Community Policing & Youth (YOU!)

A concept remains merely a (sleeping) concept unless it is well implemented to benefit the people.

A good concept is one that uses the minimum resources and capable of generating the maximum effects on the targeted groups.

A successful concept is one that could be adopted easily by anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Our police was smart to engage the youth to be their eyes and ears. Their friendly officers,led by acting OCPD Muar, Supt.Lee Chuan Guan had moved into schools to educate the youth about crime prevention. ( Peggy Back Theory = It was indeed a very clever idea for Supt. Lee to peggy back on 1 platform of a youth camp to reach out to 220 young boys and girls at one goal! )

Supt.Lee is the head for Community Policing (CP) in the Muar district. A soft spoken man with a caring approach, Supt.Lee is not only a good listener but a good strategist. Under his dynamic leadership, Muar has been successful in putting the CP concept into real test for a pilot project at Taman Sri Maharani (TSM).

On 28th April 2008 in Kluang, Home minister Datuk Syed Hamid Albar acknowledged Muar has a good CP implementation and therefore it was a good example for others to emulate.(Syabas kepada IPD Muar, Syabas kepda semua warga Muar ! )

Meanwhile,speaking to the youth on a beautiful Saturday morning at Pei Chai school in Sungai Mati Muar, Supt.Lee strongly believed that our youth who are energetic and creative, could play an active role in making the concept of CP a success.

Supt.Lee Chuan Guan defined the objectives of CP as:

1)To strengthen the relationship between the police and the public (youth included).
2)To upgrade networking, between the Police and the public(again, youth included), in
crime prevention.
3)To get the public(you are right, youth is in) to be the eyes and ears of the Police and channelling all information on criminal activities to the Police.
4)To create awareness among members of the public (you are not wrong, youth must be
included), on how to use Police hotlines or SMS to combat crime.

Josef Roy Benedict of Amnesty International Malaysia says:"Community Policing ,which is being adopted worldwide, is a new way of policing in which the needs and expectations of the individuals and communities are always reflected in police decision-making and service.(NST, 25 Jun 2007)

Josef added that :"Community Policing can only be "effective" when society believes that policing is impartial and carried out for ALL rather than on behalf of certain groups."(NST,25 Jun 2007)

The day before, Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports,YB Wee Jeck Seng declared open the youth camp. YB Wee pointed out that in Malaysia, 41% of the total population consisted of our youth(15 -45 years olds).

Here is the calculation if you want to sell a product to this group. Malaysia has 26 million people. 41% is youth= 10.6 million people!

If you are a handphone retailer, congratulations! If you are from a bank promoting credit cards, well done! But you are selling VCDs (original ones), sorrylah!

My businessman uncle always taught me that in order to survive in the competitive business world, you must first target the youth group (remember 10.6 million people!) and secondly, your product must be accepted by all races-Malays,Chinese,Indians,Sikhs,etc. Then you are on the road to the millionaire club!

If PDRM wanted to sell the CP concept to the entire nation, again the 41% of the population is simply the single largest group that couldn't be ignored.

Officers, please move into schools, move into colleges, move into universities and youth organisations. If you asked me again, I would suggest our men in blue to also move into kindergardens as well!