The Effectiveness of Safe City Program: Community perceptions in Kulaijaya, Malaysia

Safe City Program is the approach used in most cities in Malaysia to overcome the problem of escalating crime in urban areas. This program focuses on the implementation of 15 measures of crime prevention through environmental design strategies, empowering the safe city of the target area, and the strategies of management, community involvement and public awareness. The city of Kulaijaya under the Kulai Municipal Council (MPKu) has implemented this program since 2004. Implementation of the Safe City Program provides relief to everyone, especially to the urban community of MPKu. However, the crime statistics index released by the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) for the years 2005 to 2009, show that crime rate in Kulaijaya was at an alarming rate. The question lies weather 15 measures of crime prevention in Safe City Program can reduce the crime in the city? Therefore, this study aims to identify the effectiveness of the Safe City Program conducted in the city of Kulaijaya. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Safe City Program is based on community perceptions. Questionnaires were used to obtain community perceptions on the effectiveness of Safe City Program, where 278 questionnaires were distributed. The study found out that some of the crime prevention measures in Safe City Program are not effective in reducing the crime problem in this city. The problem that was detected and indirectly obtained from this study is the existence of gambling premises which operate openly in most of the shopping mall in this city.