Price of security

Singapore used to be a safe, peaceful and orderly place. People respect the law. There are sufficient law enforcement officers who are dedicated to their jobs and are respected.

This situation has changed. We hardly see a policman on the road today. Many people prefer comfortable jobs in offices, especially the banks, rather than be a policeman on the beat. There must be an increase in crime in recent years, although they are not reflected in the statistics. Are the statistics reliable?

We have seen an increse in cheating cases involving motor insurance claims and sales of unregulated financial products. Thre are insufficient manpower in the law enforcement agencies to investigate these cases.

On the other hand, we have many older people who remain unemployed for many years. The younger people have taken over their jobs in the offices. But, there are insufficient people who want to be policemen.


The home affairs ministry may celebrate their ability to meet the key performance indicator of reducing manpower cost (which may earn a performance bonus for the people in charge), but this is at the expense of security in our society.

The recent incident of grafitti on the MRT train is an example of how bad things have become. What if there was a bomb planted in the train?

Something is wrong with the priorities in our society.

Tan Kin Lian