Smile, you’re on cop camera

THE Home Minister’s announcement that the first batch of body-worn cameras (BWCS) will be delivered latest by next month is a welcome news indeed (“Bodycams to come earlier for the cops” The Star, May 10; online at bit.ly/star_ bodycam). It is a good step forwards for greater transparency and accountability.

The body camera is the tool to document interactions between police and the public and to ensure adherence to protocol, thus denying any form of false reports. This helps to improve the civility of police-citizen encounters while enhancing citizens’ perceptions of police transparency and legitimacy; it will help to improve community policing.

As rightly said by Deputy Inspectorgeneral of Police Datuk Seri Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, upskilling police personnel must be done in tandem to meet challenges in contemporary policing. Perhaps it is time to review the training curriculum for police rank and file personnel.

Policing today has many challenges that are very different from what the men and women in blue faced even just a decade ago. Everything is more complex than before and then complicated even more by social media. In this connection, a comprehensive plan on subjects to be taught must be restructured to meet new demands. Police personnel who are the frontliners must attain a higher level of expertise to face the challenges.

Hopefully, by next month, with the implementation of the BWCS, Malaysians can look forward to better police-community transparency.

DATUK WEE BENG GEE Petaling Jaya

The letter writer is a former member of the Royal Malaysia Police and was the deputy director of the Narcotics Crime Investigation Department before he retired in 2007.