MCPA spreads its wing to Sabah

The Malaysian Crime Prevention Association (MCPA) launched its Sabah branch in Kota Kinabalu Saturday to bolster local community participation in efforts to combat criminal activities in the State.

Its President Ravi Ponnan said the newly set-up MCPA Sabah will stress on promoting crime prevention awareness and make school students the main target group of their campaign.

"We will focus more on students and organise for them specially tailored training, seminars, forums and other activities to educate them on various crimes such as vandalism, corruption, drugs, gangsterism and vice, street racing, deviant teachings, terrorism and so on," he said at the official launching at the Sabah Golf and Country Club.

Ravi said setting up of the branch in Sabah, which will be expanded to cover more districts in the State, would enable MCPA to understand better crime-related issues in the State and will therefore allow it to play an active and meaningful role in assisting the authorities to address them effectively.

MCPA was established at the national level on Sept 20, 2002 to cooperate and assist government agencies, particularly the police, in curbing criminal activities by, among others, conducting research on crimes and helping convicted criminals in their rehabilitation process.

"We cannot fully curb criminal activities but we can effectively address these through prevention activities at the grassroots level, " Ravi said.

Youth and Sports Assistant Minister Datuk Jahid Jahim in officiating ceremony, hoped the presence of MCPA in the State would encourage active participation from the people.

"With the opening of a branch here, we also hope that understanding and cooperation between MCPA and the people would be further strengthened," he said.

He noted that the association's "community-oriented policing and smart partnership" approach was aimed at mobilising community members to work together with the authority in an integrated and coordinated crime prevention effort.

MCPA, Jahid said, could contribute significantly to preventing crimes in Sabah through research it will conduct in the State to study behavioural factors related to criminal activities.

"Much research on crimes and the factors that lead to them have been conducted by psychologists and various ministries.

"The more research the better as it will further expand our reference and allow us to solve, prevent and minimise crimes more effectively, " he said