Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Live Longer, Don't Live In USJ 2


It's now official.  USJ 2 in Subang Jaya, where I'm writing this, is a crime hotbed. After a series of laborious labs and other cutting-edge methodologies, the Government Transformation Program (GTP) team and McKinsey or whatever have finally nailed down the 50 most crime-ridden areas in the country. USJ 2 is in. So is USJ 3, 4, 5 all the way to 21.  I've not seen the full list, but I won't be the least surprised if USJ 2 is in the top 3, only marginally safer than Plentong in Johor Baru. Subang Jaya/USJ area has one of  the highest, if not the highest, boom gates density in the country and Nepalese-speaking guards per capita outside Nepal. In fact the scientific term "boom gate" was coined by a  late ( and probably lazy) Subang Jaya resident who thought the explosive word could scare off aspiring burglars.

Why they took this long to confirm what I'd long suspected is beyond me. But to be fair to the GTP/McKinsey crowd, I just happen to have an extensive experience in police-work: I watched every episode of Monk (eight seasons) and black-and-white Columbo (seven seasons), both painfully slow and deranged detectives. Plus I used to work on a clever Petronas project in Indonesia, where you could score a quick win by correctly guessing that the person you met was anti-Petronas. So my nose and hunch are sharper now.

I've a rich personal experience with crime and police. At least crime and police in USJ. My friendly neighbour down the street just had his house broken in early this month. Every one of our friendly neighbours without rottweilers has had some break-in or near break-in experience. They all live to fight another day but the trauma lives on. Ah, that's not my personal experience, it's my neighbours' experience. Did you say that? Wait, my house was broken in twice in two years (and, for good measure, one near break-in in between). We lost watches, laptops, fake bangles, and, worst of all, all sense of security. All of the little remaining faith in the police vanished in less than sixty seconds. We'd to wall up a beautiful English-countryside window, and our fresh air intake now is only half of the Euro clean-air level. How's that for personal experience? We went to the police, nothing came out. No updates, nothing and next to nothing. The construction colonies nearby were left undisturbed. Probably the police were busy with the GTP, compiling, sifting and selecting the crime statistics in Putrajaya. It's not easy to choose which statistics to use. Just my hunch.

Well, for a change, I've some selective police statistics, if you're interested. These damning numbers aren't new because they've been bandied about by PKR. Apparently the Special Branch had produced 382,000 reports of political activities and 351,000 security checks (total 733,000), meaning 4% of adult Malaysian legal citizens have been investigated. So assuming that you're adult and legal (just because you can read this), your odds of being investigated for some reason (eg terrorism) or other (eg maids abuse) are better than those of Liverpool winning the English Premier League this season. Scared? Go ahead.

Ha, ha, we're not done. Records also showed that the Criminal Investigation Department opened 212,000 files on crime. 733,000 reports on political activities, and only 212,000 reports on crime? No wonder. Despite all this gross disproportion, the GTP/McKinsey lab rats proudly claimed that overall crime in 2011 had declined 11.1%. Really? 11.1 and not 11.11? There's plenty of scientific or medical terms for this condition: delusion, denial, deception, fabrication, factitious, fictitious, panic, crap, bollocks. Even if, and it's a big if, the numbers were true, the quality vs quantity conundrum will kick in. What has gone down? Shoplifting? Trafficking of Malayan tapirs? I know for sure maid abuses have gone down drastically because Malaysian families were desperately running out of maids to abuse. What's important to you and me is, do we feel safer now than we did, say, five or ten years ago? Instead of secret labs, why not run an open, transparent poll using only one simple question: Do you feel safe now? My hunch: it'll be a hung 50:50. That is, 50% will respond "definitely not", and the remaining 50% will respond "definitely not, stupid !".

We're still not done. As part of its crime-fighting proposal, the GTP/McKinsey labs have proudly published a police station league table and, you've to believe this, a car park league table. If you're a retiree and already a fan of Manchester United of the English Football League, you can now be a fan of Palekbang Police Station and Empire Gallery car park. You can follow your portfolio and test your blood pressure by watching the three league tables change every week. Retiring is never tiring.


The labs also found out that "most cars were stolen on the streets, at home and from public parking places...". Really? The government spent RM100 million or more so that these GTP geniuses could uncover and pinpoint these three 'not-so-obvious' car-theft areas? My youngest (smiling above) could've told me as much without thinking. 99.9 % of cars are parked at these three places. So what're we left with? Only three safe places to park your cars: Petronas service stations, Tanjung Golden Village and GTP labs. Police stations? Well,....

Note: For indemnity purposes, I'd like to state that McKinsey above means McKinsey or BCG or Bain or Bane or any consultancy singly or jointly advising the GTP team.