Malaysian crime rate down?

I guess congratulations are in order for the continuing success of the reforms implemented under the ruling Malaysian government's National Transformation Programme as mentioned by the Prime Minister on Monday. One of the highlights mentioned in the report was the fact that street crime has gone down by 39 percent while crime rate in general has decreased by 11 percent since 2009.

Why am I feeling jittery despite the stated drop of street crime by 39 percent? Some might say personal incidents that happened in the past might have affected my perception of how safe our country is now compared to a few years ago. I could have accepted that argument if not for a recent theft that happened to an acquaintance.

She was at the automatic teller machine at a bank's branch when she was robbed of her cash and other valuables. She was thankful that she was not physically harmed and went to the nearest police station to lodge a report. Unfortunately, the personnel at that station did not want to accept her report as the robbery occurred outside of their jurisdiction. At this juncture, she did try to persuade the personnel at that station to accept the report as the hassle of going to the correct station is just beyond her capability at that time. She felt another ride to another station would be just too much of a stressful ordeal after what she had just endured. She became very upset when the personnel was adamant that they are just following the proper procedure. They were sympathetic and understood her predicament but were unable to help.

The victim in this case finally decided not to make a report as she was not in the right frame of mind to go to another police station after her traumatic experience. She still had her important documents such as her identity card and felt that the valuables lost did not warrant further hassles of just trying to make a simple report. Would this case be taken into account when the authorities calculate their statistics on crime reduction? How many of such cases are there nationwide?

Victims of a crime faced a life changing experience when those robbers chose them as their target. No one wants to be a victim but when it happens we try to cope and be more alert in future. The mere presence of more police personnel does help in making the public more confident in going through their daily lives safely and reducing the chances of being a victim. Alas, the procedures in place when a crime does happen tend to be a dampener. Victims need assurance that their cases are not dismissed as mere statistics or ignored. Are there any victims who are cool and collected after the incident? Most probably they will be in shock that they had fallen victim to a crime. The police need to use a more humane approach when dealing with such victims. They do not need coddling but at least some semblance of an understanding that their ordeal is not theirs alone to bear.

I am still unconvinced that the crime rate has gone down.

Image from ibunoor