Violent crimes and gang related activities are manifestations of urban poverty. Unfortunately, poverty research in Malaysia is rural-focused and fails to see the correlations between violence and poverty.

However social research in countries such as South Africa has established these trends similar to that of poverty research among the black communities in the United States and United Kingdom.

While increased police action will be helpful, it cannot eliminate nor resolve the issue unless the fundamental root causes are addressed and tackled.

In my opinion, Malaysian authorities have always acted firmly and swiftly on crime and gang activities. Police action has been firm but what is lacking, are other complementary dimensions which need to be in place to address the root causes.

These can and must be provided by other ministeries and agencies that are currently lacking. It is easy to point the finger at the policy but we must view the situation in a holistic and comprehensive way.

The cycle of poverty in urban Malaysia is not the absence of income or employment but one of access and alienation to mainstream society that is referred too as being marginalised. This was not intentionally created but a result of urbanisation, development and modernisation.

The social impact of change affects different communities in a variety of ways. The social control and social support systems have been weakened and, in a majority of cases, absent in low income families residing in urban poor neighborhoods. This dynamics is not well understood or articulated by social researchers.

While past socio-economic research portrayed the plantation experience in a negative and exploitative light there were however, two very important roles which plantation communities played which are missing in low income families residing in squatters and low cost flats in urban locations.

Rural communities provided social control and social care for the families. By this, I mean in the plantation communities there was a structure of control and supervision not only through management but by a system of family elders.

Dramatic effect

The newly migrant communities who came during the British period hailed from one village in South India and were mostly related to one another and were from one sub-Indian ethnic group. There was therefore social cohesion and informal family structures which served as a social control mechanism.

While there were fights among the workers their major struggle was between management and labour not really among themselves. Unlike the Chinese communities, early migrant Indians did not come with gangs nor did they have alcohol-related abuses.

These communities also provided social support for individuals and families. One must note that the plantation management provided comprehensive services. While these were inadequate and below basic standards, nonetheless the management provided employment, education, nursery, healthcare/ hospitals, housing, religious and social provisions (toddy shops, movies) for the workers.

In addition, being rural and close-knit communities, there were informal social care systems that provided care to widows or single mothers and elderly folk within the community. In event of a death, all workers would take a day off to assist the grieving family and in times of marriage all would assist.

With the displacement faced by plantation workers due to the estates being developed into industrial areas, housing or due to crop changes from rubber to oil palm, large numbers of Indians migrated to urban centers.

Due to lack of affordable housing, a majority of them found houses in squatters and low-cost flats near industrial locations in the Klang Valley and other urban centers in West Malaysia.

Based on the 2000 census, 79.7 percent of Indians are now living in urban centers with only 20.3 percent living in rural locations. The shift from rural to urban centers has had a dramatic effect upon this section of the Indian community. The new environment poses many new challenges.

Anti-social individuals

Urban communities are more diverse in comparison with the rural plantation. The absence of elders and control structures in the new neighborhoods creates new power struggle issues. Work pattern has changed from a normal routine of plantation work to shift work in factories which has an impact upon family life and life as a local community.

In most squatter areas, there is a lack of public facilities such as community halls and childcare facilities. This is a major contrast to plantation life. Social support systems are also lacking due to the nuclear nature of the family and the absence of the neighborhood.

The growth of dysfunctional families is rampant resulting in poor parental supervision, domestic violence and lack of conducive home environment for child development and growth.

The new social environment of squatters with inadequate public facilities is not a very conducive environment for human development especially with other social risk aspects such as drugs, gangs and crime-related activities. These are prevalent due to lack of social controls and absence of neighborhood.

Problems are further complicated by the poor academic achievements of children from these neighborhoods. Underachievement is the major issue and there is a high fall out rate at the secondary school levels. Among males in lower secondary there is a close correlation between poor academic performance in school and anti-social behavior.

Children below 12 can some how be managed. However when they reach adolescent age and teenage years beyond 13, they begin to manifest resistant behavior. If appropriate male role models are lacking there will be a net effect of anti-social individuals who are destructive to society and themselves.

My own estimation is about 25 to 30 percent of the Malaysian Indian community falls within this category of low income families and who are at risk of social ills and social problems in modern Malaysia. They are above the poverty line index of RM510 for a family of five as set by the government but below RM1, 200.

In the pre-independence period the labouring Indian in the plantations comprised about 80 percent of the Indian population in Malaya. Currently about 39.4 percent of Indian workers are production workers and 15.1 percent are agricultural workers.

Over the years a significant portion of the Indian community have experienced social mobility. However the real issues and concerns of the 30 percent at the bottom has not been adequately comprehended and addressed by relevant authorities.

Instituting new community systems

There are no ready cookbook solutions for addressing social ills. However, there are a number of pointers towards reducing the impact of social change.

First, there needs to be specific targeting of at risk families. In a similar way as the PPRT list on poor families is drawn up we need to note dysfunctional urban poor families. This can be drawn up from a number of sources.

Police has a list of domestic violence cases and there is a list of all youths who were picked up for some issue or other such as gang activity, fights, crime and drugs. In addition schools have a list of discipline problems, under achievers and absentees.

There must be computerised list by which filed visits and counseling can be organised in a direct attack approach in addressing the problems and concerns.

Second, there needs to be more ground-level field community workers. Currently there are an inadequate number of full-time staff on the ground. At the district level, the Department of Social Welfare staff are already overworked. More ground workers are needed to visit and meet the target group in an organised and systematic way.

It is in this context we will need more staff in high risk locations in all the various agencies at the district and local authority levels. In agencies such as the Unity Department, the Youth and Sports department, the Women and Family Development Department and the Education department.

We need to move beyond the old concept of Rukun Tetangga which is now outdated and the label is confused with earlier notions. In a similar way the Rakan Muda programme is not tackling at risk kids in the neighborhood especially Indian youths from squatter areas who do not feel at home in these programmes.

Third, there needs to be more co-ordination among these agencies on the ground in implementing effective programmes. At the policy level there are the cabinet committee on addressing social ills and the cabinet committee on squatters in the Klang valley.

However at the implementation level there are no coordinating agencies with a specific focus on implementing programmes in addressing urban poverty and related issues faced by low income families.

At the moment there is no central agency with specific reasonability in tackling urban poverty in Malaysia and the issues surrounding the issues we have been discussing. There is also some confusion of role between the ministry for national unity and social development and the ministry for women and family development on who takes the lead on these issues as there are overlapping roles.

Both these ministries at the ground level do not have adequate field officers to provide the kind of leadership required. Local authorities are also exploring their role in this area but there needs to be a greater policy and implementation leadership through a national social agenda

DR DENISON JAYASOORIA is the executive director of the Yayasan Strategik Sosial. The YSS has been selected by the government to organise community-based social programmes to address social ills among low-income squatter families living in low-cost housing areas.