Trends and Patterns of Property Crime at Hotspot Areas in Sabah

Abstract

The problem of crime is not a new issue to be highlighted, but its rate of increase has raised concerns of many parties, especially to the mass media coverage and academics of various disciplines. It can be argued that the increase of crime goes with the rapid development of a city. Although combating crime is the responsibility of everyone, the increased crime rate has raised questions on the effectiveness of the Royal Malaysian Police Force to combat at the enforcement level. Lack of study and research on crime problems from most disciplines, especially in the field of geography, is one of the main contributors to the lack of effectiveness of crime prevention at the grassroots level. This is because, only the field of geography emphasizes research on a problem in space and location. Therefore, this paper tries to highlight the results of research on the problem of property crime in Sabah for a period of two decades, namely 1990-2013 based on the approach of geographical disciplines. However, to facilitate the context of the discussion of this paper, crime in Sabah is examined from the aspect of patterns and various dimensions of crime trends in the five crime hotspot districts in Sabah.