PUTRAJAYA, Aug 24 — The proportion of death in custody cases that reportedly numbered more than 200 in the past four years is “very small” compared to the size of the police force that is 120,000 strong, the Home Ministry’s newly appointed deputy Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said.
Critics have accused the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC), which oversees the police among 19 government agencies, of not doing enough to check police abuse.
“I'm not giving excuses on behalf of the police, but the fact is, we have to work on statistics,” Nur Jazlan told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.
The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) said last April that police statistics from 2000 to February 2014 showed that 242 detainees died in police custody, with police data showing that most of the deaths were caused by illnesses or cardiac arrests. This translates to about five deaths per month.
The newly-appointed Umno deputy home minister also said public perception of a high crime rate did not match reality.
“The actual reality is the crime index has dropped, people do not complain about house robberies somuch anymore, except for isolated cases. Even street crime also is reducing because the police deployed more people on the streets,” said Nur Jazlan.
The country’s crime rate dropped by 40 per cent from 2009 to 2014, with the crime index dipping from 580 to 350 crimes per day, the government’s efficiency agency PEMANDU said last January.
Putrajaya is aiming to cut the crime rate by 5 per cent yearly by 2020, according to the 11th Malaysia Plan.
MALAY MAIL ONLINE
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