Four days ago, one of my neighbour's house was broken into in broad daylight. They broke through the backdoor, ransacked the house and carted away their loot in my neighbour's car (they managed to pull down the electric gate in front).

Three days later which was yesterday, another incident happened, this time to a neighbour just a few houses down the road. It was at 4pm and my neighbour was cornered by two cars in front of his house. They beat him up and drove his car away. These incidents happened within a week, in the same neighbourhood. I am sure there are a lot of incidents happening at the same time around Miri.

When one of our neighbours called the police to report about the first incident, the answer came was 'We will come later'. This leads to the question of our police force's priority. Or has this kind of crime became so rampant that it's really not worth bothering about. I talked to one officer when the police arrived and he said 'Tangkap, masuk penjara, keluar, buat lagi'.

This led to another question: Is our current punishment for this kind of criminal enough of a deterrent?

There were also complaints about the lack of manpower in the police force. Just last year, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw someone trying to pry open my gate. I called the nearest police station (which is the Lutong police station) and all they told me was that they didn't have enough staff and gave me another number to dial, which is the central police station in Miri.

The question is: has this shortage of personnel problem being overcome? Maybe it's time to raise the pay and benefits of our police force to attract more new recruits and also to motivate current officers to be more responsible.

Is our beloved city becoming a haven for gangsters and thieves? Even if we have dogs to guard our houses, there were cases where the dogs were poisoned before the break-ins. What are the authorities going to do about the rising crime rate? Or what can we do about this worrying trend?

Currently, what most of us do is to keep some money in the house, so if they break in and threaten us, there is money for them. Isn't it ridiculous that we have to resort to these kind of measures. Nowhere is safe nowadays, even our own homes.

I hope what I highlighted here reaches the relevant authorities so that they can do something to make our cities safe again.