A new public security pressure group announced it will produce documents exposing the government’s manipulation of crime indices, as part of its agenda to battle surging crime.  

Formed by a group of lawyers, NGO activists and concerned citizens, Safer Malaysia aims to engage various stakeholders, including the authorities, to provide solutions on how to make Malaysia a safer place, said lawyer Richard Wee who spearheads the project.

police crime roadblock However, to achieve this, the authorities need to admit shortcomings in the current crime busting and prosecution system, Wee added.

At the group’s first gathering at a restaurant in Petaling Jaya today, lawyer Yip Huen Weng said the upcoming exposure of documents will shed light on how the government’s crime rate statistics had been arrived at.

He explained that the government, through its National Key Results Areas (NKRA), has included items like corruption as one of the 14 crime categories that reflects on the overall crime index.

NONE There are sub-categories under these categories, which could be revised and updated from time to time, he added.

 

“When they claim a crime category (index) has gone down, we don’t exactly know which of the sub-categories show reductions,” he said.

Yip also noted that no specific time frame was ever reflected on the period in which the statistics were collected.

“If they say the crime index has reduced, I challenge them to release the figures on each crime sub-category, and also the time when the data was collected,” he said.

Safest SEA country, not

Yip also debunked the government’s boast that Malaysia is the safest country in Southeast Asia as indicated in the recently-announced Global Peace Index, pointing out that only two of the Index’s 23 examining criteria are related to crime.

azlan “Of course Malaysia scored very low in terrorist trends and the purchase of weapons,” he said.

Safer Malaysia was initiated about a month ago, as group members were sick of becoming victims of crime.    

“I got a 100 percent record of friends falling victim to crime. All these happened in the last two years,” said Wee.

 

Though Safer Malaysia has yet to form a committee, the group revealed plans during the gathering today, that range from short to long term to pursue their cause.

Come Aug 1, they plan to hold a candlelight vigil in Centre Park, Bukit Utama at 9am to create awareness about the state of crime in Malaysia.

They also plan to submit a memorandum detailing suggested solutions and proposing reforms to the authorities, as well as a draft parliamentary bill concerning private carparks safety.