Fear of crime among Malaysians dropped from 80 percent in 2015 to 61 percent this year, said Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Citing a study by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu), he said 51 percent of the respondents were satisfied with the overall police service in their area.

"Some 59 per cent were satisfied with the level of service at police stations while some 62 percent of crime victims never made police reports. And some 63 percent said they were affected by police misconduct,” said Ahmad Zahid, who is also Home Minister.

He said in a statement that 65 percent of the respondents were worried about crime in their area while some 67 percent were worried about walking outdoors at night.

Ahmad Zahid said that sense of fear dropped from 0.80 in 2015 to 0.72 this year. (Sense of fear is measured on a scale of 1.00 to 0.)

The study, entitled National Key Result Area Reducing Crime: Perception of Crime Indicator, was conducted under the National Transformation Programme and involved 14,393 e-survey respondents.

- Bernama