Back in 1965 Singapore got it independence and for the years the follow the economy was on the move and everyone was working. As companies moved into to country the standard of living was vastly raised and the population enjoyed the good times. With the influences of different countries the first generations Singaporeans had everything they could want and even move. With the low cost government housing that was being built it was possible for every family to own their own Flat making Singapore the envy of many other counties in the region.

Well that was then and this is now! Back in 1997 the Asia market crashed and it was time to tighten the belt a few knocks. Companies had to find way to keep competitive with the region while at the same time making a profit. So how dose a company do cost saving, easy cut people and demand that the remaining employees pick up the pass and take up the slack! Retrenchments became a word everyone feared and for good reason. Many companies cut people and I mean cut a lot of people, not just from the lower end of the scale but executives as well. No one was safe and had no ideal how long they would keep their jobs.

Once a person was retrenched finding work in the same line could be a very hard task depending on your skills and age. With so many people graduating from university in the country the market / employers had a vast pool of people to pick and chose from when they did go to rehire adding to that was that companies were now looking at a persons school levels passed, Certificates, Diplomas and Degrees. If a job seeker was unable to produce the needed documents for employment their resume was put to side and never looked at again regardless of the experience they had. So for many of the older worker seeking jobs in other fields was what was needed, but even then they found that due to their age many employers still wouldn’t hire them on because they felt the older worker would not adjust well to working for a younger manager. Plus how long would the older employee be with the company, what was their health like, and was this job just something to hold them over until a better job more their liking came a long?

It is common in Singapore that if you are over 40 years of age and seeking a job you will have a hard time. If you are over 50 well it gets damn hard then unless you are willing to take a job that pays low with long hours. For many these jobs are hard to take due to the experience and skills they have and jobs they held before. How does a person go from a Bank Manager to Security Guard and still feel good about them self? Hard question isn’t it! But it happens all the time. People have to survive and they have to take what they can find to support their families.

For the younger workers in the country it is long days and often weekends too to make the career last. With working hours from 9am to 6pm they find them selves working until 8 or 9pm at night more times then they would like to admit. Mandatory training on off Saturdays and having to classes to up-grade they skills to be met company policies adds to the stress already upon them. But you see the employer knows that if a person leaves the job they can hire some one else at a reduced pay wage and they also know that jobs are hard find so the chances of a working throwing in the towel and quitting is low. So they take advantage of these facts and the employee has nothing to little to do about it, so they bite the bullet and keep working.

Careers in Singapore are very important as they should be and the Singaporean are very hard working individuals. With the price of living being high it is important to have a good amount in savings before even thinking about getting married. It is not uncommon to find both men and woman in their mid-thirties still single. Now is this due partly to not having time for a relationship due to working so much or wanting to keep saving to by that Condo and new Mercedes, could be! Or may be is just isn’t as important as it was with the older generations.

As Singapore moves a head it talks about the world economy and what Singapore need to do to keep up and improve their standing and it is looking to the youth to come forward to take on the new challenges, but what of those that started the country? The older workers that brought Singapore to what it is today? Should they be just left be the wayside with no regard to the years of experience they hold! This is a question I can’t answer, maybe they are just victims of a small country moving too fast for them and they need to left behind for the sake of the many.

One area I wonder about is the construction field and why Singaporeans are not in this line of work. While it has its engineers there are few labors. When you live in country that is always building and rebuilding itself why is the work done but men from other countries? I fully understand that the cost is much cheaper to hire these workers but let’s put that aside for a moment. With over 200,000 in doing construction that equals a lot of job. But it is the kind of work that a Singaporean is willing to do? Not at what it pay now, I can tell you that. In time as things change there will be no choice since Singapore is joining a region wide push to cut the number of foreign low-skilled workers by tightening rules on employment in the construction sector.

This tiny city-state, which has hundreds of thousands of foreigners working in the construction industry, plans to change the criteria for work permits as part of long-term plans to reduce its reliance on this imported labor. The number of foreign construction workers was tightened by five to 10 percent compared from June 1, 2002 the Manpower Ministry said in a statement.

Singapore reduced contractors' foreign worker entitlements to 70 percent of 1999 levels by 2005, and 50 percent by 2010. Workers from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand will be affected. Under the current system, employers are given entitlements in terms of man-years to employ foreign workers. These entitlements vary according to the value of the building projects.

Neighboring Malaysia, home to more than a million foreign workers, recently (2002) decided to halve the number of Indonesians working in the country after several incidents of violence. Thailand, which has at least a million illegal immigrants from its poorer neighbors, launched a nationwide crackdown last month.

In Singapore there are over 150,000 maids working, taking care of the flats and children of the working parents. In a country of 3.5 million that seems like a lot of maids to me! But again with the parents working long hours and getting home until 8 or 9 in the evening there is little choice in the matter for them. The down side is that the parents have little if any time to spend with the children during the weekdays so raising the kids falls on the maids. So depending on how the arrangement is set up within the family the kids may not be getting the discipline they need from the parents to help them become responsible adults. This could be one reason for the increase in abortions and child related crimes rising in Singapore. Youth crime continues to be an area of for the country; more juveniles and young persons were arrested in 2003 as compared to other years in the recent past. The three common offences committed are shop theft, other theft and rioting.

And in 2005 - A total of 4,594 youths were arrested for crime in 2005, as compared to 5,010 in 2004. They accounted for 22% of the total persons arrested, a decrease from the 26% in 2004, but still slightly higher than the proportion of the youth population in Singapore (15%). While the numbers have gone down last year it is still a high count  of arrest.

So why is this happening I wonder? Some where along the line there is a break down in discipline at that starts in the home? If the parents are not there to correct their children then the values of being a law biding citizen are not taught or reinforced and they child is influenced by bad member within their peer groups and they end up getting in to trouble.

From what I have seen the parents in Singapore do everything they can for their kids, maybe too much but with so little time being spent with the child it is understandable why the kids are spoiled to a point. Working a 44 hour week, but 60 to 70 is more realistic once you figure in travel time to and from home, why parents want to have the best time with their children when they have the time.

Well let’s see what the coming years bring to the working habits of the country workers.

By Warren E Carter

Singapore Crime Situation 2005

Overview

1) 2005 was a challenging year for Police. Overall crime in 2005 increased by about 19.9%, from 30,623 cases in 2004 to 36,704 cases or overall crime rate of 843, an increase from 722 in 2004. The bulk of the increase was once again largely attributed to minor crimes, such as theft in dwelling and other theft. Hand-phone crime featured prominently in the increases for several offences, most notably robbery, snatch theft and other theft. The number of youths arrested fell from 5,010 in 2004 to 4,594 in 2005. However, as the tendency towards crime needs to be curbed at an early age, Police will still continue to focus our efforts in tackling youth crime.

2) The number of arrests made by the Police increased by 9.5% from 19,284 to 21,108. This is a record high.

3) Theft and related offences (A) constituted more than half (62%) of overall crime cases. Offences in this category increased by 4,568 cases, from 18,236 to 22,804 cases in 2005. Theft in dwelling increased by 1,351 cases, from 7,629 cases to 8,980 cases of which shop theft increased by 581 cases, from 4,644 to 5,225 cases. Other theft (B), which are commonly cases where victims left their belongings unattended in public places such as shops, eating places, void decks, schools etc, increased by 2,310 cases, from 5,019 to 7,329 cases.

4) Eight of the nine index crimes (C) recorded increases. Motor vehicle theft recorded a decrease of 5%. The comparative statistics are attached at Annex A.

5) Hand-phone crimes (D) remain a key area of concern. The number of such cases increased by 1,414, from 3,411 to 4,825 cases in 2005. Several offences which saw notable increases in hand-phones being targeted were, other theft (from 1,096 to 1,837 cases), robbery (from 344 to 488 cases), and snatch theft (from 162 to 283 cases).

6) A total of 4,594 youths were arrested for crime in 2005, as compared to 5,010 in 2004. Six out of every 10 youths arrested were involved in theft and related offences (2,845 persons), of which 1423 persons were arrested for shop theft, and 767 persons were arrested for other theft.

7) Cheating and related offences (E) increased by 248 cases, from 2,804 to 3052 cases in 2005. The increase was mainly attributed to Criminal Breach of Trust (CBT) cases which rose from 1,065 to 1,295 cases in 2005 (+230 cases). Most of these cases involved dishonest employees who stole cash or items from their employers (from 516 to 616 cases) and culprits who pretended to borrow hand-phones from victims but failed to return them (from 223 to 303 cases). Cases where elderly victims (F) had fallen prey to cheating scams also rose from 105 to 130 cases (+25 cases).

8) Housebreaking increased by 228 cases, from 1,237 to 1,465 cases in 2005. The overall increases could be attributed to more break-ins at HDB (from 314 to 401 cases) and private residential premises (from 134 to 198 cases), as well as childcare/ education centre’s (from 58 to 73 cases) and coffee-shops (from 65 to 116 cases). There were 23 serial housebreakers arrested for a total of 257 cases in 2005, compared to 28 serial housebreakers arrested for 208 cases in 2004.

9) Motor vehicle theft decreased by 59 cases, from 1,117 to 1,058 cases in 2005. More than two-thirds were motorcycles (756 cases), while cars and lorries made up 103 cases and 78 cases of the vehicles stolen respectively.

10) Outraging of modesty increased by 212 cases, from 1,096 to 1,308 cases in 2005. About 25% of outraging of modesty cases took place at common areas of HDB blocks, such as lift/lift landing, void deck, staircase/staircase landing. This is similar to the situation last year. Cases involving contacts via internet and telephone chat lines increased from 10 to 14 cases in 2005.

11) Robbery increased by 263 cases, from 829 to 1,092 cases in 2005. The main concerns for robbery were the rise in the number of hand-phone robberies (from 344 to 488 cases) as well as the related concern of robberies involving youth victims (from 199 to 255 cases) and culprits (from 166 to 204 cases).

12) Snatch theft increased by 203 cases, from 429 to 632 cases in 2005. The increase was mainly attributed to cases where hand-phones were taken (from 162 to 283 cases). There was an increase in snatch theft cases involving youth victims (from 81 to 136 cases) and culprits (from 58 to 77 cases). Seven out of every 10 youth victims of snatch theft cases were targeted for their hand-phones.

13) Rioting (G) increased by 127 cases, from 362 to 489 cases in 2005. There was an increase in the number of cases that took place at common areas of HDB blocks (from 73 to 106 cases) and along the streets in public housing estates (from 26 to 54 cases). Consistent with previous years, youths were involved in 42% (205 cases) of rioting cases. Of these, 121 cases involved youth culprits and youth victims.

14) Rape increased by 21 cases, from 103 to 124 cases in 2005. Almost all cases involved culprits who were known to victims. There was an increase in cases involving victims who met the culprits via internet and telephone chat lines, from 5 cases in 2004 to 13 cases in 2005.

15) Murder increased by 2 cases, from 19 to 21 cases in 2005. All these cases were isolated and unrelated. Seventeen cases were crimes of passion (H) committed mainly as a result of disputes between known parties.

Hand-phone Crime

16) Robbery and theft cases involving hand-phones taken remain a key area of concern for the Police. The number of such cases increased significantly by 1,414 cases, from 3,411 to 4,825 cases in 2005. Hand-phone crimes increased most notably for theft in dwelling (excluding shop theft) from 832 to 1,119 cases (+287 cases), and for other thefts (from 1,096 to 1,837 cases in 2005). Robbery (from 344 to 488 cases), snatch thefts (from 162 to 283 cases) and cheating and related offences (from 275 to 343 cases) also saw notable increases. The increase in hand-phone crime may be due to the rise in mobile phone penetration rate (I) in Singapore indicating a larger pool of potential victims.

Youths Arrested For Crime

17) A total of 4,594 youths were arrested for crime in 2005, as compared to 5,010 in 2004. They accounted for 22% of the total persons arrested, a decrease from the 26% in 2004, but still slightly higher than the proportion of the youth population in Singapore (15%).

18) The three most common offences committed continued to be: shop theft (1423 persons or 31%), other theft (767 persons or 17%) and rioting (483 persons or 11%). Every 7 out of 10 youths arrested were males (3,339 persons).

 Foreigners Arrested For Crime

19) The number of foreigners arrested for crime decreased marginally by 2 persons to 2,700 persons in 2005. They accounted for about 13% of the total persons arrested, compared to 14% in 2004. More than half (1,483 persons or 55%) of the foreigners were arrested for theft and related offences, with shop theft accounting for 31% of the arrest.

Public-Assisted Arrests (J) for Selected Major Offences

20) Members of public contributed to the arrest of 824 criminals involved in outraging of modesty, housebreaking, robbery, motor vehicle theft, snatch theft, murder and rape. These public-assisted arrests accounted for 42% of the total arrests in these crimes for 2005, higher than the 39% recorded in 2004.

Arrests Made By Police

21) The number of persons arrested for overall crime increased by 1,824 persons (+9.5%), from 19,284 to 21,108 persons in 2005. In particular, more persons were arrested for theft in dwelling from 5,825 to 6,644 persons (+819 persons), of which arrests for shop theft made up 84% (5,573 persons). Arrests for other thefts increased from 2,123 to 2,263 persons (+140 persons), while that for housebreaking increased from 283 to 381 persons (+98 persons).

Conclusion

22) Police will continue to work in close partnership with the community so that they can be our eyes and ears to ensure that Singapore remains safe. This Police-community partnership is even more important in this current global security climate where the whole community of Singapore will need to address challenges posed by both security and crime.

 Cases Recorded For Index Crimes 2004 And 2005

A) Theft and related offences include, other theft, theft in dwelling (in hotel and others), shop theft, theft of bicycle, theft from person, etc and also includes the index crimes motor vehicle theft and snatch theft.

B) Refers to other theft under Sec 379 of the Penal Code Cap 224, excluding theft of bicycles, theft from motor vehicles and theft from persons.

C) Index crimes refer to cheating and related offences, housebreaking, motor vehicle theft, outraging of modesty, robbery, snatch theft, rioting, rape and murder. They are selected for their reliability and higher reporting rates. The index crimes are listed in descending order according to the number of cases recorded in 2005.

D) Refers to cases where hand-phones or hand-phones and other items were taken for cases of theft from vehicle, theft from person, shop theft, theft in dwelling, cheating and related offences, robbery, housebreaking, snatch theft, theft as a servant and other theft under Sec379 of Penal Code Cap 224.

E) Cheating and related offences include cheating, criminal breach of trust, counterfeiting of currency, falsification of accounts, forgery, etc.

F) Refers to victims who were aged 60 years and above.

G) Rioting refers to fighting involving five or more persons.

H) Crimes of passion refer to non-premeditated offences that occur in the heat of the moment arising from immediate instigating factors such as disputes ranging from money matters, personal/ family matters, work-related, boy-girl relationship, misunderstanding, etc.

I) Infocommunications Development Authority (IDA), Singapore listed the hand-phone penetration rate in Singapore as 97.8% in Dec 2005.

J) Public-assisted arrests refer to cases where the public had provided information, made a citizen’s arrest, or alerted the police to a crime in progress

CCTV'S at Geylang

Police will be extending the public CCTV system to include certain areas of Geylang by end March 2005 to enhance the sense of public safety for residents and businesses. CCTV's have long been recognized for their psychological deterrent effect on potential offenders and have been used traditionally to monitor premises as part of crime prevention and security measures.

The CCTV's earlier installed at Newton hawker centre, Little India and Boat Quay have served as a useful tool to supplement the other safety and security measures undertaken at these public areas. Early detection of potential law and order incidents via CCTV monitoring have allowed resources to respond quickly and diffuse several fights and situations before they escalate. Images from CCTV have also proven useful in gathering additional leads to aid investigations. In two cases of serious assault, images captured led Police to identify and subsequently arrest the culprits.

Feedback from public stakeholders at the CCTV areas has also been positive, with many expressing a greater overall sense of safety and security at their premises. Stallholders and patrons interviewed at Newton hawker centre perceived fewer disputes among hawkers and fewer fights with the CCTV's in place. Some Boat Quay outlet owners also felt that the CCTV system could deter crime and help deter potential terrorist attacks. Shop owners and community entities within the Little India areas under CCTV coverage said they felt safer with fewer fights heard and even back-lanes were cleaner

Police will continue to work closely with National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and their crime prevention committees, the Inter-Ministry Committee on Youth Crime (IMYC) as well as engage the community through on-going Community Safety and Security Programs (CSSPs) in various crime prevention projects to prevent and contain crime.