In my country, nearly everyday you will hear news of youth, female and elderly being victim of the deviant behaviour. Victim whom stabbed by snatch thieve end up in coma or decease and female being kidnapped or rape. I’m sure this is also very common problems in your country. I wonder how can they be so cruel to their prey? Desperate is definitely not an excuse to all their inhumanity. What causes this anomie? Recession? Redundancy? Malaysia’s government allocated RM4.9 bil of fund in 2007 budget to increase patrol cars, hiring police drivers and install CCTVs in crime-prone areas. However is these effective enough? I doubt. Due to the increased crime rates, everyone has to exercise the aloof behaviour. In their opinion, mind my own business is the most appropriate way for self-protection. When stranger approaches them, most of them would turn them down and walk away. Even when they witnesses an accident, they would not dare to get down from car to lend a hand as they fear that it is a planned accident to rob them. Our society is now trained to be more aloof and detach unlike in the olden days where everyone is so friendly and amiable. What can we do to ameliorate these situation?

Regarding your statement “I’m sure these are very common problems in your country”, well, I cannot agree with that because crime in different areas has different patterns, frequency; they happen at different level of society at different rate and type at different magnitudes. In Malaysia, street crime (snatch thieves, robbery, kidnapping ect.) are commonplace while in Japan, these cases are rare. In fact, street level criminal cases more often than not make headlines in the Japanese newspapers. Japan is more prone to high profile criminal cases that involve millions of dollars, like falsifying financial data in corporate or misuse of authority (Chief architect signing blueprints that does not meet federal safety requirements). I’m of mixed blood and I’ve lived in Japan before. Now I live in Malaysia till I graduate.

At current conditions, it is very normal for the society to react as they are, being more aloof and detached, more cautious natured, fearful and paranoid. People here in Malaysia are stereotypical, thinking that pushing more funding into the police force can help reduce crime. The police forces are often blamed for their inefficiency/incompetence by the general public and so, the government hopes to ease the pressure from the general public by allocating more funds to the police forces. Some of us know it would not work or the solution is not the most effective but that’s just some of us; the general public will accept it and back off to observe and wait another year.

In my opinion, the root of the problem is not our police force, it’s just part of it; a part of a myriad of problems with how this government is being ran. We know we can’t change the fact that the government is a huge and tall hierarchy, suggestions and proposals have to go through many people at different levels. If, and I say IF the proposal gets to the right hand with enough authority, only then it’ll be partially approved and sent down the hierarchy again. All these take a lot of time and resources so we cannot expect the government to react fast enough to identify and solve current issues. The government will only react to issues that are big enough to catch their attention. Snatch thieves and rape cases are already frequent over the past several years and the government had not reacted to it back then. Only till recent years that it had become a super major issue and that the pressure from the general public had overwhelmed the government only that they have reacted. Their reaction called for increase in budget for the law enforcement department.

But here comes the interesting part. The question here to ask is not how much money is “allocated” for the police force; the question should be how much is actually “getting there”. In recent discovery, our cops are paid less then a foreign worker (unskilled). Basic salary for a constable is about RM700/month (location dependent, KL cops get paid more while “kampung cops” get less). A foreign worker gets paid from anywhere between RM350 – RM1500 depending on the type of job and duration. On average, if the foreign worker works from 9-5 and 5 1/2 days a week, they can round up in excess of RM1000 monthly easily. Police officers have to put their lives on the line and be on standby 24/7 just to get paid less than a foreign worker? I don’t think so! We all know street level cops can be given “wang kopi” to get out of trouble easily. I don’t blame them for it because it’s just impossible to survive and feed the family with a salary of RM800/900. Heck, I as a college student spends almost RM2,500 a month (tuition fees, transport, food, accommodation ect.), that’s like living a life on 3 cops’ salary. Their salary just does not justify the kind of work they are doing or the risk they are taking.

But wait, we see increase in the budget to the police force: to acquire more equipment, and that’s it? Command, Control, Communication and Computerization, CCTVs, 2,000 petrol cars, 3,000 drivers and increase in allowance, will all these actually amount to 4.9 billion that’s allocated? I wonder...

Besides the cops, we’d need to study the profile of these criminals to see a pattern. In most cases, the criminals happen to be foreign workers, especially Indians (from India, not really the local ones) and Indonesians (no offence to them, just happen the bad apples are here). Two problems are present here thus two parties to blame. Number one: foreign labor policy. We’ve seen the policy getting strict over the years, on domestic helpers (a nice substitute for house maids). Workers for construction and other labor intensive industries did have their policies stricken but to a lesser degree. What we can see here is that policy makers not solving the problem entirely. They’ve identified that foreign hard labors are a big part of our local security problems yet they did not take measures to lockdown the problem. Then, there’s the number two problematic party: immigration. Now how the hell did so many get in without your knowledge? Illegal immigrants are rumored to out number the legal ones and yet we, especially the immigration department knew nothing about it. Illegal human trafficking have brought in a huge number of our foreign workers… and also a huge number who later could not find a job then turned to life of crime: criminals that roamed freely with helpless cops and can do little to stop them. Heck the criminals out-numbered and our-ran the cops anyway.

A recipe for security disaster: Blind policy makes with clueless immigration enforcers coupled with blind and helpless cops.

On the other side: Recently, there was a small conflict between the police force and the federal government over the traffic summon problem. The earlier wants to cut the price by half to encourage people to pay up and announced it before getting approval from the federal government. Then a day after the announcement, the later opposed the idea and made the police force retract the announcement. Now, how can this happen? The police force is taking matters into their own hands. The police force is under the federal government. Laws needed to be passed before it can take effect and that’s the job of the Legislation, not the police. From here we can see there’s a lack of communication, coordination or cooperation of the different branches of the government. This is a bad sign. Yes the branches must act independently to a certain level but this is definitely over the line for the police force to announce the reduction without consulting or informing the federal government. In this respect, solution would be to insist that the branches of the government follow procedure and protocols. The central government must have control over the branches to a certain level and make sure everyone is in line. Here, implementing a watchdog group or a oversight committee would be a great idea. Better still, let commoners like us run the watchdog group to increase the transparency of the government.

Now that we have touched the topic of government transparency, we have to talk about internal working of the government in general. Does anyone outside the political group or those in power have any knowledge of what is actually happening behind the closed doors of the government? We know we have RM159.4 billion to toss around. Where is this money going? Ultimately, who is getting the money? We get the briefing of which department gets how much funding but we are not told where all the money is going. Key answers the general public should get are: where the money is actually going, what projects are being planned, what are the costs of each project.

Here’s another recent event which captured a lot of attention. The half-a-million ringgit (RM500,000) automated toilet in our capital city, KL. A toilet bowl with a few attached sensors, lemon fragrance and a timed door costing RM500,000? Talking about the best way to spend money. Did anyone ordered this stuff? Did the majority of the public asked for such luxury? I don’t remember. Moreover, one need to pay a good RM1 to spend 15minutes in the toilet. I’m rather walk a few more minutes, find some fast food chain store and use those in there for free. It might not be as pretty but it solves the problem as efficiently. Cleanliness? Well, most of us would perceive little difference since fast food chains’ toilet are mostly well maintained too. These are the kind of project I’m talking about. Uber non-sense project that costs a bomb and the price is not justified. Over the years we’ve seen plenty of these sort of project. RM100,000 for 4 pieces of ceiling boards in the school. WOW! 8 square-foot of plaster boards that costs more than a car (2, if it’s economic models). Local government project are just the same. In Klang, we have a “scenic bridge with commercial area” built for a few million ringgit by MPK (Klang City Council). No one ran any business on it. Then a few years they tore it down. Again, it took about a million or more to demolish the place. Ironic. No one called for it and they built it. Worse still, the cost had our jaws dropped to the floor and rolling. Then later when it became a total disaster (they found out that drug addicts seek shelter there) they demolished it and again with costs that is eye popping. The government was supposed to be the lowest bidder in any project yet the Malaysian government works the other way round.

From all these example we can see we really need the government to be more transparent of their actions. Money is not spent correctly and corruption is on a rampage. These issues have to be identified by the government and be addressed of. I say watchdog groups are essential. Someone outside the people in power must oversee the government, first letting the general public know what’s going on and then they can criticize the actions.

General security is bad because the police are incompetent. The cops are incompetent because the money aren’t really getting to them because it’s being diverted along the way to the cops. The money allocated did not reach its destination in whole because of bad law enforcement. Bad law enforcement is because of lousy control. And lousy control is because of bad government policy. There are just so many other problem areas with the government that you can write a 1,000 page bible out of it. Conclusion, the government is ran by people (some) who only thinks about their own pockets. Money is drained away and prevented the government to function efficiently and effectively. Too much money is wasted on uber non-sense and little attention is paid to the real important things. The end, those who suffer from these flaws in the operation of the government are us, the commoners. Security issues became a highlight just because it began to show signs that things are out of control. Soon, more holes and flaws will show and the current subject will shift. That’s how I feel.

Erm..Im a HKC (not foul language la) means Hong Kong Chinese which stays here in Malaysia. Because my father is a Hongkie. Well, recently loads of news about raping,robbing,stealing etc. happening around here in Malaysia. In my opinion, Malaysia government allow alot of illegal imegrants maily those FU** Indons enter our motherland. These are the main causes of rapid incresing of crime cases. Because Indons think they can make easy money here in Malaysia. Thus, the first thing that come to their mind is to rob n steal. The government says that they will increse the budget of the police force. Additional of police petrol cars, choppers petroling etc. However, these does not work because the total police forces of whole Malaysia is not enough. The total of police force here in Malaysia is around 60,000 people only. How to compare with Hong Kong. Because the benefits for the police force is way better then Malaysia. A Hong Kong police academy graduates will receive around HKD 10,000-20,000 a month. In additional Hong Kong police force will have to most advance police facilities to stop crime. Meanwhile, rape cases had increased rapidly around these few months. The punishment here for rapist is acceptable, caning and jaling., i think. However, what really we should concer about is the morality among the citizens. These bloody rapist doesnt respect females. Female should be respect and protected not humilate them by raping for satisfaction. I thihk to avoid all these crime cases to happen again, we should increse the morale value among us. Well, lsatly i want ot end my reply is respect females and incease the public security of Malaysia and give us a happy and safe place to stay. In additional, i think Malaysia should be responsible for their deeds and what they say. Dont just talk cock and bull stories, do what you gona do.

in my opinion, most of these crimes are made by uneducated dummy, they don't know what is moral values and dont hav a right belief. Thus, they don't know how serious can the penalty be. However, i feel that human should be well-educated since they are young.
(**ps: it doesnt mean that educated ppl will not involves in criminals.)