Tag: crime

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Society

[2717] Moral police with guns? A very bad idea

The killing of Ahmad Rafli Abdul Malek, the enforcement chief of the Pahang Islamic Religious Department, is a case of yet another shooting-related death for yet another day under the Malaysian sun. The authorities are panicking, despite a certain mainstream English newspaper claiming the police’s war on crime is already a success not too long ago. Minister Jamil Khir Baharom said the government was contemplating arming federal religious officers with guns in response to the murder. The state of Terengganu is already arming its religious enforcers and urging other state authorities to follow suit.

I find this deeply disagreeable.

Guns are a symbol of power. One does not tempt a man or woman with a gun. When a person points a gun at you, there is no room for argument. ”Just do as I say, or I will shoot.”

In a less than friendly environment, the mere presence of a gun is enough to instill fear. It drives almost everybody but the bravest away from public space, effectively killing any open public sphere. For those who enjoy having a vibrant open society, the threat alone is enough reason to oppose the greater proliferation of guns.

Even the authorities whom we trust to be among the most competent to handle firearms has given us reasons to doubt them. Having the Inspector-General claim that the missing guns highlighted by the Auditor-General’s report could have fallen into the sea just does not create confidence. The fact the guns are missing alone is worrying enough in times when it feels more and more crooks have guns these days.

Now, the government wants to give guns to the religious authorities, which are quite incompetent at handling firearms.

The proliferation of guns, at least since the recent past, is a new concern in Malaysia. An old threat to an open society is the troop of moral police all around the country. The situation is not as bad as in Saudi Arabia just yet, but the religious authorities are convinced that it is their job to keep our society morally upright, and uptight according to norms defined by them.

They do this not just by roaming public spaces and imposing their values on others. They also invade private spaces. Respect for privacy is of no concern to them. They spy and snoop around because they think they have the moral right to do so. ”Morality is paramount. I am the guardian of morality. I am an agent of god. Obey me.”

These are the bunch of men who the Minister thinks may benefit from having guns. It is a double whammy for an open society. It is bad for our society.

These moral police are not just concerned with catching youth dating somewhere in the park or Muslims eating in public during Ramadan. While it is comically outrageous to have dudes with self-proclaimed moral superiority needing guns to arrest those whom in their eyes, are offending common sensibility — sorry, or was it the religious authorities’ sensibility? Was it god’s? — there is a more serious fear behind it all.

These religious authorities are also vigilant against religious teachings which do not follow the government’s official religious prescription. The Shias suffer from discrimination and persecution in Malaysia, with these religious authorities being the primary tool of religious oppression.

Several news reports stated that the police are investigating whether the murder is linked to the recent gazette of anti-Shia law in Pahang. Other reports linked the murder case to a cult referred to in the media as Tuhan Haron. If the Shia connection is true, then maybe after so much oppression the religious authorities, some of the oppressed are rising up.

Religious enforcement officers, used to oppressing others, now feel insecure. To provide these enforcers with security to oppress further, they get guns.

I do not think these religious authorities need guns. Instead, I think they need sledgehammers to crack open their narrow provincial xenophobic minds. Maybe, just maybe, if the religious authorities had not been oppressing the religious minority, those groups would not resort to hostile action.

Just leave the gun business to the police.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malay Mail Online on November 14 2013.

Categories
Society

[2705] A retreat from openness

There was a time when we only heard or read news of strangers becoming victims of crime. It was easy to shrug off the news because the victims were strangers. Somebody would cry for them but that somebody would not be us. We would just go on with our lives and worry about other things that were not at all worrisome. We would have to be very, very unlucky if we made it into the news ourselves.

Those days have receded into the background. It is starting to feel that it does not take random luck anymore to become a victim. We need to take active steps instead to prevent ourselves from becoming one.

In response, I think our society is becoming more reclusive than before as we collectively try to avoid becoming victims ourselves.

The idea of becoming a victim of crime is not so foreign anymore. In the past, the victim would be two, three or more degrees separated from us. Nowadays, it is likely that most of us personally know someone who has become a victim. It could be our family, friends, neighbors or colleagues.

That is definitely true in my case. While I have not become a victim myself, I know friends — not mere acquaintances — who have become victims of crime in recent years. One of them was robbed at knife-point after being taken for a ride in a cab some months ago. Thankfully the perpetrator was later apprehended and sentenced swiftly, but only after he raped a tourist.

Another almost lost his pinky while defending himself in a robbery. Yet another was beaten up and had his car taken away from him.

The whole experience is disconcerting. It is a feeling of you standing in the middle of a crowd and everybody surrounding you being eaten by wolves. Long ago there were lots of people and strangers especially between you and the wolves. Today, you can almost see the wolves themselves. It is too close for comfort.

However, the men and women of transformation try to convince us that it is merely a matter of perception — no thanks to the social media which is unhelpfully amplifying the fear as they would say — you get the feeling that you will be next. Rightly or wrongly, it gives out a sense of fatalism. It is not a matter of if. You only need to ask the wolves when.

While it is easy to be apathetic when a stranger has her handbag snatched or his house broken into, it is almost impossible to remain indifferent when your loved ones become victims. If it happens often enough, we will begin to take action on our own.

Some of us have. Looking around the city, the word ”some” is an understatement.

The first to come up noticeably were the boom gates and fences surrounding our neighborhoods in the suburbs. Along with private security services, residents put them up to deter home invasions. Sometimes, when I find myself inside one of those overzealous neighborhoods, I feel as if I am in a fortress, as if the world outside comprises of barbarians to be repelled and kept out.

The truth is that the security measures keep more than potential criminals out. Passing through these checkpoints can be a hassle. As we put them up, we will likely get fewer of the good kind of visitors in the process. In effect, we retreat inside our four walls.

Some of us have guns on ourselves. In the news some weeks back, a ”˜Tan Sri’, while waiting to meet his doctor at a clinic in Cheras in Kuala Lumpur, managed to defend himself and others in the clinic against a gang of robbers by shooting at them. One robber died. This is a rare story of a person successfully defending himself. But I wonder, what is the implication of that?

Do we now need guns to protect ourselves?

I am a libertarian and libertarians usually demand the right to bear arms. While that is so, I think libertarians, or at least just myself, also have higher ideals and that is to live in an open society. Whatever the value of the right to bear arms, guns do have a corrosive effect on openness. I would not have the guts to walk the streets where everybody is armed to the teeth.

Yet, unfortunately, we do not need the right to bear arms to be in that situation.

This week alone saw more people getting shot. One of them, a prominent local banker, was shot dead in broad daylight in the middle of the city. And who can forget, just months ago, a top official of the royal custom was shot dead in the middle of Putrajaya. If these happen all too often in a country with supposedly tough anti-guns laws, public places would be dearth of life.

I know I am not nearly as important as some of the victims mentioned here. That probably means that I am not a target per se. Nevertheless, I would not want to be there when it happens to some important persons. Being an accidental witness cannot only be emotionally horrifying, the shooters may not like a person witnessing the crime.

If we make it there without being stabbed or shot at, our future will be a reclusive, untrusting society. The future is not fixed but the path we are taking right now leads towards that future.

An easy and safe response is to stay at home, be quiet and be reclusive. No adventure, no meeting up with strangers and not even walking on the street alone.

Already we jog in gyms and not in the parks. Even in the parks, if we do run or walk, when we come upon a stranger along the path, we will run a bit faster rather than smile and say, “How do you do?”

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malay Mail Online on August 4 2013.

Categories
Economics Politics & government Society

[2625] AES, privacy and perverse incentive

The implementation of the Automatic Enforcement System (AES) is proving to be so controversial that even federal backbenchers are joining the federal opposition in criticizing the system.

For the uninitiated, the AES is a privately-financed and operated system of speed traps under the purview of the Road Transport Department (JPJ). It has two functions: catch those who drive above the speed limit and those who beat the red light. The overarching aim is to reduce road accidents.

There are strong opinions on the matter, and at times, it appears that there is no middle ground. As for me, I am of two minds about the matter.

I can be supportive of the AES because, frankly, there are assholes on the roads. They drive as if the roads are racetracks. Many of them disrespect the traffic lights. They, as some would say in Malay, think that their fathers owned the road.

These drivers endanger others’ life and there have been times when they caused me unnecessary distress. Though it is unbecoming of me, there were times when I wished they would meet with an accident. Pain is a great disincentive and these drivers need some serious disincentive. Maybe, like losing a limb. Or two.

But such pain can be barbaric and so, the next best thing is to hit them in their pockets. For those driving Ferraris, a Hummer financed by a tycoon and the likes, the AES is unlikely to be of any deterrent. If you think a maximum of RM300 fine can deter the elites from becoming a road menace, then I do have something to sell to you.

Philosophically, the libertarian in me is always skeptical of cameras in public space, either for crime fighting or as speed traps. It is a concern for privacy and in an environment when I distrust the government with my private data, especially with an illiberal government in power, having these cameras all over the public space allows the government, or even private entities, to track me. Whatever the guarantee of privacy, words are words and it is open to abuse. How do I know, for instance, that the AES cameras will be used purely for traffic purposes?

I just do not.

There is, of course, an argument that in this age of social media, the concern about privacy with respect to cameras in public spaces is really overblown. A large chunk of our lives is already available online. Nevertheless, there are things on social media, and there are things that are not. Cameras in public space have the capability of revealing things that are not on social media, among other things. There is such a thing called privacy, especially to a libertarian like me.

The other part that raises my opposition is economics. Specifically, the incentive structure of AES is flawed. There is a clear case of perverse incentive. It creates a conflict of interest among the companies.

The private companies operate the AES and they generate revenue from paid traffic tickets. There is a clear profit motive here. The profit motive itself is not the problem.

The problem comes when one considers the fact that the process of taking the pictures is managed by the companies.

With that, the AES operators face the incentive to tweak the violation benchmarks regardless of the speed limits sanctioned by the authorities. The operators can increase their revenue by dishonestly lowering the benchmark for fines. In other words, there is an incentive for the companies to cheat commuters. There is a risk that these companies will cheat us.

This basically negates a pro-AES argument out there that sounds like this: if you do not commit an offence, the companies get no money. As I have explained, there is a risk that the companies do make money even when there is no offence committed.

This can be addressed by having an independent, incorruptible body to oversee the system. This can be the government because the government (a clean one at that) can be a counterweight to the profit-motive. The independent overseer needs to ensure there is no cheating done by the operators of the AES.

This is already in place in a way. All cameras will be calibrated every eight months by SIRIM, which one assumes to be an independent party. Still, something can happen between two calibration sessions. After all, the two private companies do operate and maintain the cameras on behalf of JPJ. They have access to the cameras all the times.

The alternative which can make the AES more palatable incentive-wise is to change the incentive structure. In my humble opinion, the companies should not be paid according to the number of fines paid. The payoff should not be pegged to the number of motorists caught. Instead, these companies should be paid a fixed regular fee from the relevant authority. This will make the incentive to cheat go away.

The problem with this is that the government may have to go back on its word and break the contracts signed. But hey, what else is new?

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on November 8 2012.

Categories
Politics & government Society

[2574] Declining crime rate may not be enough

The statistics show that total crime in general has been declining since 2009, according to PEMANDU. Yet many members of the public distrust the statistics and insist that they do not feel what the statistics suggest. Others in the wild, wild world of cyberspace, where discussions can be very unrefined, openly call those in authority outright liars, which is not the first time that has happened. Suffice to say those in the government are frustrated at incredulity exhibited by many members of the public towards the official narrative of declining crime.

Idris Jala, the head of PEMANDU, cited an article entitled ”Cockeyed optimists” in The Economist some time ago. The message of the article, among others, is that perception lags behind actual crime statistics. The article referred to the United Kingdom to support its claim. In short, Idris Jala was defending the statistics amid widespread disbelief. He tried to rationalize the seemingly contradictory signals inferred from the reported crime statistics and public perception of the level of crime within the society, and he hoped others believed it. If he had not hoped, he would not have shared his rationalization in the first place.

Eugene Tan, a PEMANDU director, was clearer in delivering the same message. ”Changes in perception do not immediately follow changes on the ground. And even when people fear crime less and perception changes, the change is slower than the actual reduction of cases,” he reportedly said.

Crime may be falling. Or at least the reported official crime statistics are declining. And it may be true that perception lags behind crime rate.

Or it may be that falling crime rate itself is not the real concern. Maybe, the actual issue is that the public tolerates only so much crime.

It can be that is a maximum level of crime that the public can endure while maintaining their composure. If total crime is above the level in general, then the public will complain loudly about the performance of the authority in tackling crime. If total crime is below that level, then maybe it will ease the public.

If it is indeed true that there is a ceiling that the public tolerates, then the question is not whether the total crime has been falling. The whole new hypothesis makes the point on declining crime statistics somewhat redundant. The trend itself becomes of little comfort to the public and is of little value in improving public sentiment with respect to crime and overall safety of self, their loved ones and property.

Instead of focusing on whether the crime rate has fallen — conditional on the truth value of the assumption of comfort ceiling — the relevant concern now takes a slightly different form. The question now is whether total crime has fallen low enough?

Taking the continuing public dissatisfaction within this new context, then the answer seems to be no. It appears that there is still some way to go before the public is satisfied with the level of crime within our society.

So, the alternative way to convince that public with issues regarding general crime is to identify the ceiling, compare the total crime to the ceiling and work towards pushing total crime below that.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on August 3 2012.

Categories
Economics Society

[2543] Safety bought through ransom is a cost to society

Amid the political wrangling on Bersih and its aftermath, a son of two expatriates living in Kuala Lumpur was kidnapped. The kidnapping of Nayati became a minor sensation. Twitter was abuzzed with it. Posters were put up across the city and flyers handed out. Just outside of my office in Damansara Heights, just by the busy road, somebody hang a large poster of Nayati, appealing for information and help. Judging by the impressive and expensive effort, the parents are well-off.

He was found later outside of the city in Rawang and it was reported that the parents paid the kidnappers some unknown ransom.

I am glad Nayati was found and I am glad he is safe.

Nevertheless, it must be highlighted that Nayati is one person. The more important fact here is that we live in a society. The handling of the case gives signal to the society. That signal will inform future decision of both victims and criminals.

The “ransom solution” creates an expectation on the side of the criminals that crime pays. That creates adverse incentive.

When the incentive is big enough over the cost of crime (either through the increase of actual payoff or the higher probability of payoff), we can expect greater occurrence of kidnapping in the future. The ransom solution will create a systemic problem and it will make the society less safe.

For Nayati’s parents, the police may have helped them. Nayati’s father has thanked the police. In fact, if I were the father, I would thank the police for their aid despite paying off the kidnappers with my own money. In tough times, any help will be appreciated. And I do not blame the parents for paying off the ransom. No money worth more than the life of your loved ones.

But, from societal point of view, such emotional attachment should be stripped in favor of pure rational economic analysis.

When it is stripped, then the incentive structure will tell us that each ransom solution represents a failure of the societal institutions.

Any safety bought through ransom is a cost to the society as a whole. Call it negative externality; each time you pay, you may make somebody else worse off.

So, from societal perspective, the Nayati case is a failure. It will continue to be a failure until the kidnappers are caught and sufficiently punished to tell everybody that crime does not pay.