A national survey revealed that Malaysians are now feeling safer both in the streets and at home compared to last year.

The fear of becoming a victim of crime in Malaysia has declined from 58.5 percent in December 2009 to 55.1 percent in May 2010, said TNS Research International, the country’s largest market research company.

NONE According to TNS, the definition of crime includes violent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, and property crimes such as burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

TNS managing director Yazid Jamian described the 3.4 percent drop within such a short time period as “significant”.

This marks a commendable improvement as it indicates that Malaysians are now less fearful of becoming victim of crime, he said.

The results are based on a random sample of 1,200 Malaysians aged 18 years and above covering both urban and rural areas in which respondents participated in a 30-minute face-to-face interview.

Last year’s survey was conducted in December in the bid to measure the effectiveness in the crime reduction initiative under the Government Transformation Programme (GTP). A repeat of the survey was done in May this year to measure its impact.

“The ‘robbery and burglary’ component of the index saw the highest improvement with an 11 percent drop while the ‘violence’ component also recorded an improvement,” said Yazid.

Higher satisfaction of police services

TNS has also found in another survey that Malaysians’ satisfaction with the services provided by the police has increased from 35.8 percent in December 2009 to 42.2 percent in May 2010.

NONE The survey saw the participation of 607 respondents, with a minimum of 150 respondents for each hotspot location in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor.

The predominantly urban respondents were ‘intercepted’ at police stations by TNS researchers after they had lodged crime-related police reports.

They were asked a set of questions in three categories – the process of making police report, the police’s effort in addressing crime, and their treatment from police personnel.     

    

“In the ‘making police report’ category, the level of satisfaction improved from 36.5 percent in December 2009 to 42.8 percent in May 2010,” said Yazid.

“The ‘addressing crime’ and ‘treatment from police personnel at the police station’ categories also saw improvements from 34.3 percent to 40.5 percent and 36.6 percent to 43.3 percent respectively in the same time period.”

Yazid said that the performance score of frontline services at the police stations - at 68 points - is “moderately good”, compared to retail and banking services which generally average above 70 points, while public authorities average at about 60 points.