Effective policing, community play vital role in crime prevention

KUALA LUMPUR: The Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) is dedicated to making society crime free and its goal is to achieve world-class status in terms of policing and to enhance its role in the delivery and monitoring of policing services.
Outreach methods to get the cooperation of the community is nothing new and was practised by the government during the communist insurgency from 1945 until the 1970s.
It made Malaysia one of the three countries in the world to defeat the communist threat other than Greece and the Philippines.
Federal Police Director of Crime Prevention and Eradication (JPPJ) Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob (pix), told Bernama the approach was proven to be effective to fight any criminal element now.
"Now is not the time for the police to be in a cocoon by ourselves, we have to reach out to the people. We need expertise and need public involvement to acquire ideas and views available in every sector of the community," he told Bernama in conjunction with the 207th Police Day which will be celebrated on Tuesday themed 'Komuniti Sejahtera, Komitmen Kami'.
The police also have to work together with non-governmental organisations, the corporate sector, the various ministries and other security forces, said Ayub.
The police signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with several universities and of late with the National Council of Professors in February. The collaboration with several universities will inject the spirit of volunteerism at the university level, he added.
"We have designed our Police Undergraduate Student Volunteer Corps (Suksis) in such a way that they automatically become members of the Police Volunteer Reserve (PVR)."
According to police records in Bukit Aman there are about 15,000 PVR members and this year 10,000 more will be recruited nationwide and this practice will continue annually.
Reaching out to the people alone is not enough, the police must carry out a number of initiatives like community policing, Volunteer Patrol Scheme (SRS) and so on which would effectively increase public confidence in the police.
At least 200,000 members registered for the SRS crime prevention patrol duty to be supervised by the police while 80,000 people were involved in Community Policing nationwide.
Ayub is confident policing responsibilities lies not only with the force but also with the people and their cooperation is vital to prevent crime. – Bernama