Crime Prevention is everyone's business

The Sun Daily 
by Yeo Chia Hui

KUALA LUMPUR: Crime prevention is everyone's business, says Richard Wee Thiam Seng, co-chairperson of Safer Malaysia.

In a conference organised by Safer Malaysia, and Universiti Pertanahan Negara Malaysia (UPNM), Richard believes that the whole community should work together to make Malaysia a safer place.

"Every time there is crime, the cost is immense. Crime really hurts the economy and the money we spend to repair crime (and its consequences) can be used for other things," he said.

Therefore, he urged the public to all play their part.

This however is not easy, as a gap between actual crime and the fear of crime has emerged.

Pemandu's director for crime reduction Datuk Dr Amin Khan said that in reality the crime index has came down 40% in the last five years, but the problem is that the people do not see or feel it.

"And so, we will introduce a Crime Perception Indicator (CPI) to measure the rakyat's fear of crime," he said.

According to Amin, the crime rate has dropped from about 580 crimes a day in 2009 to 350 in 2014.