New research suggests that the federal government may have been suppressing
crime figures by up to 50 per cent.
In 2009, Bernama reported Director of the Criminal Investigation Department
(CID) Bukit Aman, Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Zinin's complaint that CID's
investigating officers (IOs) were being overburdened with 20 cases per IO per
month.
According to its own figures, the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) had 2,233
investigating officers working in CID in 2009. If each IO had to handle 20 cases
per month this implies a total annual crime (Index + Non-Index) figure of over
530,000 cases.1 This is far higher than the officially reported crime rate for 2009.
Last week, in response to accusations from an anonymous policeman that it was
doctoring crime figures, PDRM's ASP Ramli Mohd Yuusof reported a total crime
figure of 271,831 for 2009, nearly 50 per cent less than the crime figure implied
by the CID chief.
The Barisan Nasional government, and the Ministry of Home Affairs in particular,
must come clean on whether it has been forcing the police to suppress the
true crime statistics. They must reveal how long this has been going on. The
Malaysian public must know the truth.
Policing crime is a challenge, especially when so much of PDRM's manpower has
been tied up in paramilitary and spying functions. These seem to have served
more to protect Barisan Nasional rather than protect the public from crime.
This is why Pakatan Rakyat has advocated the modernisation of PDRM to make it
a dynamic crime-fighting service. With Pakatan's reforms, CID caseloads should
drop to 5 cases per IO per month.
Pakatan's Budget 2013 proposal on Fighting Crime, unveiled Tuesday, focuses
on three strategic thrusts: reallocating resources and manpower to the under-
staffed CID and foot patrols in crime hotspots; improving the pay of police
personnel as insulation against corruption and a reward for crime-fighting; and,
improving the police's forensic and reporting capacities.
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