‘Our community, our responsibility’

Community Policing (CP) Sarawak acts as eyes and ears of the law to help prevent crime within the community

OFTEN assembling randomly in large numbers at coffeeshops around the city, groups of men and women would sit around tables to discuss a single subject very close to their hearts — their living community.

Every once in a while, chuckles could be heard from the participants, mostly wearing blue T-shirts to reflect their solidarity of belonging to the same neighbourhood.

Come rain or shine, these volunteers brave the elements to prove their committment to the cause of Community Policing (CP) Sarawak which is the only official assembly of local men and women, armed with only eyes and ears to help prevent crime within their community.

Barely two months after CP Sarawak started, the state unit managed to register almost 4,000 members, and it is growing steadily due to general acceptance of the motto – Our Community, Our Responsibility.

As their kopitiam meetings have helped raise awareness of crime prevention among regular and casual customers, CP Sarawak members are increasingly making their presence felt and noticed.

After discussions, unit leaders will delegate pre-arranged foot patrol routes, covering areas such as neighbourhood lorongs and hotspots in commercial areas.

Throughout their two to three hour beat, members will also be giving out leaflets, containing crime prevention strategies and key emergency telephone numbers to anyone crossing their path.

“CP units are partner of the police in reducing the crime rate in our society. Our members will act as the eyes and ears of the law.

“They can call the police as soon as they see something or someone acting suspicious,” CP Sarawak initiator Datuk John Lau Pang Heng told thesundaypost on the role of CP Sarawak units.

Broken windows theory

According to Lau, CP Sarawak is premised on the popular Broken Windows Theory espoused by George L Kelling and James Q Wilson, two American social scientists who have been pioneering new ways to police major cities across the world since 1982.

When something goes wrong in a big way such as a successful business going under, Lau believes the crash will always be for a similar reason.

“At some point during their rise, everyone quits paying attention to the fundamentals. They advanced so fast and started spending so much time, trying to perfect their desirable stuffs that they lost sight of the basics.

“And when the basics crumble, their desirable stuffs do not matter anymore,” Lau pointed out.

The idea, he said, was that if the community prevented and found the remedy to small crimes, the community stood a bigger chance of preventing bigger crimes — which would take more time and effort to fix.

He added that the two American social scientists based their Broken Windows Theory on a number of neighborhood studies which had proven true and were among the main reasons for the drop in crimes in New York City in the 1990’s.

He pointed out that this was because the police had started to shift their focus on petty crime, leading to the drop in more serious crimes.

“The faster you clean up a broken window, the less likely another one will turn up broken. And the fewer broken windows you find in a neighborhood, the less likely you’ll find people committing crimes.”

Community Policing Sarawak

According to Lau, since the launch of CP Sarawak on March 1, 2015 in Kuching, public reponse towards its activities has been nothing short of overwhelming.

“Besides Kuching, CP Sarawak is also getting good response from other units in Sri Aman, Sibu, Bintulu, Miri and Sarikei whose members are growing by the day.

“At the end of this year, we expect to see at least 30,000 CP members statewide,”he said.

Besides looking after their own neighbourhood, CP members have joined arms, patrolling  neighbourhoods such as in Stutong Baru, Stapok, Sekama, Foochow Road and Taman BDC with the police.

During the walk, CP members will be distributing crime prevention leaflets and contact phone numbers of their respective CP unit leaders in their community.

“Ever since we made our rounds, the community have contacted us on more than one occasion to frequent their neighbourhood,” Lau revealed.

The CP beat patrol with the police is also an important step as it is seen as the “missing” bridge between the community and the men in blue.

“In time, this will show the community the police are there to provide security and ensure peace in a community together with the community,” he explained.

How it started

Lau said the idea to start CP Sarawak was mooted during a meeting between him and Community Policing (CP) Malaysia president Kuan Chee Heng in Kuala Lumpur on December 1, 2014.

“That was a historic meeting as Kuan, who is also the founder of CP Malaysia, has taught me the ropes in community policing.

“He gets my highest respect and I now call him my sifu or master guru in community policing.”

Lau also said Kuan played an instrumental role in forming CP Sarawak as well as laying down the ground work for the unit to register with the Registrar of Societies (ROS).

Community policing, he further revealed, was nothing new in the peninsular states even though it was only in recent years that the concept had made any significant impact on the community there.

Meanwhile, Lau pointed out that each town in Sarawak, forming its own CP unit, must first register with ROS to function legally.

He said once ROS gave the nod, the applications of CP members would be scrutinised and police clearance obtained before their memberships could be formalised.

“Once approval is given, members will be given strict guidelines on what their limits are as CP members.

“Members of CP Sarawak are just there to assist the police. They are not the police and unlike the police, have no authority to pursue suspects or put themselves in dangerous situations with suspects,” Lau explained.