Metro

Saturday July 4, 2009

Authorities must act quickly and efficently to curb crime

Bangsar Boy
By NIKI CHEONG


LIKE many other children who grew up with comic books, many of my childhood fantasies had to do with superheroes.

However, I never wanted to grow up being Spiderman or Superman, saving lives and keeping the world free of crime. But no, I didn’t want to be the one rescued either.

I always saw myself as a bystander going, “Woah” and clapping hysterically as the superhero dissapears into the air in triumph.

As I grew older and knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would choose to be a character like the photojournalist Jimmy Olsen (from the Superman series), who would always be there as “Supes” saved the day, report on it and be friends with the hero.

Naturally, the fantasies faded as I grew older and I realised that superheroes don’t exist (sorry, kids). I also believed that the people responsible for keeping our streets safe were our uniformed officers, local council authorities and of course, our elected officials.

I had always believed that one’s home is the safest place on earth. My home was my sanctuary and even a break-in attempt back in 2001 did not change my opinion. Perhaps it was because I was living in Australia then, so such an incident seemed quite distant.

I also grew up at a time when crime didn’t seem as common as it appears to be these days, so perhaps my impression of life in Kuala Lumpur is slightly warped.

It is no surprise then that I took little responsibility when it came to the safety of myself and my loved ones. In fact, it was only two years ago when my mother was a victim of snatch theft just 200m from my home, that my bubble burst.

Since then, my parents and I have taken extra care – we installed an electric gate at home and always made sure we never parked our cars outside our house compound.

Sure, we have heard many other stories since then but considering the fact that I did not know the victims personally, it was easy to brush it off with a simple “These things happen”.

So while my family have been extra cautious, I haven’t been, so much so that I would scoff at them. When my second sister’s ex-colleagues (not just one, but several) lost their laptops due to car break-ins, I still stubbornly left mine in my car as it was the convenient thing to do.

These days, though, it is hard to ignore these stories. I’m not sure if they are getting more prevalent, or it just happens that my friends are starting to be personally affected.

Just last weekend, I got an SMS from a colleague whose car window was smashed while she was waiting at the traffic lights. The thief, riding a motorcycle, had reached in and grabbed her bag on the passenger seat.

On Wednesday night, I walked past the police station in Bangsar Baru when I saw a car in the same predicament. Being the busybody that I am, I looked into the police station and saw that it was a friend of mine as well. He was double parking at the shopping centre, barely a few minutes walk from my house. Talk about close to home.

Over the past couple of months, there has been many more similar cases happening to people I know.

My family and I are already taking whatever precautions we can, short of staying in and never setting foot out of our homes.

Our car windows are tinted, we have the electric gate and we keep the gate lights switched on if someone was coming home late. We try not to leave our bags in the passenger seat, take our laptops out with us when parking and rarely leave our house unattended. We also pay a monthly fee to 24-hour security guards who patrol our streets (and yet crimes are still being committed!).

What is most sad is that we are not able to feel safe even in our own homes and cars.

The authorities must act quickly and efficiently to resolve this issue. Sure, it is not something that can be fixed overnight but there has to be ways to address it. These thugs are already getting more brazen by the day and who knows what will happen next?

My childhood fantasies of cities in dire need of help are re-emerging. And I worry about the day that we turn into the crime-laden Gotham City. It is time for the authorities to step up, solve the problem and prove that fantasies aside, Batman does exist.

• Niki Cheong blogs at www.nikicheong.com/blog and Twitters at www.twitter.com/nikicheong.

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