Security problem in the country is not a new thing, but, when the situation got worse, we were always assured that there were people pointing fingers at others and that scapegoat has to be found. While the control of crime situation is the work of the police, but, we should not blame the police alone for all weaknesses. The BN government should not avoid responsibility of this weak security that caused crimes to be rampant. The police were there only to implement security policies of the government of the day. We cannot expect a police force with a strength of about 7% out of slightly over 100,000 personnel to guard at every home and corner of the street. The Police Force lacked equipment and only very recently was there massive purchase of bullet proof vests for use of police personnel in crime prone areas. Yet we can’t see any policemen, if any at all, in Sarawak had benefited this. The shortage of manpower, equipment and logistics to combat crime and mismanagement of manpower in the Police Force had been brought by DAP many times in the past in both Parliament and in the State Legislative Assemblies, but, the government had kept a deaf ear by failing to reorganize manpower deployment and conduct proper recruitment of personnel to combat crime in the street.
To combat crime, not only must the nation have adequate manpower, but, logistics and deployment of police personnel must be properly managed. Therefore, there is no reason why this government still allowed the Administration Department and the Special Branch Department together with the General Operation Forces (GOF) to take away most of the manpower of the Police Force. Is this not mismanagement of manpower resources? The manpower in these three Branches should be redeployed to strengthen the Crime Investigation Department. You just cannot allow the few of these personnel to tackle the increasing crime in the country and now put the blame on the Police Force alone. It is a policy that went wrong that caused crime to increase and that cause the ineffectiveness in crime detection and prevention. To cry foul against police officers will not solve the problem, but, will only demoralize them. When these policemen are demoralized, they will not then do a proper job and with this crime situation will get worse. The authority that should be blamed was the government itself for its unsound security policy because as a saying says, “There are no bad soldiers, but, there are bad generals!”.
Our country is rich and could afford to spend millions of ringgit to send a medical doctor without any qualification in space science to the outer space, but, still refused or could not find adequate fund to recruit and train first class Police Force. Only about a week ago, the Badawi government is thinking of sending a second spaceman, but, had not given a thought about security problem despite rising crime rates.
SUPP is in the government and should not blame the police alone, but, should have the courage to tell the government where went wrong. To blame the police alone will not solve the problem and to shift the blame and find a scapegoat will make the matter an unending problem for the country. They must also come with constructive ideas and not simply shift the blame to the police alone, after all the problems were caused by the government of which SUPP is a component party.
The Crime Index showed an increase of crime activities from 156,316 case in the year 2003 to 226,836 cases in the year 2006 and this showed a sharp increase of about 45.1%
When Chinese and Indian youths wanted to join the Police Force, the normal answer we got from the Ministers were that, these Chinese and Indian youths were not interested to join the Police Force. If this was true, then, what steps or policy the government had in enticing these Chinese and Indian youths to join the Police Force? When asked, I was told in the DUN that that there was no necessity to man the police pondoks for the time being, but, of course I disagreed. I pursued the matter with the present Officer-in-Charge of Police District, Kuching, sometime ago and was told that he could not man the pondok as being lack of manpower and logistics. Police pondoks in Tabuan Jaya, Hui Sing Garden and Kota Sentosa had in the past years been left unattended by police while a police pondok in Kenyalang Park had been demolished and replaced with a Parking Ticket Purchasing Booth.
In combating crimes the attitude of the public and police officers both played important part. Most often than not members of the public, especially, from the Chinese community were reluctant to go to police stations to report incidences of crimes and to assist police investigations. This was due to the fact that it was difficult for them to communicate with police officers in the police stations as most of these officers could not understand Chinese and also spoke very little English. There were cases that reports were not properly taken due to miscommunications or communication problems which at times landed the complainants in police lockups for crime themselves never committed.
Such incidences of members of public being detained had to a certain extent made members of the public reluctant to report incidences of crimes to the police. This in the end would result in wrong planning and wrong crime prevention strategy to be taken by the police and this will therefore would cause crime perpetrators not or never will be caught.
To combat crime, not only must the nation have adequate manpower, but, logistics and deployment of police personnel must be properly managed. Therefore, there is no reason why this government still allowed the Administration Department and the Special Branch Department together with the General Operation Forces (GOF) to take away most of the manpower of the Police Force. Is this not mismanagement of manpower resources? The manpower in these three Branches should be redeployed to strengthen the Crime Investigation Department. You just cannot allow the few of these personnel to tackle the increasing crime in the country and now put the blame on the Police Force alone. It is a policy that went wrong that caused crime to increase and that cause the ineffectiveness in crime detection and prevention. To cry foul against police officers will not solve the problem, but, will only demoralize them. When these policemen are demoralized, they will not then do a proper job and with this crime situation will get worse. The authority that should be blamed was the government itself for its unsound security policy because as a saying says, “There are no bad soldiers, but, there are bad generals!”.
Our country is rich and could afford to spend millions of ringgit to send a medical doctor without any qualification in space science to the outer space, but, still refused or could not find adequate fund to recruit and train first class Police Force. Only about a week ago, the Badawi government is thinking of sending a second spaceman, but, had not given a thought about security problem despite rising crime rates.
SUPP is in the government and should not blame the police alone, but, should have the courage to tell the government where went wrong. To blame the police alone will not solve the problem and to shift the blame and find a scapegoat will make the matter an unending problem for the country. They must also come with constructive ideas and not simply shift the blame to the police alone, after all the problems were caused by the government of which SUPP is a component party.
The Crime Index showed an increase of crime activities from 156,316 case in the year 2003 to 226,836 cases in the year 2006 and this showed a sharp increase of about 45.1%
When Chinese and Indian youths wanted to join the Police Force, the normal answer we got from the Ministers were that, these Chinese and Indian youths were not interested to join the Police Force. If this was true, then, what steps or policy the government had in enticing these Chinese and Indian youths to join the Police Force? When asked, I was told in the DUN that that there was no necessity to man the police pondoks for the time being, but, of course I disagreed. I pursued the matter with the present Officer-in-Charge of Police District, Kuching, sometime ago and was told that he could not man the pondok as being lack of manpower and logistics. Police pondoks in Tabuan Jaya, Hui Sing Garden and Kota Sentosa had in the past years been left unattended by police while a police pondok in Kenyalang Park had been demolished and replaced with a Parking Ticket Purchasing Booth.
In combating crimes the attitude of the public and police officers both played important part. Most often than not members of the public, especially, from the Chinese community were reluctant to go to police stations to report incidences of crimes and to assist police investigations. This was due to the fact that it was difficult for them to communicate with police officers in the police stations as most of these officers could not understand Chinese and also spoke very little English. There were cases that reports were not properly taken due to miscommunications or communication problems which at times landed the complainants in police lockups for crime themselves never committed.
Such incidences of members of public being detained had to a certain extent made members of the public reluctant to report incidences of crimes to the police. This in the end would result in wrong planning and wrong crime prevention strategy to be taken by the police and this will therefore would cause crime perpetrators not or never will be caught.
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