Crime And Crime In Malaysia

Introduction

In an era of increasing crime rate, the sociologist and criminologist are concern with the factors affecting criminal activity. It is now becoming a worrying phenomenon to the policymakers and society since it causes sudden increase of loss of lives, property and misery to the country. Several variables are thought to be correlated with the criminal activity such as unemployment, poverty, inflation and inequality. As been listed by A.H. Baharom (2009), crime could be ranged into many categories such as murder, attempted murder, rape, assault attack, vehicle theft, motorcycle theft, property, violent, armed robbery, robbery, daylight burglary, night burglary, total crime and larceny. In this study, however, racial and ethnic group are being the interest on its relation with criminal activity.

Problem Statement

Crime rates in Malaysia has showed a hefty increment over the past decades. The trend of violent crime and property crime is increasing since 1970 (C.F. Tang, 2009). This statement was proven by the statistics compiled by Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) which indicate that Malaysia had more than 167 000 cases of crime happened in 2000 and approximately 70% of the cases are still pending in that particular year. This statistics of crime cases increased to 198 622 cases in 2006. In other words, 22 crime activity occurred at every hour in Malaysia in 2006. Many people think certain ethnicity are related to the increasing crime rate in Malaysia.