Crime situation not worsening, police efforts adequate: Shanmugam

SINGAPORE - Neighbourhood Police Posts (NPPs) were once hailed as the way to bring police and community together, and with the current concern about gang activities, two Members of Parliament are wondering if the scale-back in operating hours in 2004 now needs to be reversed.

Another pointed to how the Criminal Investigation Department's Secret Society Branch was "reconstituted" after it was tasked two years ago to deal with other crimes such as gambling and vice.

And so, weeks after the issue of street gangs came under the spotlight, the focus in Parliament yesterday turned not so much on whether gangsterism was on the rise but on the police approach to the situation.

In reply, Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam stoutly defended the police's approach in this area as he urged against drawing conclusions from the Downtown East and Bukit Panjang attacks that Singapore's crime situation was "worsening" or that policing efforts were "not adequate".

Mr Shanmugam said crime rates have fallen in the last five years. The rates for crimes against persons and violent property crimes, in particular, have also remained low and stable.

Cases of rioting - which he said could be used as a proxy indicator of gang violence - fell from 489 to 283 between 2005 and last year. In the first nine months this year, there were 214 cases. Of these, the cases with youth involvement dropped from 205 in 2005 to 112 last year.

He also said that "we have to be realistic that in a city of five million people, there'll be some crime - we'll have to deal with it".

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