Blog article 1: Current Affairs

Article 1:

THE rapid transformation of Singapore into a global city with a large influx of foreigners has resulted in social disruptions, but a feared upsurge in crime is not one of them.

This is one of the better stories to emerge from this rapidly changing country and its fast-rising population in recent years.

Newsweek last week succinctly asked a question that is in the mind of many people: “The island's economy is booming. So why are so many citizens worse off than they were 10 years ago?”

The cause is a rising level of poverty and a stagnating middle class income in the past five years – while costs have gone up – all of which had raised fears that crime would dramatically worsen.

Besides, new technology today allows crooks from abroad to cheat the unwary without even setting foot here.

Well, miraculously it hasn’t happened.

In fact, the latest police statistics showed a significant 10% decline in crime in 2006, with cases falling from 37,093 (in 2005) to 33,393.

They covered all index crimes, especially rioting, housebreaking, robbery and cheating as well as car theft, most of which are usually associated with poverty.

Even mobile phone crimes, the 21st century curse, fell. Youth offences, which account for one-fifth of the total, dropped by 30%.

Singapore’s pattern of crime has been changing in the past 20 years in tandem with the rise in education, wealth and new technology.

But as criminals became worldly-wise, the trend has ostensibly moved from violent offences, which bring less money and stronger punishment, to more profitable white-collar crimes.

They include fraud, product piracy, deception, commercial scams, computer offences, and bribery.

There are fewer hard drug offenders, secret society members (replaced by teenage gangs) and robbery syndicates which used to operate in large numbers during the less developed era.

Today the crooks are more likely to be suit-wearing CEOs and directors, lawyers, bankers or computer experts who dine in five-star hotels and travel first-class.

According to the latest statistics, computer crimes (unheard of 20 years ago) now number about 60 a year.

A new breed of white-collar criminals has been grabbing world headlines in recent years, stirring its very core tenet of protecting investors’ interests.

One of Singapore’s selling points has been its low-crime, stable environment for businessmen and citizens.

Recent instances of misuse of funds amounting to tens of millions of dollars by CEOs of charity bodies have dealt corporate image and trust a serious blow.

Some mega-frauds include the following:

·Singapore Airlines supervisor Toe Cheng Kyat embezzled some S$35mil (RM80.5mil) from his company. He was sentenced to 24 years' jail;

·A bigger cheat, casino high-roller Chia Teck Leng, an executive of Asia Pacific Breweries (Singapore) was found guilty of cheating four banks, siphoning off a staggering A$190mil (RM513mil). His crime spree spread over four years;

·Next Kwek Chee Tong, 53, former managing director of public-listed Kian Ho Bearings, got nine years' jail for misappropriating more than S$5mil (RM11.5mil) of company money;

·In 2004 China Aviation Oil (CAO) chief executive Chen Jiulin was sentenced to 51 months' jail in connection with the company’s US$550mil (RM1.9bil) trading scandal; and

·Earlier, Nick Leeson, a 28-year-old derivatives trader at the Singapore office of Barings PLC, Britain’s oldest merchant bank, lost over US$1.4bil (RM4.9bil) betting on Nikkei futures. It wiped out the bank's equity capital.

Not all white-collar thieves are managers or the well-heeled; the majority, in fact, are ordinary employees like clerks, IT workers or bank employees who have something in common, the trust of the company.

Some time ago, for example, a secretary was convicted of forging more than 70 cheques totalling S$1.5mil (RM3.45mil) over two years and was jailed six-and-a-half years.

This trend indicates that, unlike many developing countries, the crime motivation in Singapore has more to do with human greed than poverty. But it also marks a decline in moral standards.

Secondly, the influx of foreigners has had an impact on crime since they caused 19% of it, but this was less than popularly believed. Foreigners make up 28% of the population.

Singapore has always taken a tough punitive stand on the belief that crime and the ambition to be a global hub cannot live side by side.

So has the spate of major commercial cases cut business trust?

In a 2005 global survey, international PricewaterhouseCoopers looked into the impact of rising commercial crime on international business confidence, and has a section on Singapore.

“Fraud (is) a significant and growing threat worldwide,” the survey said in a synopsis.

The survey found that 45% (2003: 37%) of international companies reported having suffered fraud in the last two years. The number of victim companies rose by 22% since 2003.

Singapore was in better shape, with only 16% of companies surveyed reporting having fallen victim – compared with 39% region-wide.

The republic saw a sharp 50% decline in the number of victim firms; two years ago it was 32%.

Although the numbers are down, the survey found the republic recording the biggest frauds (in money terms) than most countries in the world, on a per capita basis.

“The average cost of economic crime in Singapore was US$4mil (RM14mil), significantly higher than the global and regional averages of US$1.7mil (RM5.95mil) and US$1.6mil (RM5.6mil),” said the global professional services firm.

With the proposed large foreign influx, the future could change when its population reaches seven million in 20 years.

And the social impact of becoming a casino city remains uncertain.

(This was first published in The Star on Jan 26, 2007)

Personal Response 1
Crime in today’s context is very different from that of the past. With higher education, criminals can now outsmart the police. Robberies are a thing of the past. Violence is disappearing from the “crime scene”. Replacing these “outdated” crimes are crimes which involve technology and psychology.

The first question we have to ask ourselves is why the change? This is a hard question to answer, especially with my inexperience and lack of knowledge in this field. However, in my opinion, there are three possible answers to this question.

Firstly, the chances of being caught in such cases are much lower than those which are physical. Firstly, there are fewer clues such as fingerprints left behind. With new technology, criminals can commit crimes miles away from the actual crime scene. A simple click of the mouse does the job. For cases involving psychology, people usually know the criminals but are too embarrassed to report them. In these cases, the criminals make use of men’s weak and vulnerable psychological mindset.

Secondly, the yield that one gets from such crimes is relatively higher. A thief can only steal things of certain amount and of certain size. You don’t see thieves stealing a television set. Neither do you see thieves stealing twenty hand phones in a single attempt. The usage of technology, however, can help remove these restrictions. One can now send a “time bomb” virus and wait for it to spread being activating it. Criminals can then steal the passwords or information from many people in one attempt. Thus, the yields are relatively higher. For psychological crimes, yields are higher as the threat posed by it is continuous. If X threatens Y with something that is very important for Y unless Y pays up, X can keep threatening Y for more money with the same thing. In other words, the threat is continuous and the yield can be seen as never ending.

Thirdly, criminals also get lighter punishments for such crimes. With less usage of physical contact, the punishments become lighter. There is a correlation between violence and the intensity of the punishment in the law currently. In this sense, these criminals get lighter punishments.

Therefore, the next question to be asked is on prevention of such crimes. The first way is education. This can be done on the social and family basis. People can be educated on web safety such as not to click on unknown links. The second way is law. With crimes changing, laws have to change too. The punishments for technology and psychological crimes have to be heavier. This will prevent people from committing such crimes. Of course, we can also strengthen the police force and make them trained in areas like technology, teach them ways to track down people who commit crimes involving technology.

There is change everywhere and anywhere, every time and anytime. The only way to solve changes is to liquefy ourselves and change with the changes. Only in this way can new crimes be prevented.