13th Malaysia Plan — To uphold transparency, accountability and integrity, the police,road transport department, immigration and customs must all be equipped with body cams with no delay and with that a reform of the process and procedure to minimise miscarriages in the criminal justice system.
In the recent judgement on model Ivana Smit’s death in 2017, judge Roz Mawar Rozain described the police’s handling of the case a “litany of failures” taking into account the incompetence and disregard for proper procedure. In March this year, at a roadblock, 2 police officers in Penang have been accused and charged of extorting an aide to an EXCO member by instilling fear in her and forcing her to withdraw money from a near ATM.
In June, a police officer in Ampang made sexually suggestive remarks to a woman, proposing that they check in into a hotel. The conversation was captured on video and went viral on social media. The police officer has been taken off duty and is being investigated by the Bukit Aman’s Integrity and Standards Compliance Department (JIPS).
On another note, many cases of Immigration officers on duty in airports have been found to be literally sleeping on the job – one found with 12 foreign pasports in his pants in February this year. Six days ago, an Immigration officer was caught with RM8,391 and documents indicating he was part of “counter-setting” between officers and syndicates allowing foreigners without valid documents to enter the country.
Reports of customs officers raking in RM200,000 per month from vape smugglers at the KLIA Free Commercial Zone had been exposed through a special operation code-named Ops Airways which wad conducted by MACC earlier this year which yielded seized items amounting to RM17.9 million.
However, all is not lost. In February this year, some officers at checkpoints have started to use bodycams according to news reports. The Customs Department carried out a pilot project with officers since April 2023 with 60 officers equipped with body cameras. While it is insufficient, it is still better than none. Immigration officers would be getting 600 units of bodycams and 7,648 body cams were distributed in stages to police personnel out of 10,000. According to former IGP Tan Sri Razarudin Husain, the police had submitted a proposal for a procurement of 10,000 more body cameras under the 13th Malaysia Plan.
It is most important for all officers, especially those on field duty to be equipped with body cams – not only to restore dignity in our men and women in blue but also to sieve out the bad apples for action to be taken.
Could body cams on these officers prevented them from these vile acts of deceit, fraud and double-dealings? Very likely. But what about those who were not wearing the body cams when they were carrying out their immoral, despicable and disgraceful acts?
In the same vein, the Government must also invest resources to reform and improve the processes and procedures to ensure that the evidence from the body cams is used to minimise miscarriages in the criminal justice system. Equipping officers with the hardware in the name of surveillance and evidence collection must be fundamentally paired with greater transparency when conducting raids, at roadblocks, at immigration counters, in customs operations, in investigating crime scenes and as evidence in domestic and sexual violence cases, trafficked victims, child abuse cases and many more.
It is evident that the move to equip enforcement officers to use bodycams which was curatedand discussed to be implemented by Pakatan Harapan in its short stint from 2018 to 2020has materialised 5 years later under the MADANI Government.
Like many Malaysians, I look forward to the timely approval through the 13th Malaysian Plan of the additional 10,000 bodycams for our men and women in blue as well additional devices for immigration and customs officers.
Kasthuri Patto
DAP Central Executive Committee Member
DAP Secretary for International Affairs
