PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING IMPLEMENTATION IN MALAYSIA:A COMPARISON OF SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS

Community Oriented Policing (COP) is a bridge that enables community and law enforcement to communicate, collaborate and work together to build safer, more caring communities. The Malaysian government tries to allocate more resources towards fighting crime and establishing more agencies to review police rules and conduct and investigate public complaints. The need to achieve greater efficacy in the delivery of police service led them to seek support and legitimacy within and from the public. In the middle of 2007, throughout PDRM's five year strategic plan (2007-2011), the government had introduced COP into Malaysia's policing strategies. COP comes with its own unique set of challenges. It reduces crime by engaging the community as a partner in the fight against crime rather than relying on aggressive law enforcement as the only solution to community problems. COP is a belief that by working together, the police and the community can accomplish what neither can accomplish alone. It involves a rethinking of the role of the police and a restructuring of the policing. The purposes of this research study are; (a) to identify the effectiveness level of Community Oriented Policing implementation and (b) to determine the socio-demographic differences in the effectiveness of Community Oriented Policing.