KUCHING: Padungan assemblyman Wong King Wei has described the reason given by the police that they do not have enough personnel to effectively fight crime in this city as “unjustifiable”.
He argued that the figures provided to him for his questions during the State Legislative Assembly sitting last November showed an ideal police to population ratio.
“The number of police personnel in Kuching given to me was 1,226 personnel. This is excluding the personnel in the IPK (state police headquarters) which is 1,047 personnel. The figures showed that the police are not understaffed in Kuching,” he told a press conference, here yesterday.
Wong, who is state DAP Socialist Youth chief, said based on a research conducted by the Bureau of Police Research and Development in India, the ideal ratio between the police and population is one police personnel to 568 residents.
“In Kuching, we have about 700,000 population. If the number of police personnel is divided with the population, the ratio between the police and population is one police to 570 residents which is ideal.”
He said while there was rampanct of criminal activities such as house break-ins, snatch thefts and robberies, the police were not seen to be doing their job.
“Where are all these police personnel? I want an answer from the district police chief on how he manages the 1,226 staff. I want to know how many police personnel are fighting crime in the front line, how many are doing investigation and patrolling.
“In actual fact, this is an old figure because a new police district that is Padawan has been established.”
Wong said it could be concluded the police in Kuching were “laid back” in their duties, adding that not enough police patrol and precautionary measures were taken by them to prevent crime.
Besides stressing on the importance of crime prevention, Wong said a major cause which contributed to the wave of crime in Kuching was the mushrooming of illegal Internet gambling outlets.
He also called for more enforcement to be conducted to check on illegal workers in the state.