Sunday April 16, 2006
30,000 now helping cops
KUALA LUMPUR: It started off as a project to get city folks involved in police crime prevention activities but Rakan Cop has since grown into a 30,000-strong force that has become the eyes and ears of the boys in blue.
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Mustafa: Came up with the idea of the Rakan Cop programme |
Under the programme, the public would act as police lookouts and provide information on crime to the police’s Command Central Centre through its hotline or SMS.
The information would later be conveyed to RMKL, Radio Era and other Rakan Cop participants especially the Taxi Drivers Association for help in locating the criminals.
Rakan Cop is successful because it provides anonymity and safety to callers and members.
City police public order and traffic chief Senior Asst Comm II Jamaluddin Khalid said the public felt much safer knowing they would neither be the subject of controversy nor be called in to court to testify.
“Our next step is to fine-tune Rakan Cop and get it ISO certified. We hope to get it by the end of this year,” he said.
SAC Jamaluddin said the city police had first initiated the programme in August 2004 and the response was beyond expectations.
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SAC Jamaluddin: ‘Our next step is to fine-tune Rakan Cop and get it ISO certified’ |
“The Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohd Bakri Omar gave his full backing and we went round the country giving talks on Rakan Cop.
“Now every police contingent has its own programme and the culmination is the national-level launch today by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,” SAC Jamaluddin added.
Statistics showed that since Rakan Cop was launched the city police's crime-solving rate had improved tremendously.
SAC Jamaluddin said that before Rakan Cop was launched, city police received only about 700 calls from the public on its hotline and 2,435 in the form of SMS.
By last year, these calls had grown 10-fold and the SMS more than eight times.
Selangor police have started the Rakan Cop on a trial basis and CPO Deputy Commissioner Datuk Yahya Udin has big hopes for the programme because of the state's large population and vast area of coverage.
He said the Selangor Rakan Cop centre has already started getting calls from the public but some people abused the SMS alert system.
“I want to remind the people that the service is aimed at providing fast action and better security for them and time is wasted reading meaningless messages while there are genuine cases we need to attend to,” he said.
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