NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICE POSTS IN PRIVATE HOUSING ESTATES

Dr Lau Teik Soon (Serangoon Gardens): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to claim the right to speak on the Motion for the Adjournment and to bring to the attention of this House an issue which concerns a considerable number of citizens, ie citizens living in the private housing estates. I am not just speaking on behalf of Serangoon Gardens constituency. There are many private housing estates in Singapore. In fact, according to one figure, there are more than 250 private housing estates in over 150 locations in the country.

Mr Speaker, Sir, last year, the Police Department made a fundamental change in its policing system and adopted the Neighbourhood Police Post (NPP) system. From June 1983, neighbourhood police posts were set up in the Toa Payoh Division. After a year of its operation, the NPP system has been evaluated and the result has been very encouraging.

The success of the initial programme has led the Minister for Home Affairs to announce that the Government has decided to implement the NPP system throughout the country. From 1st December, a police post will be established in each of the 12 constituencies in the Jurong and Paya Lebar Divisions.

According to the Police Life Annual, 1984, about 50 police posts will be established in existing major HDB estates in the present phase from 1984 to 1988, and that 30 more posts will be built in new towns, such as Woodlands and Nee Soon in the final phase from 1989 to 1991.

Mr Speaker, Sir, a striking feature of the NPP system is that the neighbourhood police posts are to be built in HDB housing estates only. As far as I am aware, there is no plan to extend the NPP system to cover private housing estates. In my view, this is a very serious omission. An efficient policing system is needed for private housing estates as much as it is needed for HDB new towns.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to ask the Minister why it has not been possible to extend the programme to private housing estates. Is the problem one of manpower, finance or space? If the problem is one of space, then I suggest that the Police Department discusses where to site the police posts with the members of the Citizens' Consultative Committee, area committee or residents' association. For example, in my constituency there are many housing estates - Serangoon Garden Estate, Tai Hwan Garden, Golden Hill Estate, Highland Garden, Richard's Park and Fortuna Garden. Surely, together with the community organizations, the Police Department can locate a convenient and strategic spot for the police post to be built.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I hope the Minister would agree to the extension of the NPP system to the private housing estates because, in my view, these estates constitute in many ways a less secure environment than the HDB new towns. In a private housing estate, the housing units are spread out and many of them are located far away from the main roads, Street lighting is poor in many places and it is dangerous for young children, teenagers, senior citizens and others to walk the long distance from the main road to their houses, especially at night. In a private housing estate, you do not have a concentration of people living together. Furthermore, it is difficult for grandparents and relatives to stay close to the families, unlike the HDB estates where priority is given to multi-tier families to live adjacent to each other. Then, if both parents work and if the family has no domestic help, there is no one to look after the children and property in their absence. For these and other reasons, in my view, there is the need for the presence of the police officers to reassure the residents, and hence, the necessity to extend the NPP system to the private housing estates.

The establishment of a police post in the private housing estate will enhance the security of the neighbourhood. The residents will feel a lot safer with the post just a short distance away. The residents can assist and cooperate with the police officers in crime prevention activities, They can accompany the police officers as they go about their house to house visits or on their foot and bicycle patrols. The residents' association or area committee members of the private housing estate can discuss various crime prevention measures with the police officers. In general, the extension of the NPP system to the private housing estates will strengthen the bond between the lawmen and the community.

Mr Speaker, Sir, after all that I have said, the Minister may respond by suggesting that the private housing estates set up neighbourhood watch groups in the estates. In fact, in Serangoon Gardens Constituency, there are neighbourhood watch groups but they are not effective. This is because it is difficult to keep constant watch over each other's houses. It would be better if there is a police post nearby and the police officers can patrol the streets in the private housing estates regularly and involve the residents in their activities.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I hope that the Minister will consider seriously my suggestion and decide to extend the NPP system to the private housing estates as soon as possible. 3.46pm

The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Chua Sian Chin): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I assure the Member for Serangoon Gardens that it is part of the plan to have police posts in private housing estates as well. I do not know where he got the information that there will be no NPP posts in private housing estates. I think he must have got the wrong information on this point. Although we will be having police posts in private housing estates, the priority of establishing these posts will be given to the public housing estates. And we have good reasons why it should be so.

Perhaps I should say something about how we intend to establish these neighbourhood police posts throughout Singapore. After I have given the Member for Serangoon Gardens an idea of how we would go about it, I think he will be quite happy to know that Serangoon Gardens will not be left out.

As I have recently announced, based on the very favourable results of the evaluation of the implementation of the NPP system in Toa Payoh Division, we have decided to extend the system to all constituencies. Each constituency will have at least one police post while the larger ones will have two posts. Police posts will be strategically located in the heart of residential areas so that the residents can conveniently have access to and from which police officers can be easily deployed. The main objective of the NPP system is to bring about closer rapport and interaction between the police officers and the residents. This is most important.

The NPP system as I said is to service both the public and private housing estates. I think the Member for Serangoon Gardens does not know that, in fact, in the first implementation of the NPP system in the Toa Payoh Division, police posts have been established in the Thomson and Aljunied Constituencies which are serving both the public and private housing estates in the constituencies. If the Member had a chat with the Member for Thomson and the Member for Aljunied, he would have known that.

Our plan is to establish, in all, 91 neighbourhood police posts to cover the whole of Singapore. However, owing to the physical and other constraints, it is not possible to set up and run police posts all at once. Besides having to build the posts, we need also to recruit police officers of the right calibre and to train them to work as NPP officers because this is a most specialized type of policing. Much as we would like to recruit as many officers as we can as soon as possible, we are limited to their availability and response to our yearly recruitment exercises. Thus we have no alternative but to implement the NPP system in phases based on a system of priorities after taking into consideration a number of relevant factors.

As I said just now, we have decided to give priority of implementation of the NPP system to constituencies which have large public housing estates. Let me explain. The reasons are, first, as a result of our urban renewal and public housing programme, more than 70% of our population are living in high-rise HDB estates. We soon found out that our traditional method of patrolling these high-rise buildings was ineffective and inappropriate. We then tried vertical policing. It was found to be not a success because it was physically impossible for daily police patrols to cover a sufficient number of high-rise blocks to make their physical presence felt, and as a result there was hardly any interaction between the residents and the officers on patrol. In fact, it was this lack of success of policing high-rise apartment blocks that prompted us to rethink, and this made us finally to decide to make a fundamental change in our policing strategy and doctrine by adopting the NPP system.

On the other hand, private housing estates of one-storey or two-storey bungalows or terrace houses as you find in Serangoon Gardens can still be effectively policed by our traditional methods of policing, although I must say that it is not ideal. We are now improving it by having more bicycle patrols. The objective of these bicycle patrols is to achieve a better interaction between the residents and police officers.

As for the private high-rise condominiums, many of them have their own security arrangements, including deployment of security guards which effectively complements the police patrol. In other words, the need of our public housing estates is greater than the need of the private housing estates, be they high-rise condominiums or low-rise bungalows and terrace houses.

Second, it is faster to build NPPs in HDB estates which have void decks. On the other hand, in constituencies which do not have HDB estates, NPPs will have to be built as independent structures. The search and reservation of such sites and the construction of the posts could take a much longer time.

The third reason is, from our experience of the implementation of the NPP system in the Toa Payoh Division, we found that the presence of an infrastructure of grassroots organizations, especially the Residents' Committees, is crucial in ensuring the successful implementation of the NPP system. It is these grassroots leaders that have made it possible to achieve rapport and closer interaction between the residents and NPP officers so quickly, particularly by their accompanying NPP officers in their house visits. Thus HDB estates are given priority in the implementation of the NPP system.

Basing on this consideration, the constituencies with private housing estates will be given special consideration for earlier implementation of the NPP system if they have established a sufficiently comprehensive infrastructure of grassroots infrastructure, such as residents' associations and/or neighbourhood watch groups. Constituencies with now housing estates, pens of which are still under construction, will not have NPPs until the estate is fully developed.

Taking into consideration all these factors, we have planned to set up all 91 NPPs by 1989, earlier by three years from what the Member has said.

Let me refer to the Serangoon Gardens Constituency. I believe there is one new public housing estate called Serangoon North New Town which is under construction and it will be completed by 1989. Although it is a public housing estate, the NPP post will not be established until 1989 for the reasons I have just stated. However, because of the large area and peculiar shape of the Serangoon Gardens Constituency, two police posts are needed. One is to be sited in the Serangoon Gardens Estate consisting of bungalows and terrace houses and the other in the Serangoon North New Town.

The police post at the Serangoon Gardens Estate will be set up next year and, may I stress, provided there is a sufficient infrastructure of grassroots organizations, such as residents' associations coupled with neighbourhood watch groups, to help the smooth implementation of the NPP system in the Serangoon Gardens Estate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That Parliament do now adjourn.

Adjourned accordingly at Two Minutes to Four o'clock pm sine die.