The Malaysian police force is not greatly understaffed as compared to other countries as argued by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said that Abdullah was wrong to claim that the police officer to population ratio is 1:3000.

Abdullah, who is also home minister, told reporters last Saturday that the country planned to hire 23,000 officers over the next two years to beef up the police force as the current police to population ratio is high compared to the 1:300 in many developed countries.

However, Lim said in a statement released today that with 80,000 police personnel for a population of 22 million, the country's police to population ratio is around 1:283.

This will put Malaysia among the countries with the lowest ratio [see chart].

Malaysia was the top five countries in terms of the police to population ratio in the Seventh United Nations Survey of Crimes Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice System (1998-2000).

The 1:283 police to population ratio is better than major developed countries such as Germany (1:343), England (1:429), United States (1:410), Australia (1:457), France (1:474) and Japan (1:550).

Lack of efficiency

Lim said that the rise in crimes in the country was not due to the lack of police officers.

"There have been considerable lack of police professionalism, efficiency and effectiveness as well as the misdeployment of the police personnel and resources to protect the political regime instead of protecting Malaysians and the streets, public spaces and homes," he said.

According to Criminal Investigation Department director Salleh Mat Som, an average of four women were raped daily while there were three murders every two days in the country in the first five months of this year.

"What the CID director had unveiled is only the 'tip of the iceberg', especially for sex crimes, as it is generally agreed ... that for every reported rape cases, nine went unreported," Lim lamented.

The effectiveness of the police force has been put on the spotlight after the brutal abduction, rape and murder of Canny Ong two weeks ago.

Lim also took police chief Norian Mai to task for, among others, wrongly providing Abdullah the police to population ratio.

Abdullah had subsequently clarified that the 23,000 police recruits would be taken into the force in the next five years, and not in the next two years as he had earlier announced.

However, there has not been any correction to Abdullah's mistake on the police to population ratio.