Jilid 2, Bilangan 2, Januari - Disember 2007

THE CHANGING TREND AND PATTERN OF PUBLIC SAFETY IN

MALAYSIA SINCE INDEPENDENCE: IMPLICATIONS TO ITS SOCIAL
WELL-BEING

Asmah Ahmad
School of Social, Development and Environmental Studies
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43600 Bangi, Selangor

Abstract

Incidences of killings, robberies, traffic accidents and fires have become regular
newspapers headlines and breaking news on television. They are reminders of the losses
and sufferings of members of the public. All these are indicative of the state of social
well-being experienced by the people of a nation. In Malaysia, these incidences are
discernible during rapid pace of development. It is thus the aim of this article to examine
the trend of social well-being from the perspective of public safety in Malaysia since
independence, and how it affects the overall welfare of the people. Analysis of the status
of public safety in Malaysia is examined from the perspective of road accidents, fire
breakouts and cause of death from homicides and other violence, as well as factors that
contributed to such phenomenal occurrences. Data is obtained from available official
published data, in particular, Population Census, State Data Banks, Social Bulletins etc.
The results of the analysis revealed an increasing threat to public safety in Malaysia, with
the Malaysian public facing greater exposure and falling victim to various crimes that
resulted in injuries, fatalities and property losses. Urbanization, economic and
infrastructural development were contributing factors to increasing threat to public safety.

Keywords: Social well-being, security, public safety, crimes, accidents

Abstrak

Kejadian pembunuhan, rompakan, kemalangan jalanraya dan kebakaran sering menjadi

tajuk sensasi akhbar dan berita utama di televisyen. Kejadian tersebut mengingatkan kita
semula betapa parahnya kehilangan, kenestapaan dan kesengsaraan yang dialami oleh
ahli masyarakat. Hal ini membayangkan keadaan kesejahteraan sosial yang dialami oleh
penduduk sesebuah negara. Di Malaysia, peningkatan kejadian jenayah mula dikesan
pada ketika negara mengalami pembangunan yang pesat sejak mencapai kemerdekaan
pada tahun 1957. Justeru, makalah ini bertujuan mengkaji arah aliran kesejahteraan sosial
daripada perspektif keselamatan awam di Malaysia sejak merdeka, dan bagaimana
keselamatan awam ini mempengaruhi kebajikan penduduk. Status keselamatan awam di
Malaysia dikaji berasaskan kedapatan data rasmi sedia ada yang diterbitkan terutama
daripada Banci Penduduk, Bank Data Negeri, Buletin Sosial dll. Aspek keselamatan
awam yang dikaji ialah kemalangan jalanraya, kebakaran dan sebab kematian daripada
pembunuhan dan kejadian jenayah lain. Faktor penyebab yang menyumbang kepada

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peningkatan kejadian jenayah juga diberi perhatian. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahawa
ancaman ke atas keselamatan awam di Malaysia kian meningkat apabila khalayak awam
lebih terdedah dan menjadi mangsa pelbagai jenayah yang berlaku sehingga
menyebabkan kecederaan, kematian dan kehilangan harta benda. Pembandaran,
pembangunan ekonomi dan prasarana berperanan sebagai faktor penyumbang kepada
peningkatan ancaman ke atas keselamatan awam di Malaysia.

Kata kunci: Kesejahteraan sosial, keselamatan, keselamatan awam, jenayah, kemalangan

INTRODUCTION

Social well-being is the degree to which a population’s needs and wants are being met
(Johnston et al. 2000). It reflects the quality of life enjoyed by individuals or groups.
Quality of life, on the other hand, is the state of the people’s social well-being as they
perceived it or as it is identified by observable indicators. The latter could be attributed to
the various goods (and bads) enjoyed or endured by the population. Thus studies on
quality of life normally concentrate on aspects of the human condition as it pertains to
their social, economic and psychological lives (Smith 1994; 1996; Yapa 1996; Sutcliffe
2001; Nurizan Yahya 1998; Campbell 1993).
Although social-well being as a term suffers from precise definition, it can be best
understood by decomposing its dependent variables. Some consensus were achieved
regarding its components (Coates et al. 1977; Miller et al. 1967; Smith 1973), the most
comprehensive is the one devised by the United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development (UNRISD 1966) which listed nine basic components of social well-being,
namely, nutrition, shelter, health, education, leisure, security, social stability, physical
environment and surplus income. Whilst the first three denote physical needs, the
following five components encompass cultural needs, and the final component, surplus
income, signifies higher needs. Asmah (2000) in her study on spatial inequality of social
well-being in Malaysia, reiterates the nine components and the importance and
significance of each in understanding well-being and spatial inequality in Malaysia. To
that effect, the orientation of this article is to focus on the attribute of social well-being
and quality of life that pertains to that of fulfilling one of the many human cultural needs
i.e. security.

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The importance of security to social well-being can be indicated by listing the

areas of life which it covers. Basically, security has two important dimensions. The first
is the security of the person, or public safety, which is of course at risk from the whole
spectrum of violence from war, civil war, and regimes of terror to riots, gangsterism, and
criminality. Second is security of the way of life particularly of being able to maintain a
given level of well-being once it has been achieved (Coates et al. 1977). Such security is
low when human rights are denied, when participation in politics, planning, industry, and
consumer affairs is restricted, when criminal justice is partial, when property and
property rights are unprotected, when unemployment, sickness, and accidents are not
covered by insurance or benefits, and when the aged and the infirm are without proper
care and adequate money income. Low security can therefore mean poverty, ill health,
ignorance and stress.
Whilst security of the way of life maintains the prolonging of human dignity, the
relativity and unavailability of data hinders it from being readily analysed. More readily
available and objective are data pertaining to that of public safety. This article therefore
aims to examine the trend of social well-being from the perspective of public safety in
Malaysia and how it affects the overall welfare of the people. The status of public safety
in Malaysia shall be examined based on available published data.

MEASURING SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND PUBLIC SAFETY

Professionals, be they academics, planners, administrators etc., often ask questions of a

specific nature, hence, the measurement of social well-being is often fractional, through
the examination and analysis of single components such as health, housing or education.
But these components are ultimately interrelated, overlapping and sometimes conflicting
in a complex way, so that in many circumstances it is necessary to take a more general
view of the situation. The human mind, no matter how specialized or sophisticated,
persists in wanting to know whether things in general are getting better or worse; and the
policy-maker must know the effects of particular decisions on social well-being in
general. Furthermore, if we accept the need for social policies of any sort, then we must

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also have some means of evaluating and monitoring their success in terms of maintaining
or increasing social well-being.
The traditional yardsticks used to measure progress in spatial well-being have
been the economist’s indices of production and consumption, supplemented by income
levels and rates of unemployment and industrial growth. But the measuring rod of money
often overlooks the many aspects of social well-being, which are impossible to gauge in
financial terms alone. As a result new yardsticks of social conditions have been found in
measuring social well-being and its various components by aggregate bundles of social
variables namely social indicators. The latter are integrated systems of social reporting
using indicators that could be related to policies in much the same way as the cost of
living index and rates of inflation are related to economic policies. But of interest are
those indicators that aim at some comprehensive measure of well-being, the sort that
Carlisle (1972) calls informative indicators.
There is, however, more to the ‘what’ question (indicators) than establishing lists
of conditions that might satisfactorily define living standards, well-being or some such
state. If anything precise is to be said about well-being and its patterns of incidence,
relevant conditions must be subject to measurement. This requires further clarification of
the meaning of the various components of well-being such as health, education, leisure,
and so on, and their operational definition in the form of specific numerical indicators.
It follows that public safety as a concept is difficult to measure but aspects of
public safety are possible to measure. This leads us to find out which aspects or
conditions of public safety could be measured and are relevant in conveying the meaning
and degree of the incidences. Thus public safety may be measured by the incidence of
criminality as the number of crimes may indicate the degree of risk that the public is
subjected to. But it is seldom the case that the meaning of a condition is so clear as to be
adequately captured by just one indicator, so the measurement of public safety, for
example, may require recourse to a batch of criminality, damages and other acts that
threatened public safety. As such, anything that can put public life at risk either from
bodily injuries or deaths, damage to property and disruption of psychological well-being
that can instill a sense of insecurity among the people such as crimes, assaults, rapes,

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traffic accidents, fire breakouts etc. are indicative of incidences that could jeopardize
security and public safety.
Of late, there has not been a day that passes without news in the media, be it
electronic or print, that conveys the goring incidents of killings, or gruesome but
unnecessary and senseless motor accidents, or the inhalation of toxic fumes from fire
breakouts which more often than not result in not only fatalities but also damage and loss
of property. Headlines in the local dailies have been full of such incidents:

Blaze destroys warehouse (New Straits Times November 18, 2004).

They should have been celebrating…instead they all died. These 26 people
(pictures given) should have been with their families and friends for the festive
season (Deepavali and Eid). Instead, they and 139 others were killed in road
crashes over the last two weeks (New Straits Times November 20, 2004).

300 made homeless in predawn blaze (n.d)

Woman found dead with throat cut (New Straits Times November 24, 2004)

All these are but few examples of incidents that made headlines on the front pages
of newspapers in the recent past. They are taken to indicate a state of social well-being
from the perspective of security/insecurity that is being experienced by Malaysians.
There are numerous other goring, shameful and senseless incidents, which are endless to
be quoted here. Some were incidents that occurred on the same day but elsewhere in the
country and were reported in the same dailies.
For the purpose of this article, public safety indicators shall include crime rates,
which shall be broken down further into four different types involving cases of murder,
robbery, narcotic offences and rapes. As traffic accidents and fire breakouts are also
rampant nowadays and pose as risks and hazards to loss of life, and damages to property,
they are also included in our attempt to gauge social well-being from the perspective of
public safety (safety in the public area and at home) in Malaysia. However, in dealing
with the available published statistics, one is faced with frustration, as the coverage was
inconsistent whereby some indicators are omitted for certain years. Hence, only

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information available for the particular years is reported here. The article shall also
explore possible factors that contribute to such phenomenal occurrences.

THE STATE OF PUBLIC SAFETY IN MALAYSIA

The article attempts to analyse whether or not the state of public safety in Malaysia is
changing, be it for the worse or for the better. In order to do that, one has to study the
situation over a period of time and shall need a time series data set. With respect to the
latter, the benchmark or the baseline time zero is set to the time when Malaysia, or
Malaya then, first achieved its independence in 1957. It is a time thought to be most
appropriate when the country was self-governing and hence has its own self to fall back
in terms of performance in administering the affairs of the country, be they political,
social, cultural or economic.

Public Safety At and Since Independence

Statistics at the time of Independence are hard to come by especially when they are to
include Sabah and Sarawak. Hence, as shown in Table 1, data on public safety condition
pertaining to crimes were only available for Peninsular Malaysia in 1957. This is
understandable as Sabah and Sarawak only joined Malaysia in 1963. However, as shown
in the table, we still have data gaps for both specific public safety indicators such as road
accidents and fire breakouts prior 1980 (probably they had not yet become public
concerns) as well as criminal offences in the year 2000. The latter was not covered in
either the usual Social Statistics Bulletin or the District/State Data Bank. It could either
be difficult to collate the various statistics or the trend is too revealing.

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Table 1 Public safety conditions in Malaysia according to selected

indicators, 1957-2000

Public safety indicators 1957 1970 1980 1990 2000

Crime rates per 100,000 population - - - - 624 b
- Cases of murder 2.4a 1.6 2.1 2.3 2.4 c
- Cases of robbery 5.7 a 8.1 31.7 32.7 63.1c
- Narcotic cases 8.8 a 6.6 34.4 51.9 -
a
- Rape victims 1.6 2.0 5.4 3.6 5.2 d
Traffic accidents per 10,000 population - - 48.2 53.1 95.1e
Fire breakouts per 10,000 population - - 7.7 a 7.1 12.1 e

a
Data for Peninsular Malaysia
b
General index for criminality
c
Calculated from data extracted from Lim (2003).
d
Calculated from data extracted Komuniti Veteranian Malaysia (2004)
e
Figure for 1998

Source: Department of Statistics 1981; 1990; 1993; 1999; Berita Harian, October 22,
2004; Komuniti Veteranian Malaysia (2004); Lim (2003).

From Table 1, we can discern the level, pattern and trend of various aspects of
public safety in Malaysia over the years since independence. As can be seen, the level of
public safety in Malaysia varies over the years, which denotes relatively low rates in the
early period and incrementally rising in the later years. This applies to almost all of the
indicators used. The pattern, on the other hand, projected a surge in the rates of several
indicators after 1970, whilst some others showed a gradual increment. Robbery, narcotic
offences and traffic accidents exemplified the former and murder, rape and fire breakouts
are examples of the latter. The rate for robbery, for example, which recorded 8.1 cases
per 100,000 population in 1970 surged to 31.7 cases in 1980, an increment of almost 300
per cent in 10 years. Similarly, narcotic cases quadrupled within the same decade. It is
not definite whether such phenomenal increase is due to genuine increase in the crimes
committed or pointing to a better management of data and statistics or that more people
are coming forward to report the crimes and happenings.

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Whatever it is, the trend is very clear – that criminality is on the increase, traffic
accidents are escalating and fire breakouts are becoming rampant. This trend alone shows
that the condition of public safety is changing and not continuing from the level and
pattern of the early years when the Malaysian public was able to enjoy a safer living
condition, not living in fear of being robbed, assaulted, molested etc., hence having and
enjoying greater psychological well-being.
Comparative analysis by geographic regions reveals that Sabah and Sarawak seem
to be a safer place to live in than Peninsular Malaysia. Data have shown that generally
crime rates in the two eastern regions of Malaysia are relatively lower than Peninsular
Malaysia; so are the threats from road crashes and fire breakouts, which are also
extremely low. For example, robbery and narcotic offences are extremely high
comparatively for Peninsular Malaysia since 1980 with rates culminating to around 40
cases per 100,000 population for robbery and 60 cases per 100,000 for narcotics in 1990
compared to a single digit rate for both Sabah and Sarawak (Table 2). Nevertheless,
threats to murder and rape are highest for Sabah since 1980. It is tempting to relate it to
the presence of aliens in the state as Sabah has been receiving an influx of immigrants
around that time. Sabah hence, is a state to watch and monitor as the trend in the various
crime rates are on the increase although slight but gradual. However, among the three
regions, Sarawak is the safest place to live in when all the risks to public safety hazards
are the lowest comparatively and seem to be on a declining trend especially crime rates
pertaining to murder, rape and narcotic offences.

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Table 2 Public safety conditions in Malaysia according to selected

indicators by state, 1970-1990

Public safety indicators 1970 1980 1990

P.M S’h S’k P.M S’h S’k P.M S’h S’k

Crime rates/100,000 population
- Cases of murder 1.5 2.2 3.2 1.8 4.4 2.1 1.5 4.7 1.2
- Cases of robbery 9.9 1.5 3.3 37.2 5.0 4.0 36.2 6.7 3.2
- Narcotic cases 7.3 5.5 1.3 39.2 0.4 2.5 62.2 8.0 0.9
- Rape victims 2.2 1.4 1.4 5.5 6.3 4.2 3.5 6.0 2.2
Traffic accidents/10,000 pop. - - - - - - 40.4 7.7 8.7
Fire breakouts/10,000 pop. - - - - - - 10.6 8.6 5.3

Note: P.M. = Peninsular Malaysia; S’h.= Sabah; S’k = Sarawak.

Source: Department of Statistics 1981; 1990.

Public Safety at the turn of the Millennium

Statistics for a more comprehensive public safety indicators in 2000 are unavailable from
the conventional sources. As mentioned earlier, the reporting did not cover crime rates
but only focused on road crashes and fire breakouts, two aspects of safety hazards
considered as of major concerns lately, hence the inclusion of their statistics by the turn
of the century. But from whatever available data that we manage to gather, it is obvious
that their phenomena are on the increase especially that of traffic accidents. For example,
by the turn of the second millennium, traffic accidents had increased by 79.1 per cent for
the nation as a whole compared to a decade before (1990) (Table 1) but more than
twofold from 40 cases per 10,000 population to 110 cases per 10,000 population for
Peninsular Malaysia over the same period of time (Table 3). Likewise, similar
incremental trends are observable for Sabah and Sarawak whereby the increase was more
phenomenal in Sarawak (332 per cent) compared to Sabah, which experienced a 269 per
cent increase in traffic accidents, but nonetheless was even higher than that experienced
by Peninsular Malaysia.

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Table 3 Public safety conditions in Malaysia according to selected

indicators by state, 1990-2000

Public safety indicators 1990 2000

P.M S’h S’k P.M S’h S’k
Crime rates/100,000 population
- Cases of murder 1.5 4.7 1.2 - - -
- Cases of robbery 36.2 6.7 3.2 - - -
- Narcotic cases 62.2 8.0 0.9 - - -
- Rape victims 3.5 6.0 2.2 - - -
Traffic accidents/10,000 pop. 40.4 7.7 8.7 110.2 28.4 37.6
Fire breakouts/10,000 population 10.6 8.6 5.3 12.2 10.3 8.6

Note: P.M. = Peninsular Malaysia; S’h.= Sabah; S’k = Sarawak.

Source: Department of Statistics 1981; 1990.

The position of public safety condition with regards to traffic and fire incidents is
obvious, but what would the position of the other aspects of public safety that are
considered in this article be? Some people even considered them to be more serious and
received wide coverage in most print media. The Canny Ong abduction-rape-murder case
and the Noritta Shamsuddin murder case are but a few of such coverage that gripped and
shocked the whole nation. As official published data are unavailable, we produce
herewith some statistics made known by the Royal Malaysian Police or Polis Diraja
Malaysia (PDRM). It was revealed that in the first five months of the year 2003, on the
average, four women were raped each day whilst three murder cases occurred every two
days in Malaysia, in which Selangor, Johor and Kedah were the top three states having
most such cases.
The crime index for the first six months of the same year (2003) revealed by the
police, such as rape cases, crime and violent crimes had worsened when compared with
similar statistics over the same period the previous year (Table 4). The worsening
scenario was brought about by an increase in the number of crimes committed between
2002 and 2003 - from 10,141 to 12,149 i.e. an increase of about 20 per cent. Armed
robbery and armed gang robbery were the two most frequent crimes committed. This is

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not surprising as their increase over the past decade (1990) was twofold from 32.7 to 63.1
per 100,000 population by the turn of the century (Table 1). What the statistics were
telling us was that the Malaysian public was faced with greater degree of insecurity as
they were exposed to and faced with higher crime rates and other threats to personal
safety.

Table 4 Reported cases of crimes in Malaysia in the first six months (Jan.-
June) of the year 2002 and 2003

Serious Crimes 2002 2003

Murder 278 293
Attempted murder 34 42
Gang robbery (with firearms) 45 31
Gang robbery (without firearms) 847 1,053
Robbery (with firearms) 234 214
Robbery (without firearms) 5,764 7,561
Rape 684 703
Causing hurt 2,246 2,252
Total 10,141 12,149

Source: Lim (2003).

The statistics given and projected in the paper are stating the obvious – that the
condition of public safety in Malaysia has changed and worsened over the years. This
worsening condition has affected the quality of life of the people, which is beyond the
scope of this article to justify. Suffice to mention that Asmah (2000) in her study of
spatial inequality of well-being mentioned above, has shown that Selangor which fared
very well or topped the other states in terms of income, health, physical environment and
recreational well-being, has the overall well-being or welfare of its people marred simply
because of the condition of worst public safety that it had, so much so it managed to rank
only second highest after Negeri Sembilan in terms of overall quality of life index in
1990.

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Notwithstanding that, it would be beneficial for us to compare the situation of

public safety in Malaysia with that of other nations surrounding it or that of the
developed world. According to the statistics provided by Interpol, the average crime
index for Malaysia is 624 cases per 100,000 population. This compares favourably to that
of the other nations: 7,475 cases (Australia), 5,004 cases (Switzerland), 2,250 cases
(Japan), 1,085 cases (Hong Kong) and 703 cases (Singapore) per 100,000 population
respectively (Berita Harian October 22, 2004). With such statistics, it is concluded that
Malaysia is a country with the lowest crime rate and is one of the safest countries in the
world. We should not become complacent with this statement, because judging by the
incremental trend in the rates of the various public safety indicators discussed earlier, it is
high time we take stock of what are the causal factors behind such increase.

WHAT CAUSES THE DETERIORATION OF PUBLIC SAFETY IN

MALAYSIA?

To derive at a conclusion that Malaysian security albeit public safety is undergoing

changes for the worse and that it has never been able to withhold the almost crime-free
society of yester years means that plausible causes have to be found, identified and
explained, which shall be briefly done here.
What can be discerned from the trend of public safety in Malaysia is that the rapid
increase in some of the crime rates and other threats occurred simultaneously with the
rapid pace of development that the country was undergoing i.e. since mid-1970s to mid-
1980s. Malaysia was able to sustain its pace of development with Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) growing at an average of 6.7 per cent per annum during that period and
then further enjoyed a sustained high growth of 8.9 per cent per annum since then before
being punctuated by the economic downturn of 1997. The rapid growth of the economy
and the implementation of policies and strategies aimed at equitable income distribution
has led to an improvement of the overall average household income from RM1, 098 in
1985 to RM 2,007 in 1995. This has led to an increase in purchasing power and the
procurement of material well-being.

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Economic growth is unachievable without improvement in infrastructure

particularly road network which is crucial for transport and communication, thus leading
to the transformation of the physical environment of the country. The latter as measured
by the degree of urbanization (percentage of population living in urban areas, with its
other meaning reflecting the degree of modernization and sophistication of the way of
life), road density and number of vehicles all pointed to increased rates over time. For
example, the percentage of urban population in Malaysia increased from less than 50 per
cent in 1990 to 62 percent in 2000.
Muira (2004) from his observation of the increasing number of criminal offences
and the juvenile crime rate in Japan blames it to the urbanization and suburbanisation of
Japan’s provinces, hence concluded that urbanization spurs crime rate. Gilbert (1999)
writing on urbanization and security argued otherwise i.e. no consistent or meaningful
relationship exists between the two. He postulated that the intervening variable of
economic development is probably a better explanation of both urbanization and security
than the latter are of one another.
However, we like to depart from the argument. This is because Asmah (2000)
found that Selangor was the most urbanized state in Malaysia with almost 88 per cent of
its population living in urban areas. Selangor was also found to have the highest crime
rate of 100 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 (the corresponding rate for Peninsular
Malaysia was 34 cases) as well as property crime rate of 693 cases per 100,000
population (364 cases for Peninsular Malaysia). One possible reason is that, the desire to
be in the mainstream lifestyle may have led some to resort to quicker way of getting rich,
hence resorting to robbery, either ganged or armed. Another reason could possibly be that
modernization brought with it complexity in human nature, resulting in a multitude of
misdemeanours and other serious misdoings.
Increased in road density, from 0.08 km/km2 in 1980 to 0.15 km in 1990 and
about 0.2 km in 2000 has led to a simultaneous increase in the number of motor vehicles
from 1,986 per 10,000 population in 1980 to 3, 213 per 10,000 population in 1990 and to
4,118 per 10,000 population in 2000. Statistics have shown that traffic accidents are on
the increase too. In a recent report in the New Straits Times (November 20, 2004), 29,244
people have died in road accidents since 2000, a figure which is 10 times more than were

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killed in crimes. Mangled vehicles account for by far the highest toll of non-natural
deaths; greater than murder and suicide, heart disease and cancer. On the one hand, we
depend on vehicles for transport and convenience of movement, but on the other hand,
we are subjecting ourselves to mishaps, fatal or otherwise. So where do we go wrong?
Do we have ourselves to blame?
A Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia study team on road safety and accidents found
that human factor ranked highest as the causal factor of road accidents in Malaysia
accounting for 94.2 per cent as opposed to the surrounding environment (4.5 per cent)
and mechanical factor (1.3 per cent). The study also found that among the human factors,
negligence topped the list by causing 60 per cent of the accidents followed by the fault of
other motorists with 23.1 per cent (Utusan Malaysia November 18 , 2004).

CONCLUSION

Some of the plausible reasons such as urbanization, economic and infrastructural

development for the increase in the threat to physical safety of Malaysians have been
touched upon briefly in the preceding section. Also we have indicated that increase to the
threat to physical safety is discernable at the time when Malaysia is undergoing a rapid
pace of development particularly since it achieved its independence in 1957. Of particular
significance are robbery, narcotic cases or offences, traffic accidents and fire breakouts.
Does development as a process then warrant such an outcome? Are these phenomena the
cost that we have to pay for the so-called way forward?
A crime-free society is a peaceful society living in happiness with a secure well-
being. Hence, when its security is threatened and the risk to safety is ever on the increase,
its well-being is jeopardized – whereby its citizens are shrouded with fear of the lurking
threats and crimes. Public awareness towards the threat to their safety is manifested in the
way they fenced themselves with grills, in their homes, shops and offices or even had
others to guard over their worldly possessions. The recent initiative called the Safe City
Initiative by the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) is based on the
principle of age-old wisdom of prevention is better than cure. The approach is to design a
safe environment that curtails the opportunities to commit crime. Through this effort all

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sectors are to cooperate in crime prevention through planning and designing of safe living
environment (in urban, residential, industrial, recreational, infrastructural development
etc.), community development and education in order to create a more alert and safety
conscious society. Until such time our well-being from the perspective of public safety is
still open to threats.

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