Wednesday March 20, 2013

The next mission is to improve perception of crime rate

By NICHOLAS CHENG
nicholascheng@thestar.com.my

Friendly visit: Police talking to residents of Bandar Tun Razak in Cheras together with RELA and Civil Defence personnel for the 1Malaysia patrols.

PETALING JAYA: Crime rate is down but Malaysians still do not feel so, hence the focus will be on improving public confidence on safety, says the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) report.

It stated that the country’s crime index had decreased by 26.8% since the first phase of the GTP began in 2009.

Malaysia has been ranked the safest and most peaceful country in South East-Asia according to the Global Peace Index, said the GTP report.

It also recorded around 550.1 criminal incidents per 100,000 population, placing Malaysia lower than Singapore, Hong Kong, Britain and the United States.

However, it added that “public feeling of security remained low”, based on surveys.

The Reducing Crime National Key Results Area (NKRA) team surmised that this could be because positive action and initiatives under the first GTP had “little visibility compared to highly-publicised instances of crime itself”.

It cited the spate of snatch theft and assault cases in public parking lots, which were highlighted.

“Thus, there is a need to better engage the public and raise awareness about the NKRA, as well as to equip the rakyat to minimise the risk of becoming victims,” the report said.

It said that the second phase of the GTP would see the continuation of several initiatives like the “omnipresence programme”, which successfully reduced the overall street crime and index crime by 41.3% and 7.6% respectively in 2012.

The programme would see increased police personnel on patrol in areas like schools, shopping centres, markets and transport terminals to create a better perception of safety.

The United Against Crime public engagement campaign under the first GTP would be expanded to include dialogues with key groups like women and residents’ associations on how to protect themselves.

The report said that safety perception surveys, crime awareness days and women’s awareness programmes would be organised to increase the safety perception index.

There would also be more volunteer community policing initiatives with police support to get the public involved in crime fighting.

News

Wednesday March 20, 2013

The next mission is to improve perception of crime rate

By NICHOLAS CHENG nicholascheng@thestar.com.my

By NICHOLAS CHENG
nicholascheng@thestar.com.my