Inspector-General of Police Ismail Omar has defended the crime statistics provided by the police as accurate despite widespread scepticism over the fall in the crime rate.

azlan The data was accurate, Ismail said, as it matched other studies done independently, such as the World Peace Project where Malaysia was ranked first in 19 middle-income countries studied.

The New Straits Times today quoted Ismail as saying that these studies showed a correlation between crime statistics and crime success stories, indicating that the crime statistics were not fudged.

However, he did not deny that there was a gap between reported and unreported cases.

"We have long suspected that many victims of crime do not lodge reports because of embarrassment, fear of reprisal, lack of confidence in the police or a desire to avoid contact with the authorities," the English daily quotes Ismail as saying.

Police recently announced that the crime index had dropped 11 percent over the past two years, while street crime in January to May 2012 dropped 43 percent compared with the same period in 2009.

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