First of all, I welcome the decision of the government in the 2015 Budget to increase the allocation to Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) by about RM785.9 million compared to 2014.
Nonetheless, questions arise in regards to the government’s focus for PRDM especially in light of the budget increase.
I have earlier asked why in the 2015 Budget, the Special Branch (SB – Cawangan Khas) unit was given relatively more focus and allocation compared to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID – Jabatan Siasatan Jenayah). (http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/277293)
The Prime Minister in his recent Budget speech also announced the addition of 11,757 new police personnel next year.
The important question to ask then is, which department will these 11,757 new police officers be deployed into.
The Criminal Investigation Department lacks manpower
Today, PDRM has 141,365 police personnel, with 41.4% of these in the Management (Pengurusan) unit and 26.9% in the Internal Security and Public Order (Keselamatan Dalam Negeri dan Ketenteraman Awam) unit, the two largest units in PDRM.
The CID on the other hand, only has a staff of about 11.4% of all PDRM personnel.
Even then, not all police officer in the CID are given direct investigation power. Only about 24% of the police in CID, those with the rank of Inspector and above, can be made an “Investigating Officer” (IO)
It was hardly surprising when Inspector General of Police, Khalid Abu Bakar said that, an IO typically has to handle 19 cases a month and in “hot spot” areas, an IO may handle up to 30 cases a month.
According to the 2005 Report of the Tun Dzaiddin Royal Commission on Police, an IO should ideally handle only five (5) cases a month.
The Tun Dzaiddin Report also stated that, 10 years ago, in 2004, PDRM had requested from the Public Service Department (Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam) to increase the total number of CID staff to 28,000 personnel.
11,757 new police officers should be placed in CID and 30% of them must be women
Thus, for the newly announced additional 11,757 police personnel, I would like to urge the government to do the following:
Firstly, I urge the government to deploy all the 11,757 new police into the CID in line with PDRM’s effort to fight crime and reduce crime rate in our country.
Today the CID has about 16,062 personnel, thus, even if 11,757 were added into the unit, it will only total to about 27,819 personnel, still slightly short of its own target 10 years ago as stated in the Tun Dzaiddin Report. However, this will at least close the gap acknowledged by PDRM since 2004.
Secondly, I urge that among the 11,757 new officers, at least 30% of them must be women.
According to the Home Minister’s reply to my question in Parliament in 2013, there is only about 10.3% or 11,516 women personnel in the whole of PDRM. Hence it is not too much to ask for additional women police officer in PDRM. This will not only provide more opportunity for women to enter the police force, it will also enable greater gender sensitisation in PDRM especially in dealing with women clients or when handling gender crime such as sexual crime and domestic violence.
| Unit | Number of staff | Percentage |
| Management (Pengurusan) | 58,518 | 41.4% |
| Logistics (Logistik) | 12,561 | 8.9% |
| Criminal investigation (Penyiasatan jenayah) | 16,062 | 11.4% |
| Security intelligence (Risikan keselamatan) | 8,260 | 5.8% |
| Drug prevention (Pencegahan dadah) | 5,763 | 4.1% |
| Internal security and pubic order (Keselamatan dalam negeri dan ketenteraman awam) | 38,034 | 26.9% |
| Commercial crime investigation (Siasatan jenayah komersil) | 2,167 | 1.5% |
| Total | 141,365 | 100% |
Total police officers according to units in PDRM as reported in the 2015 Federal Expenditure Estimates Report