Do we have the dubious honour of holding a world record in having a police force with the highest concentration of its personnel not involved in crime fighting?

This is the question raised by DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang today in response to a statement by a deputy home minister that only half of the 85,000-strong police force are involved in checking crime and traffic duties.

Deputy minister Chor Chee Heung was reported as saying in The Star today that the remaining half were involved in other duties such as providing escort to VIPs or serving in the administrative or logistics departments.

"I want to ask whether Malaysia holds the world record in having a police force with the highest concentration of its police personnel not assigned to crime fighting to protect the people to ensure the safety of streets, public spaces and homes, but to inconsequential tasks of providing escorts for VIPs or to protect the political regime and suppress the legitimate activities of the citizens to express or assemble peacefully?" said Lim in a statement.

Irresponsible action

The veteran leader also pointed to another conflicting statement by Federal CID director Salleh Mat Som on Wednesday that the police crime-fighters numbered less than 6,000 while 240,000 crimes were reported annually.

"It is a most irresponsible misdeployment and misallocation of police personnel where only some seven percent of the 85,000 police personnel are assigned to fight crime, when this should be the most important police agenda involving at least 30 pe cent of the police personnel," he said.

He said by taking into consideration Salleh's figures that less than half of that 6,000 police personnel are investigating officers, the whole country would then have only about 3,000 police personnel or 3.5 percent of the entire police force involved in the police beat.

"And this aspect is the most important visible and tangible sign of robust public police presence to reduce crime and the fear of crime!," he said.

Lim said that the conflicting statements by Chor and senior police officers only underlined the urgent need for a full public inquiry into the police function in the country.

Confusing statement

He also criticised Chor for making confusing statements about the police to population ratio.

Yesterday, the deputy minister clarified that the ration of 1:3,000 given by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also home minister, was in actual fact the ratio in places where the population was high and after deducting the number of police personnel in departments, which were not involved in crime fighting or traffic duties.

Abdullah had revealed the figure last Saturday when he announced that the government planned to hire 23,000 officers to beef up the police force as the current 1:3,000 police to population ratio is high compared to the 1:300 in many developed countries.

However, Lim then pointed out that about 80,000 police officers in a country with a population of 23 million, the ratio is closer to 1:300, putting Malaysia among those in the world with the lowest police to population ratio. (See chart)

"If the police and government cannot do proper mathematics about the number of police personnel, and are unable to reconcile satisfactorily and convincingly the conflicting and gaping police to population ratio between 1:300 and 1:3,000 ... then the rot in the police leadership and the scandal of mismanagement must be even more serious than the worst fears of the public," he said Lim today.