Rights advocates fear that setting a quota for drug arrests could result in abuses such as corruption among police officers. (Rawpixel pic) PETALING JAYA: The Kelantan police’s key performance indicator (KPI) approach to crime fighting has raised fears that it could result in abuses but fail to reduce criminal activity. Two lawyers who voiced their misgivings expressed concerns that it could lead to wrongful arrests but fail to reduce problems such as drug abuse or criminal activity.
M Visvanathan, who chairs the rights group Eliminating Deaths and Abuse in Custody Together (Edict), sees it as a lack of professionalism in the force, while S Vinesh is concerned that it will restrict people’s liberty.Yusoff Mamat. They were responding to a statement by Kelantan police chief Yusoff Mamat that every station in the state must now make at least one drug-related arrest daily. He described it as a “new strategy” to combat drug abuse.
The directive came into effect on July 15 after police recorded a decline in drug-related arrests despite intensified enforcement efforts. Visvanathan said such a directive could result in people being apprehended on “flimsy grounds”, thus compromising the quality of arrests and inviting a backlash. “The police will be accused of conducting investigations superficially, thereby acting unprofessionally.
This calls into question the integrity of the force, and that will tarnish their image,” he told FMT. He described it as the wrong way to tackle drug abuse in the country and expressed fears that it could result in innocent people being arrested. Visvanathan also expressed concern that the KPI-driven approach could encourage corruption within the police force if arrests were made without credible evidence, simply to meet the daily quota.S Vinesh.
Vinesh, a criminal lawyer, said that while performance targets are necessary, they should not become “a numbers game”, especially in drug-related cases. He shared Visvanathan’s concerns that the Kelantan police’s approach could put undue pressure on officers to make arrests simply to meet their daily targets. Vinesh said such pressure increases the risk of investigations being compromised.
“So what happens if the quality of investigations declines? It weakens prosecutions and, ultimately, affects people’s liberty,” he said. He also warned that an increase in arrests driven by the …
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