KTemoc's advice to Police

The normally very silent Malaysian IGP of Police, who was virtually mute during the Squatgate disgrace involving police abuse, has now informed us that police have found it tough going in its fight against fraud cases such as criminal breach of trust (better known in Malaysia as just CBT), cheating and forgery. He admitted only a 33% success rate, this performance in the face of those criminals sucking up almost a billion ringgit in over 6000 cases last year, and with such cases on the increase each year.

He claimed that the police had been more successful in solving other crimes such as rape, murder and drug cases. The success rate exceeded 40%, so in reality this figure still isn’t something to crow over.

He gave the reason as the under-staffing in the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID). It’s only the beginning of this year that the CCID increased its staff by 400%, from 80 to 320. Another factor is of course the specialised qualifications for criminal investigation officers who would need, apart from experience, qualifications in law, accounting, multimedia, forensic accounting, and banking.

Obviously all of we, except the fraudsters, support his padding up of the CCID, but may I, KTemoc, a do-nothing-useful blogger, offer some suggestions to our dear and very shy IGP not only on planning ahead for the CCID but also on other elements of the police force.

Resources are expensive assets and should only be employed on tasks beneficial to the public. They shouldn’t be used extravagantly or at the drop of a VVIP's hat to harass innocent people such as peaceful protestors, journalists, bloggers, opposition members, argumentative university students, exuberant spectators at rock concerts, and such likes.

The other issue is to ensure that the members of the police force themselves are above reproach. So often we hear of police open extortion and equally open corruption, where even making a police report requires paying the reporting officer a private 'service fee' that I would guarantee is not gazetted under the official list of police fees.

And it's not cheap too. A couple of months back, we read in the newspaper that a police constable stopped a Japanese student and demanded RM500. Then, in another incident, to expedite the confirmation of passports and residency documents for detained Chinese nationals, wives of Malaysians, the unfortunate and very much distressed husbands were told to 'cough' up.

I would recommend the IGP and other senior police officers read the local newspapers because all the above are not state secrets but were published. And just remember, your police serve the Malaysian public who pay their salary.