YOURSAY 'Numbers do not alter the fear of the general public about their safety. Numbers can lie but not our perception.'

Crime down 26pct, but fear still looms

Telestai!: Lies, damn lies and statistics - inspector-general of police Ismail Omar, your crime statistics means nothing when people live in fear, whether they are asleep at home, out walking in a mall or driving a car.

Day or night there seems to be no escaping robbers, snatch thieves, rapists, kidnappers and murderers. Many of us are exposed to crime when we are doing our daily chores.

A few years back, I used to oversee the management of several shopping malls in the country and we acknowledged the presence of local thugs, who were generally harmless.

We had a mutual understanding that they be allowed into the malls but they are not to cause trouble. But the recent spate of brazen attacks is frightening - these are nothing like what I've seen before.

There appears to be a seismic shift on the ground in terms of criminality and the police are in denial. It makes me wonder if these thugs are part of the statistics.

Anonymous #58437020: Between May and June this year, the Petaling Jaya OCPD (officer in charge of police district) was reported to have said there were 319 cases of smash-and-grab robbers.

That's an average of five cases a day in the Klang Valley. What are they doing about it? How can they allow this kind of violent robbery to take place in broad daylight?

In my neighbourhood, a robber smashed the car window pane on the driver's side and the victim was cut. Her child was in the car.

Anonymous #58437020: IGP, please explain how is it that in this country women cannot drive safely. How is it that robbers can come right up to our cars, smash their windows and run away with our personal belongings and you have never been able to catch them?

What is the sentence for such violent offences? Do they get away scot free or do you put them 10 years behind bars?

Pillion drivers carrying assault weapons are traversing all over Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya and we have not seen you catch one of these robbers.

As for your statistics, please note that we have many friends who have been robbed but they are so tired of your inaction that they don't bother to report to the police anymore.

Please go down to the streets and do some proper surveillance. Observation cameras are not checked, and ‘mat rempit' robbers continue to attack drivers at traffic jams, in housing estates and outside offices.

Odin: Sorry, IGP Ismail Omar, but the public can't rely on your figures - not when they have been revised three times for submission to Parliament recently, and each set got lower than the last one.

You and your men protect only one party, and pay lip service at protecting the others.

Anonymous_3f6d: The police chief actually dares to announce this. The residents of Bandar Sri Damansara collected RM1.2 million in the last 12 months to pay for their own security. Indeed, the entire population of Malaysia find it hard to be grateful to the police.

Anonymous #58437020: Dear IGP, please furnish weekly nationwide crime statistics to the local media.

As one of the most highly paid civil servants in this country, and also the most powerful, only you will be able to provide such statistics. So, please do so without the opposition having to ask for them.

Queenie: More than ever I am afraid to walk unaccompanied these days, yet I am told the crime rate has fallen 26 percent. This is hard to believe.

Anonymous #58437020: Please go to this Facebook page . Today itself two victims got attacked in their cars. This is the site where victims write about their experiences, and there are daily updates.

Thetruth: We need an independent agency or NGO to verify the crime index provided by the PDRM (Royal Malaysian Police).

I think majority of the people do not feel safe at all. Something is not right.

Caripasal: Instead of battling the actual criminal activities, the police are working hard to reduce the numbers - the crime index.

Numbers do not alter the fear of the general public about their safety, inside or outside their homes. Numbers can lie but not our perception.

Anticommunalist: The IGP needs to get his head checked. From snatch thefts, kidnapping, break-ins, the reality on the ground shows it has gone up a few times more than in the past.

Even VIPs and expats are living in fear of crime. If crime has been reduced, why has the fear gone up?

Kgen: Where do these statistics come from? Cooked up by Pemandu? Lies cannot cover the fact that the public do not feel safe at all and their perception is that crime has increased, not decreased.

Disgusted: It is all a matter of perception on both sides - down on the side of police and up on the side of rakyat.

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