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Is Zahid now confirming that the Prime Minister, Police and previous Home Minister had been wrong and the public right in past four years about worsening crime situation and the fear of crime?

Beginning this month, the Home Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi and the police have taken a new tack on the crime situation in the country, as illustrated by his speech on Sunday proposing a restoration of a special preventive law to replace the abolished Emergency Ordinance (EO), viz:

“We were pressured to abolish the Internal Security Act (ISA) and EO. Look at what happened after that, the crime rate increased and organised and petty criminals came out of the woodwork.”

Although this new official tack on increasing crime in the country is in tandem with the public perception about the runaway crime situation in the country in the past four years, it is in direct conflict with the four-year stand by the Prime Minister, the police and the former Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, that the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) against crime had been a great success since it was launched in 2009 resulting in drastic fall in the crime rate.

Just before Parliament was dissolved for the 13th general election, Malaysians were told that the country’s crime index had decreased by 26.8% since the first phase of the GTP began in 2009 and that Malaysia had been ranked the safest and most peaceful country in South-east Asia according to the Global Peace Index.

Malaysians were told that the country recorded around 550.1 criminal incidents per 100,000 population, placing Malaysia lower than Singapore, Hong Kong, Britain and the United States.

What then is Malaysia’s problem? The official answer is: “The crime rate is down but Malaysians still do not feel so, hence the focus of the second phase of the GTP against crime will be on improving public confidence on safety” – which was why RM272.5 million was allocated in the 2013 Budget to ensure that the rakyat feel safe!

In fact, this claim of relentless fall in crime rate in the past four years continued to be the official stance after the 13th General Election, with the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak reiterating in his “War Against Crime” speech on June 8 that the crime rate has been falling since the GTP programme against crime, stating that “In April this year, the crime rate dropped by 3.1% compared to the same period last year”.

But beginning in July this year, the new Home Minister and the new Inspector-General of Police seemed to have decided to ditch all the claims about the success of GTP programme in the drastic drop of crime rate in the past four years and instead taken the opposite tack that the country is afflicted with rising crime rate as to justify a restoration of EO-like preventive law.

But where are these new crime statistics?

Is Zahid now confirming that the Prime Minister, Police and previous Home Minister had been wrong and the public right in past four years about worsening crime situation and the fear of crime?

This is a question I put to Zahid during his winding-up of the debate in the Royal Address in Parliament yesterday, but he did not give any satisfactory answer.

Is Zahid prepared to be frank and forthright to state whether Malaysians had been fed false and wrong crime statistics in the past four years, and if so, what assurance can he give that Malaysians will henceforth be given the right and correct statistics about the crime situation in the country?

15 Replies to “Is Zahid now confirming that the Prime Minister, Police and previous Home Minister had been wrong and the public right in past four years about worsening crime situation and the fear of crime?”

  2. This whole situation with crime and home ministry is so Orwellian – not just Animal Farm-like but the authorities respond is 1984 ish…The fact the problem is one story but the respond is another story is very telling that there is no hope of this problem ever possible to be appropriately dealt with by UMNO/BN.

    To the simple minded ones – IT MEANS YOU NEVER GOING TO FEEL SAFE WITH UMNO/BN in power..

  5. The Sun page 4 today. A Rela officer died for beating the red light last week. The police stopped him, handcuffed him while he was lying face down on the road and then they sat on him. He was foaming from the mouth but died soon after. Police said he died of ‘heart complications’ although he had no such history whatsoever. Gobind Singh is furious.

    If true, from where did the police officers learn their SOPs for such a simple civil offence?

    Are you angry ?

  6. Maybe the government is not lying about the crime statistics – they are just not telling the truth.

    You know what they say about statistics and how creative you can be. Maybe the police have a course in creative writing and reporting and have ‘clever’ answers to anything asked. You just got to be alert to catch them at their games, like that recently withdrawn Bill.

  8. ///Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak reiterating in his “War Against Crime” speech on June 8 that the crime rate has been falling…///

    Either Zahid or the party comprising the Prime Minister, the police and Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein was lying.

  13. Runaway crime in the country is reaching new heights – a car thief drove away a police car when being captured! The incident was reported in today’s Oriental Daily News. There were a powerful riffle and 100 rounds of bullets in the police car. Fortunately both the riffle and bullets were retrieved when the police car was found.

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