I refer to the Malaysiakini report Our perception of crime must change: Najib.

We need fresh, new ideas for measures to curb the tidal wave of robbery and indiscriminate violence on the streets in metro Kuala Lumpur. The area is fast gaining the reputation of Mugsville, Southeast Asia.

A Thai national working at a restaurant in Petaling Jaya was hacked to death after being robbed and sodomised on Nov 25 by four guys on motorcycle. The brutal murder of Yew Sue Tan and the serious injury to her husband on Nov 26 in Klang, as they tried to protect their 12-year-old daughter from a mugging, is but one tragic story among many, barely reported in the national press. The attackers were likewise four men on motorcycles, armed with parang. You can stayed informed here.

Expatriate teachers at risk: A visiting senior lecturer at the Universiti Malaya was attacked and badly injured near College Nine several weeks ago. Two robbers struck him with a motorcycle helmet, and he suffered a severe concussion, facial wounds requiring over 20 stitches and injuries that may be longer-term. This was on a security-patrolled lorong where many UM students walk to class and to local restaurants in the evening.

Two other visiting professors were mugged last year in downtown KL on the very first evening of their arrival in Malaysia. Understandably, that traumatised them for the duration of their year’s stay here, although they came to love the country, and value working with students and staff.

If Malaysian universities actively seek to recruit more international staff, they need to be more concerned about ensuring their basic safety and well-being. Expatriate educators are clearly more vulnerable to attack, since most have no means of private transport, and may walk to work and shop, often alone.

In addition, some may be specifically stalked and targeted by potential muggers. Many hesitate to take a taxi alone, since stories are circulating about taxi drivers collaborating with muggers in KL to rob passengers. Many expat teachers are carrying pepper sprays in their pockets, a now common local accessory.

Students in fear: A number of my students at UM have themselves been victimised on the street, or have friends who have been assaulted by snatch thieves, and worse. Dark tales abound.

While the government focuses new efforts on attracting sponsored students from Muslim countries to study here, I have heard that even more foreign students in and around KL are advising friends back home against coming to Malaysia for study.

The higher education minister should commission an in-depth empirical survey to assess the concrete dangers to international (and local) students and visiting lecturers, and how they perceive this. Fear is widespread and definitely on the rise on KL’s campuses.

Rukun Tetangga: One option for greater street safety for us all is to organise neighborhood patrol units, along the lines of the existing Rukun Tetangga, made up of trained volunteers to work hand-in-hand with the police in extra patrolling of sensitive spots. Students could also be recruited for this work.

There are tested models for such volunteer patrol initiatives around the city here, which the PJ City Council, for example, could reinvigorate. And many abroad, with excellent results, as for example in Phoenix, Arizona.

In San Francisco, the Guardian Angels , in their red berets and white T-shirts, are a volunteer citizens’ patrol unit that has made the streets a lot safer.

‘Harambee!’: Hiring more police for community patrol is costly, and police personnel have a variety of other duties. Neighborhood patrol initiatives are a low-cost grassroots way of keeping communities safer, and getting citizens to assume more pro-active responsibility for local safety.

Such patrol volunteering is a great school for what is called in East Africa as ‘harambee’, the coming together as one to solve a pressing problem.

Inventive approaches to address the underlying causes of crime are also imperative, including far more social workers to help youth out of poverty, and teach kids simple human empathy and social solidarity.

It’s high time to brainstorm for community self-help options to make the streets safer, for everyone. Harambee!