So many policemen, yet public don’t feel safe

If elected to form the federal government, PKR will relook policing policies, crime index classification and perhaps even re-assign Special Branch officials.

KUALA LUMPUR: PKR would consider abolishing the police’s special branch (SB) unit and reassign the officers  to go out and fight ‘real’ crime instead of  ‘tailing’ opposition members everywhere.

Said PKR’s Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar: “I am thankful  (that) SB officials are ever-ready in my life, they take my picture, they follow me everywhere I go, if only this happens to the rest of the people,” she said at a Lembah Pantai’s fundraising dinner recently.

She said despite the number of policemen per Malaysian being  1: 270, which almost hit the international standard at 1:250, members of public do not feel safe.

“(This is because) many of them are still the polis hutan,  the SB officials.

“Our plan is to ensure you have a clear police redeployment strategy. You can abolish SB, because in the United Kingdom, this is what they’ve done, and replaced it with a smaller counter terrorism unit,” she said.

She said unlike the current Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s decision to further increase the number of policeman, Pakatan wanted the force to be better-trained, be provided with better  accommodation and given certain degree of independence.

“The ultimate goal of the redeployment is to ensure everyone is safe, there are enough police officials out there,” she told the 500-odd crowd.

In the government’s Budget 2013, RM591 million has been allocated to reduce crime rate by increasing the number of police officials, establishing a Motorcycle Patrolling Unit, increasing police volunteers and installing closed-circuit television in 25 local authorities.

Vital to re-classify crime

Meanwhile, DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara Tony Pua alleged that the government had manipulated crime index through crime reclassification to obtain crime drop.

He cited as an example a scenario where a robber extorts a woman’s money without wielding weapon, but was later arrested by the police with a pen knife in his pocket. This he said was classified as non-indexed crime.

He said this was because in police theory, the case came under a different charge – intent to commit crime.

“If I go into a house, search it upside down but couldn’t find anything and I left the home bare-handed, that is also a non-indexed crime.

“They keep finding reason in their pocket so that they can reclassify  the crimes to non-indexed crimes.

“Their statistics show that from 2007- 2011, indexed crime drop by 25%, but what they don’t tell you is non-indexed crime went up by 59%,” he said.