DAP kicked off its new public awareness campaign aimed at combating the rising rate of crime with a forum last night in Kuala Lumpur.

Arriving late from Parliament, Opposition Leader and DAP chief Lim Kit Siang took centre stage and delivered a rousing speech to a audience of 200, who attended the forum entitled 'War On Crime'.

In his trilingual speech, Lim stressed the need for greater public collaboration with the police and that there is a dire need for more police officers to combat crime effectively.

"We are not here to run down the police, but we are here to offer help to the police in creating a crime free society. No police force can ensure policing effectively on its own," said Lim

Lim blamed his delay on the prolonged debate in Parliament over a motion tabled by BN MPs to refer his deputy, Karpal Singh to Parliament Privileges Committee.

"Why should Parliament waste two to three hours time debating this when it should be concentrating on this," said Lim as he held up a front-page newspaper report on the latest victim of snatch theft.

"Why are we living in fear, where there is no individual safety and community security?" asked a emotional Lim.

Lim explained that he was not out to discredit the police, but said that the DAP was willing to help the police combat crime.

He said that this present campaign was held to empower the public and encourage them to be proactive and be willing to collaborate with the police.

"No police force can ensure policing on its own. We hope that this (campaign) will create a (better) relationship between the public and police to roll back the rate of crime," said Lim to thunderous applause.

Police reflects society

Speaking on behalf of the police force, Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department representative Supt Ng Guat Choo said that the crime index used in Malaysia and also by Interpol, shows that Malaysia has seen a declining crime rate since 2000.

Giving her personal opinion, she told the audience that there are deficiencies in the force, which would hamper their effort to fight crime.

"Yes, slow responses (to reports) do happen. Police are not all angels. There are a lot of black sheep among us," said Ng.

However, she assured the audience that despite such shortcomings, the present administration has the determination to tackle the problems, and that action has already been taken as highlighted by the media.

She urged that the public to make use of the situation, and be more vocal in expressing their views to the authorities.

"The police force is a reflection of society. If each of us come forward to pressure the leadership. I assure you your grouses will be heard," she said.

Policing plan

Lim said that there is a need for a 'policing plan' in which the public and police can collectively determine problems and solutions.

"We need a policing plan which needs the involvement, participation and consultation of the public. For example, the public can help the police to determine a 'black' (crime prone) area as well as find ways of making it 'white'," said Lim.

Lim hoped that the police force would also look into the problem of manpower. He said that there are presently not enough police officers tackling criminal cases and that the population-police ratio in urban areas are not reflective of the national ratio.

Similarly, DAP national publicity chief Ronnie Liu commented during the public dialog session that the police should consider redeployment of forces to beef up the number of officers tackling crime.

"Government figures show that there are less than 10 percent of police officers actually involved in fighting crime. The government should reduce the number of SB's (special branch), FRU (Federal Reserve Unit) and outriders for VIPs (and redeploy them into active crime fighting)," he said.