Malaysian crime story

The Malaysian government has finally woken up from its slumber in the fight against crimes in the southern state of Johor following a public outcry.

According to New Straits Times and The Star today, the cabinet has decided to deploy an additional 400 policemen and 200 more police patrol cars in the state “as soon as possible”. The government has also agreed to police recommendations to set up three new police districts in Johor Baru. Malaysia will deploy 300 police personnel from the General Operations Force and another 100 from the Federal Reserve Unit (Generic pix of riot police from Wikipedia) to patrol the streets of JB over the “next few days”.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said the public should continue to have confidence in the police force. "We are taking immediate action to bring down the crime rate in Johor," he reportedly said.

Will this be enough? Obviously not. In the same papers today, one can read about the brutal rapes of two young girls in JB, and the sensational murder case in Kuala Lumpur of the Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu who was killed by a trigger-happy person or persons and then blown to pieces by special army explosives.

It’s good to deploy the no-nonsense riot police under the Federal Reserve Unit but the overall battle plans are just too incremental considering the gravity of the crime situation in JB and KL.

Malaysia must have a long-term action plan against criminals in the country.

First, Malaysia must clean up its own police force. There have been way too many accounts of bribery and trigger-happy policemen in the country. Care must be taken to ensure that policemen do not go overboard in the next few days to prove a point.

Second, it’s time to be more radical and embark on a major blitz against criminals who obviously feel quite at home in JB and KL. This means tackling crimes at the street level and tackling the root causes in crime-infested areas. This could mean installing cameras (with real-time monitoring by real policemen who don’t sleep on the job) in crime-prone areas. And this could also involve move to deport foreigners or banish citizens who engage in criminal activities like pirated VCDs, drugs and prostitution. The laundry list is quite long.

Third, go after the crime warlords. Banish them forever or engineer moles to expose their big brothers (adapted from Infernal Affairs). It’s quite pointless to wipe out the runners if certain quarters in security forces continue to plan “raids” together with warlords.

Without a long-term concerted effort, the warlords and their soldiers will simply take a break and go into a slumber in the next few days, and resurface when the latest police operation is over.