Speech by DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Tanjong Chow Kon Yeow when debating the second supplementary budget at Dewan Rakyat on Thursday, 4 May 2006
Call for special intake programme to increase Chinese representation in the Police Force
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The government has been propagating that Chinese are not interested to join the police force because of brighter prospects in other fields.

I think this is a myth.
According to the Police Force Commission yearly reports, close to a thousand Chinese men and women applied to join the police force yearly, either as cadet ASP, Probation Inspector or Constables.

For the period of 2002 to 2004, a total of 1564 Chinese applied to join as cadet ASP and Probation Inspector. But only 157 of them were called for interviews and of these 56 were appointed. This works out to be a low 3.5 percent of the total number f applicants.

It was slightly better in the Constable category when 230 (15.5%) of the 1481 Chinese applicants were appointed to join the force.

Obviously, it is not true that Chinese are not interested to join the police force. Despite the low number of Chinese applicants as compared to other ethnic groups, a rather low number of them were eventually appointed.

We need a Malaysian’s police force and there should be a special programme to increase the number of Chinese officers and rank and file.