'Safest country in region' claim debunked

The Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) should retract its “bogus claim” that Malaysia is Southeast Asia's safest country, as the crime statistics cited are misleading and manipulated, said the DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua.

He pointed out that the data provided by the police force to rebutan anonymous letter accusing it of manipulating crime statistics have 'only validated' the allegations.

“Based on (police) statistics, they successfully reduced the official crime statistics from 209,572 in 2007 to 157,891 in 2011, or 24.7 percent over the period,” he said in a statement.

“However, this was achieved at the expense of the unpublished 'non-index crime', which increased from 42,752 to 72,106 or a massive 68.7 percent over the same period.”

Pemandu has, in its Government Transformation Programme (GTP) Annual Report 2011 and in its many presentations, claimed that Malaysia is the ‘most peaceful’ and ‘safest nation’  in Southeast Asia and the fourth safest in the Asia-Pacific region behind New Zealand, Japan and Australia, according to the Global Peace Index 2011.

It has also claimed credit for Malaysia being ‘ranked the safest country among 19 upper middle income countries by the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2011. Both external validations underscored the good progress made under the Reducing Crime National Key Result Areas (NKRA)’.

But Pua said that, in the first year of the GTP Reducing Crime NKRA, the official crime index dropped by 15.4 percent in 2010, but the non-index crime increased by 21.5 percent.

“Most suspiciously, 'non-index crime' is increasing annually as a proportion of total crime since 2007 based on PDRM data.

“It has increased from 16.9 percent of total crime in 2007 to 21.9 percent (2008) to 22.8 percent (2009) to 29.8 percent (2010) to a record of 31.4 percent in 2011.”

He concluded that the clear-cut disjoint between the significant drop in 'index crime' versus the drastic increase in 'non-index crime' points strongly towards data manipulation.

This, he said, also validates the accusation by the anonymous letter writer that the police force is systematically re-classifying 'index crime' to 'non-index crime' cases.

‘Review mechanism immediately’

Pua, who is DAP national publicity secretary, reiterated that countries like Singapore include all types of crimes - including moral and white-collar crimes - in their crime statistics.

“In the UK even 'anti-social behaviour' is classified as a crime on the police website.”

In Malaysia, however, the people are completely puzzled as to why a robbery is re-classified as a 'non-index crime' just because the weapon is 'concealed', said Pua, citing the point-by-point rebuttal issued by the police headquarters last Tuesday.

“Similarly, according to the police, if a house break-in occurred but no goods or belongings were evidently removed by the burglar - for example, if the perpetrator escaped before he or she managed to take any goods - then the investigation officer will necessarily charge the offender with a lesser offence such as Section 452 and 453 which are 'non-index crimes',” he noted.

Pua urged Pemandu to overhaul its entire crime reporting and evaluation mechanism immediately, scrapping the ludicrous official 'index crime' and the hidden 'non-index crime' classification which is clearly subjected to manipulation.

“In fact it is the police and the government’s persistent preoccupation with 'perception' of crime, instead of effectively fighting crime, which inevitably leads to statistical manipulation by those responsible,” he added.