interviewers' performance.

Telephone numbers are randomly generated using known prefixes assigned to telecommunication services providers under the Numbering Plan provided by the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA). Invalid numbers are then eliminated according to computer and manual dialing records to produce the final sample.

The target population of this survey was Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong citizens aged 18 or above. For landline sample, when telephone contact was successfully established with a target household, one eligible subject was interviewed. If more than one eligible subject had been available, selection was made using the “next birthday rule” which selected the person who had his/her birthday next. The survey was conducted on 29 May to 3 June 2019. A total of 1,002 eligible respondents were successfully interviewed, including 666 landline and 336 mobile samples. The effective response rate of this survey was 68.9%, and the standard sampling error for percentages based on this sample was less than 1.6 percentage points. In other words, the sampling error for all percentages using the total sample was less than plus/minus 3.2 percentage points at 95% confidence level.

To ensure representativeness of the findings, the raw data has been rim-weighted according to figures provided by the Census and Statistics Department. The gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population came from “Mid-year population for 2018”, while the educational attainment (highest level attended) distribution and economic activity status distribution came from “Women and Men in Hong Kong - Key Statistics (2018 Edition)”.