I welcome the government’s announcement on setting targets (KRA) on six important areas ranging from crime rate to improving public transportation.
Crime Rate
The KRA is to reduce street crime including snatch thief and unarmed robberies by 20% by the end of 2010. The police have 18 months to achieve this. It’s not an easy target to achieve. Petty crime is a big social issue in all the major cities in this country. The police have always been on the receiving end for their unprofessional conduct. In order to reduce crime, there is a need to instill:
a) Better discipline among the police forces;
b) Be professional and committed in their work;
c) Place more police on patrol. Their sheer presence will often deter petty criminals. I understand that often more than 40% of the police personnel are involved in administrative work. More police personnel should be released onto the street.
15 years ago, New York was a city infested with crime. Rape, murder and armed robbery was a daily occurrence. It became New Yorkers’ daily item in their newspapers. The mayor Rudolph Guliani adopted the blue ocean approach. What he did was to identify the hot beds of crime. Then, he decided to place police personnel in all these “hot areas”. Within 3 years, crime dropped dramatically. Their success rate in solving crime went up. All the major streets of New York have police constables on the beat and police patrol cars were parked at strategic junction. When you cross the Brooklyn Bridge that joins the city to the Long Island, you will see patrol cars parked at the beginning of your journey to cross the bridge, at the middle of the bridge and at the other end of the bridge. This was enough deterrence to prevent crime and speeding. Today, New York is regarded as a safe city.
Oxford Street in London used to be the hot bed of snatch thieves and pick pocket. When the police flooded the Oxford Street and its main tributary of roads with CCTVs, the crime rate dropped dramatically. In all the car parks, CCTVs were installed and there was close monitoring. Oxford Street again became a shopping paradise for tourists. London city has a reputation of having the most CCTVs installed and it used to be a joke that you are the most photographed when you are in London city. The second is Singapore.
Singapore reduces crime also by combination of putting more police on patrol and installing CCTVs in crime prone areas. Most of the car parks also have CCTV installed at every level. It is not easy to commit a petty theft in Singapore without being caught in one of the CCTVs.
All the major towns in Malaysia should be installed with more CCTVs. This should be closely monitored by the police. Most Malaysians do not report petty crime since they do not want to go through the hassle of reporting and often the police will file the report with very little investigation done and regard it as their daily routine work. However, the police in all their briefings will always claim high success rate in solving crime, a rate higher than that set by the Interpol. I suspect that Malaysia police are able to achieve this when criminals caught red-handed are asked to admit to other crimes committed, hence, the higher success rate of solving crime. I hope I am wrong in drawing such conclusion.
The public of course should cooperate. Police work will never succeed without public cooperation. I know most Malaysians are skeptical of our policemen. The policemen need our cooperation to reduce crime. Let’s hope that the KRA target of 20% will be achieved.
5 comments:
Hi! Dr Chua,
Dr Chua is damn right with his excellence statement to quote that "if more policeman are on the streets, then there will be more arrest for minor traffic offences. There will be more cases of corruption."
It is not wild accusations by Malaysians but it is indeed truth and actual shameful fact for many bad law enforcers.
Last weekend, we entertained our foreign business clients for a late dinner at Mont Kiara. During our journey home via express link from Mont Kiaraa to KL, a massive speed trap operation was carried out by cekap traffic cops. Suprisingly, we saw some limousine drivers speed off within seconds after few words with the traffic cops who issued summons to them. We noted one driver throw out a summon brown paper from his car, then we collected it from the roadside and read it.
Well ! Guess what is written in the fake brown summon paper ?
A simple sign - "$???".
Yes, many Malaysian drivers can tell how clean and cekap PDRM street cops today. Furthermore, we noted many cops prefer to chit-chat or do nothing in their air-cond stations rather than patrolling on the streets under hot sun.
Najib should focus on 1Malaysia national key result area is to clean up PDRM cops first before combat street crimes in Malaysia Boleh Land.
In this respect, I felt the polis are placing their priority wrong. Polis to public ratio is not a problem in Malaysia. 95% of Malaysians know the polis are not doing the work to ensure public safety. The public knows 90% of polis work for their political master, 5% for the kongsi gelap and 5% for the public.
I think may will agree that they feel safer to walk in the streets of Bangkok, HK, Singapore, Jakarta, London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi than SS2, Chow Kit area (Haji Taib included) and Petaling Street.
If only our polis really work to ensure public safety. Sigh....
Comrade Dato Seri Chua Soi Lek
You have missed up one of the important points what I mean is
inequiilibrium of mind, this problem could be solved if we have enough sport facility and recreational facility. We must ensure that not only the rich has the opportunity to enjoy their life, the low middle group should also be chance to enjoy through sport and recreational facility.
Secondly it is important to keep unemployed rate low by setting up job training centers through out the country.
Crime prevention should be targeted from every angle. Lowering crime rate by 20% itself , we must do it all the way
drugs played a very importnat factor/root-cause contributed to the increase of crime rate, most of this criminal need "fast" money for drugs rather than for food. All kind of new drugs (pill) spoiled our young generation and they dare to do all kinds of crime from drug effects. The effort of fighting drugs and preventions should double up.
What do you mean by lowering only 20% of the crime rate. one has to focus on eradicating all crime as much as possible. The Government must take responsibility to make the police force more efficient and corruption in the force will lead to more crime. Hence police personnel must be paid well so that they are less tempted to take bribes. Are they going to petty crimes like snatch thives or going for murder crimes.
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