Thursday October 4, 2007
Police: 80% of crimes committed by Malaysians
By SHAHANAAZ HABIB
KUALA LUMPUR: Contrary to popular belief, most crimes in the country are committed by locals and not foreigners.
The Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity meeting yesterday learnt from the police that 80% of the crimes were committed “by our own people.”
“There have been cases where our people deliberately use an Indonesian slang to mislead others into thinking they are foreigners.
“In reality, foreigners are only responsible for about 20% of the crime in the country, “ said the select committee chairman Datuk Dr Wan Hashim Wan Teh.
“It is true that the crime rate has increased in the country although there are areas where it has gone down,” he added.
He was speaking to reporters after top police officers and heads of departments of the force came before the 11-member select committee to give their side of the story on public complaints of the rising crime rate in the country.
Dr Wan Hashim said that the committee was told that the force was really short handed with a ratio of one policeman to 500 to 1,000 people, far below the ideal of 1:250.
“It is impossible to combat crime with that kind of ratio,” he said.
He added that it was natural for the crime rate to rise in the face of population growth and an influx of foreign workers, but without a commensurate growth in the police force.
He said that while the Government had agreed to recruit an additional 60,000 policemen over the next five years, “this would take a long time.”
Dr Wan Hashim who is the Grik MP, also said that the burden of combating crime should not fall solely on the shoulders of the police, as the public too could do its part by reactivating the Rukun Tetangga watch, while families should ingrain good values in the young so that they would steer clear from crime.
Deputy director of Internal Security and Public Order SAC (I) Datuk Jamaludin Khalid said that 2,000 to 3,000 policemen retired each year, and even with 60,000 new cops it would still not be enough.
“It takes time. Policemen have to be trained. You can’t pluck them off trees or go to the market to buy them like fish!” he said.
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