Friday, October 25, 2013

Blog 7: Crime Increase in Malaysia




Malaysia's population has increased tremendously over the past four decades. Tripling in number over that period of time. The majority of the population comes from Kuala Lumpar, the largest city in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpar was once sparsely populated and flourished with greenery and flowers, but has transitioned into a metropolitan area with the help of modernity and urbanization. Urbanization and modernity brought about shopping centers and many suburbs but it also brought about an increase in crime. 

Kuala Lumpar was once one of Asia's safest cities but is now a place where crime is frequent. At an attempt to combat the rise of criminal activity the Malaysian government has added security cameras and police officers to the streets. However, it has not been enough to slow the crime rate down. An official responsible for compiling crime data at the United Nations office of Drugs and Crime has stated that the Malaysian government has stopped providing crime statistics to the United Nations. However, the Malaysian police responded to The New York Times with crime statistics. The statistics showed that robberies with firearms and gang robbery decreased in occurrence. Yet, the number of rape victims doubled from the year 2000 to 2009. Many suspects that the statistics are inaccurate. 

The suspicion that the statistics are inaccurate leads to the fact that there is indeed a dark figure, where the crime occurrence is greater than the crime reported. The New York Times continues to report that the reasons for lack of crime reporting is the lack of belief that the police authority will handle the matter. A professor at the National Defense University of Malaysia stated that poverty is the root of the high crime rate. Linking this to sociology, urbanization creates an array of increase in social problems, in Malaysia's case it led to overcrowding, which possibly led to unemployment leading eventually to poverty and with poverty it comes an increase in crime. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/world/asia/soaring-crime-rate-takes-a-growing-malaysia-by-surprise.html?_r=0

10/25/2013
11:59am

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