ACADEMIC VIEWPOINT by Richard C. Hollinger, Ph.D.
Crime Control in Singapore D
uring this past fall semester, I was on an academic sabbatical. This is a time when professors are temporarily relieved of their everyday teaching and administrative duties in order to travel, write, conduct research, and generally “recharge their intellectual batteries.” In October I was invited to Bogotá, Colombia, to present a keynote presentation at the very first loss prevention conference sponsored by FENALCO, which is the Colombian national retail association. Then in November my wife and I traveled to northern Thailand primarily to visit the cities of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rei. We rode elephants, crossed the Mekong River into Laos, Myanmar, and visited the Golden Triangle. Moreover, we spent a significant share of our time during this three-week Southeast Asia trip in the remarkably modern city-state of Singapore.
The Republic of Singapore
According to Wikipedia, the Republic of Singapore is a collection of sixty-three islands with a population of 5.18 million people. Singapore is highly urbanized, yet remarkably, almost half of the country is covered by greenery. More land is being created for development each day through land reclamation. The port of Singapore is one of the five busiest, most notable for being the biggest transshipment port in the world. On a clear day the harbor is full of container ships as far as the eye can see. The country is a very wealthy one, as it is home to more millionaire households per capita than any other in the world. The World Bank notes Singapore as the “easiest place in the world to do business.” Thanks to some personal contacts arranged by Rex Gillette, a former resident of Singapore during his long career with ADT, I experienced visits with a number of loss prevention directors and retail stores, talking at length to them about their retail crime problems. It turns out, however, most types of crime, especially serious property and violent crime, are almost non-existent in Singapore. This is due to the fact that this former British colony is a very tightly controlled social environment. Littering, spitting on the sidewalk, and even chewing gum are all considered illegal activities in Singapore. You may recall that this is the place that gave an American teenager a painful “caning” as his punishment for vandalizing a car in 1994. Crime is just not tolerated in Singapore. You learn this very quickly even before arrival. As your plane lands, the cabin attendants remind the passengers that drug trafficking is punishable by death. In fact, during the week we arrived,
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Dr. Hollinger is a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is also director of the Security Research Project, which annually conducts the National Retail Security Survey (www.crim.ufl.edu/srp/srp.htm). Dr. Hollinger can be reached at rhollin@ufl.edu or 352-392-0265 x230. © 2012 Richard C. Hollinger
three suspects were arrested at the airport for drug possession and were immediately tried and sentenced to be hung. In short, Singapore just does not tolerate crime.
Citywide Video Surveillance
Remarkably, you don’t feel an oppressive police presence while visiting the city. We did see police dressed in army fatigues carrying machine guns at “immigration and customs” while in the airport, but after that it was rare to see even a single uniformed police officer walking the streets or riding in a patrol car. This is due to the fact that the whole city is blanketed by a very sophisticated CCTV system that apparently is watching your every move in public. If a crime is detected on camera, police are quickly dispatched to the scene of the offense. A former police officer, now working as a retail security guard, told me that most officers are not walking a beat, but rather, sitting in centralized offices watching CCTV monitors during their typical shifts.
The Republic of Singapore is a modern, beautiful city that has made crime control and public order a major priority. Civil liberties and freedoms from search and surveillance have been placed behind the goal of living in a crime-free society. Cameras are everywhere with obvious signage to warn the citizen who does not recognize the presence of video surveillance. You see cameras on the streets placed on tall poles, in parking ramps, on sidewalks, in hotel lobbies, and in virtually all businesses. The impression that you get in Singapore is that you are constantly being watched. At first I found this level of surveillance to be somewhat disconcerting, but when I asked typical residents, they told me that they were glad that police and security were constantly watching and protecting them. Singapore citizens seemed reassured that crime was well under control, and they expressed that they felt safer as a result of the public-view video “eyes” that were seemingly everywhere. |
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