Yesterday, a friend asked me, “John, why do you want to be involved in community policing?” I told him that I was participating in community policing by working with the police closely to build a safer community so that we have a better quality of life by reducing crime in our neighbourhood.
Community policing can be carried out effectively with citizen participation either through the various community associations, neighbourhood crime watch groups and organised community policing groups like the Sarawak Community Policing Association (SCPA). I shared with him that in SCPA, we connect with the residents in housing estates in either the WeChat or WhatsApp group so that the residents can publish in the chat groups as and when they find suspicious figures in the neighbourhood; the residents can either inform the police immediately or request SCPA members who are also members in the chat group to call the police. In this way, community and police co-production in crime prevention shall help in crime reduction and citizen perception on fear of crime.
To his other question “How safe is Kuching?”, I answered confidently that Kuching was very safe as crime had dropped, citizen perception on fear of crime had dropped, too.
This is confirmed by my survey with 500 people in Kuching and official crime statistics. He asked if Kuching was safe,why were there still thieves around the city. My friend was thinking when a place was safe, there was zero crime. Thieves are always round in urban areas due to many reasons which include unemployment, cost of living, economic situation and habits developed since childhood.
I said Kuching was very safe because there was a drop in crime reported to the police and citizen perception on fear of crime was only 17.9%. SCPA members always grab every first opportunity to distribute crime prevention leaflets to residents and shoppers to create awareness of the importance of prevention by taking necessary precautionary steps to avoid creating an opportunity for a person with a criminal mind to attack us.
I would also say that Kuching is safe because more and more citizens take the necessary precautionary steps to prevent crime from taking place. Because prevention is better than cure.
My recent studies of interviewing 500 persons in Kuching concerning crime level, 80% confirmed that when the police and citizen patrolled their neighbourhoods, they all felt very safe as the police involved the community in crime prevention. Let us as members of this community join hands with the police in pursuit of crime prevention. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the OCPD Kuching, ACP Ng Ah Lek and his team for doing an outstanding job in keeping Kuching safe.
My sincere appreciation to the Crime Prevention and Community Safety Division of the Royal Malaysia Police for introducing friendly crime prevention exercise in the community. Well done, YDH Dato and YDH Tuan !
