by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday, 6th March 1992:
DAP calls on IGP to issue an immediate directive to stop police handcuffing traffic violators so as not to undermine police-public relations.
DAP calls on the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Haniff Omar, to heed public protests and issue an immediate directive to stop police handcuffing traffic violators for whom warrants of arrests had been issued so as not to undermine police-public relations.
The special police exercise of arresting these violators, in their homes during the early hours of the morning have achieved its purpose without handcuffing the violators, as these violators have no intention or reason for resisting arrest, turning violent or trying to escape.
To handcuff traffic violators from their homes to the police station, and from the police station to the courts, for both men and women is a serious case of police ‘overkill’ and as in all such cases of ‘overkill’, there will be a serious cost in underming police-public relations.
This is particularly the case when members of the public will remember that noted personalities including top political leaders who have been arrested and charged with grave offences, like criminal breach of trust, were not hand-cuffed when they were produced in court. The most noted case was the MCA
President Tan Koon Swan.
The IGP should be concerned as to how this police ‘overkill’ could damage relations between the police and members of the public.
This ‘’overkill’ by the police is most inappropriate, especially at a time when the authorities are talking about the need for new thinking and prison reforms to rehabilitate offenders and to reduce prison congestion, such as devising alternative punishments for petty offenders without sending them to jail.
The police must project a public image of being ‘firm but humane’ which is not achieved by indiscriminately handcuffing traf¬fic violators.
The police is not doing itself a service with such an ‘overkill’ and antagonising members of the public.
The police case is also not strengthened by its own interpretation of the Criminal Proce¬dure Code.