The Performance and Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) expects that the July 9 rally would have adversely effected public perception of the police.

NONE Speaking to reporters after a media briefing on the Government Transformation Programme, national key results area director for crime reduction Eugene Teh Yee (left) said that would be a "reverse" to  improvements in perception since 2009.

"Yes, (the level of public perception on police) will take a hit, but hopefully we can improve on this," he said of the quarterly survey in Petaling Jaya today.

The downslide is expected to show in the next round of results, which are expected to be released by September.

Among the possible reasons for the downslide in police approval ratings, he said, was the speed in which the public shared information about heavy-handedness by police on the day.

"Pictures and videos were circulating immediately, but police took several days to show their side of the story," he said.

NONE Eye witness accounts of purported police brutality hit the Internet moments after an estimated 15,000 hit the streets of Kuala Lumpur to march for clean and fair elections.

A study commissioned by Pemandu and conducted by research company TNS survey conducted in May showed that 55 percent of the 2000 people polled were satisfied with the police service, a jump from 35.8 percent in December 2009.

One in two Malaysians afraid of being crime victims

Another KPI measured in the TNS survey was ‘the fear of crime’ where 48.9 percent of respondents said that they are afraid of being victims of crime.

This is an improvement from 58.5 percent in December 2009.

Overall crime reduced by 9.6 percent in the first half of 2011 compared to 2010, while reported street crime dropped by a whopping 41.6 percent compared to Jan to June 2009.

Among the initiatives for 2011 include “meet the customer” days to foster community engagement and feedback forms at police stations so to allow the public to rate police force frontline services.

The “meet the customer” days which started last month, however, was cancelled on state levels due to the July 9 rally.

Teh also admitted that some of the police stations did not know that they were supposed to hold “meet-the-customer” days due to communication breakdown.

Members of the public can bring their grouses against the police to district police stations on the second Thursday and last Saturday of each month.

State police chiefs are supposed to hold “meet-the-customer” days on the fourth Thursday of every month.