The police force, it seems, is finally ready to crack down on serious crime. They're starting this crackdown with (shock!) yet another crackdown on 'illegal immigrants'.
This is, because, they say that illegal immigrants are involved in 'a lot' of serious crime. Such as murder. Now, I remember seeing statistics a few years back when we had another 'argh they're out there' scare - foreigners attacking our way of life. And in terms of crime, foreigners were under-represented in convictions. The stats I found today only had the number of prisoners - around 40% were foreigners in 2003, but that includes those who are in detention camps for illegal migrant workers which pushes up the number tremendously.
Illegal immigrants, or preferably, undocumented migrant workers tend to be among the worst off in any society. They have no protection against exploitation and abuse, they tend to have to work on daily rates of pay with no job security, and the last thing they want is the police on their backs. Yes, they operate outside the law (but, according to a lot of the undocumented workers, so do the police who harass them). This doesn't make them violent or evil. It tends to make them desperate.
If we are serious about tackling the crime that involves undocumented workers, we could try having more humane policies. First off would be signed the UN convention on refugees. At one sweep, this would help 10s of thousands of undocumented refugees. I know one case where an engineer and his family are living on their life savings, which are almost exhausted. They have been granted refugee status, but desperately need a country to take them. They haven't resorted to crime, but are in the unenviable state of being reliant on the goodwill of others - for a place to live, for medical care. They are just one family among many. I'm amazed how many refugees and other undocumented workers resist the temptation of petty crime. It must require huge will power. After all, they're already on the wrong side of the law... going to jail isn't really a deterrent, they're faced with that every day anyhow.
Second would be stronger protections for migrant workers, and more transparent processes on visas, stronger penalties for agents who abuse migrant workers... a whole host of recommendations that human rights and workers' organisations have been recommending for years. Refugees are just one category of 'illegal' workers. There are those who came over knowing it was against the immigration laws, and there were those who came over because they were tricked into coming. Either way, they face the same problems.
Third, and this has been discussed by the Government, could we have some laws to protect those who are actively trafficked, please?
Though, to be honest, none of these is the ultimate change that we need. Ultimately, the problem lies in an economic disparity. We have free movement of capital, but we don't have free movement of labour. If people could come and go as they wished, it would have beneficial impacts all round. People who have to undergo lengthy migratory regulations etc are more likely to engage in fraud, to want to move to the country they go to, more likely to be exploited etc. Probably not a move Malaysia is going to make unilaterally, but one we really should be discussing....
PS... Came across an interesting related statistic, we have the highest number of jails (in absolute terms) of any of 62 nations surveyed by NationMaster - and 5th in terms of jails per capita. It works out at about one jail per thousand people.
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