AUG 13 — The news about the mother of a 16-year old girl being ticked off by the police for lodging a report about her daughter being molested in her classroom on the pretext of doing a body search for a hidden handphone by the deputy chairman of the school PTA is not surprising.

This is not something new in the police force. About 10 years ago a woman’s handbag was snatched in a housing estate in Kulim in broad daylight. She lodged a report at the Kulim police station. The frontliner who took the report wrote “bag tangan saya telah tercicir”. The woman, who speaks pasar Malay and is not Malay educated, did not know what had been written. She needed a report to apply for a new identity card as that was required at that time. By writing “cicir” instead of “ragut”, there was no snatch theft report in the statistics. Street crime reduced.

In the mid-80s, someone was assaulted by an unknown person near the secondary school at Batu 2 Jalan Kuala Ketil, Sungai Petani. He was injured. The investigating officer (IO) at the Sungai Petani police station, an inspector, when recording his statement, wrote “telah cuba memukul saya” when he could see the bleeding injuries on the person. This person was educated. He read the statement and asked the IO why he had recorded “telah cuba memukul” when what was said was “telah memukul”. The IO corrected the statement. But it was not until three days later that he went to the place to find any evidence that might be available, e.g. strands of hair that might identify the assailant. No evidence. Another crime was down. 

So you see, the police are very innovative in carrying out their duties of keeping crime down. They use logic: if you can’t raise the bridge to let a boat pass under it, then lower the river by dredging it. Similarly, if you cannot keep crime down by being honest in fighting it, then just fiddle with the reports and investigations and produce statistics that show crime going down. What statistics show depends on the honesty of the people producing them. They can either give a fairly accurate picture, or they can give a totally untrue picture. The rampant crime today is evidence that all the beautiful statistics of crime going down were not the work of honest people.    

So if you want to make light of your duties as a policeman, and at the same time receive praises, accolades, commendations, promotions and so on, do it the smart way — change the complainant’s story at the first opportunity, or even discourage the complainant from making a report. The discouragement is done directly or indirectly by taking no action on reports so others don’t even go to the police stations to make reports which they believe are not going to be investigated.

This way, everyone up the ranks is happy. The IOs minimise the cases they have to handle and try to close the files as soon as possible with “NFA” (no further action) or “RM” (refer to magistrate). The heads of the police districts are happy as statistics show very little crime, if any, in their districts. The state chief police officers can brag about how clean their states are of crime. And at the pinnacle, the nation is told that crime is down and going further down.

Now, who in the chain of command will know what had happened in the first place, i.e. at the very first stage of lodging a report and at the IO level? Or does anyone higher up the ranks care about it? Should an OCPD be strict with his downlines and ensure they are honest in their work, statistics might show crime rising in his district, or not going down. This will be seen by some higher ups as his inefficiency in running the show in his police district and affect his promotion chances. So, should one be honest and jeopardise one’s career prospects, or put prospects before duty and allow (or close his eyes to) his downlines to produce statistics showing crime going down?  

Policing cannot be what it should be if people involved in it are not honest. Honesty is the basis for good policing. All the modern equipment and facilities will not produce the desired results if that one ingredient — HONESTY — at all levels, is missing.

If there are dishonest postmen who can dump bagfuls of mail into ravines, though their deeds could be found out and the recovered mail would be damning evidence against them, can we believe there is no dishonesty in the police force where it is more difficult to detect?

The root cause of what the public sees as inefficiency of the police is actually DISHONESTY among the rank and file of the force.

The police seems to have taken to heart very seriously the mantra that if you tell a lie and repeat it often enough, the people will believe it is the truth. In police work, being honest to maintain law and order is tough work, whereas it is much easier to produce statistics showing “good policing” by being dishonest.

So until and unless DISHONESTY can be eradicated from the rank and file of the police, no amount of modern or sophisticated equipment is going to make any real change. I don’t believe all policemen are dishonest, but there certainly are dishonest ones.   

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.