Volunteers to raise awareness of scams, molestation at MRT stations
A citizen volunteer advising a commuter at Queenstown MRT station on August 17, 2018.
SINGAPORE — For the first time last week, members of a Queenstown residents' committee joined police officers at Queenstown MRT station to give out flyers to raise awareness of the need to guard against scams and molestation on trains.
From neighbourhoods, the Singapore Police Force's Citizens on Patrol programme has widened its presence to the MRT system. It aims to eventually have volunteers on station platforms.
The police hope for the community programme to cover the MRT network islandwide by the end of the year.
The pilot initiative comes amid a sharp jump in cases involving outrage of modesty on public transport, based on the latest crime statistics released by the police.
In the first half of this year, there were 105 such cases, up from 73 in the same period last year.
Outrage-of-modesty cases climbed 21.5 per cent to 832 in the first six months of this year, up from 685 in the same period last year.
Queenstown resident Chua Mei Ting, 35, was part of the team who distributed flyers at Queenstown MRT Station last week.
Besides looking out for dangers and suspicious behaviour, the housewife said it was important to educate fellow residents to pay more attention to their surroundings. "Doing it in the train stations is a natural choice because outrage of modesty really happens in crowded trains," said Madam Chua.
Once a month, up to eight volunteers could patrol the train station during peak hours.
Superintendent Alan Wong, head of operations at the police's Public Transport Security Command, said Citizens on Patrol members serve as "extra eyes and ears on the ground", providing the police with information to fight crime.
Members will look out for suspicious activity at MRT stations and help keep the public transport system safe, he said.
There are presently more than 700 Citizens on Patrol groups, with more than 14,000 members islandwide as of February 2016. Established in 1999, its members help to raise awareness of crime prevention, deter crime by patrolling their neighbourhoods, and report suspicious persons or activity to the police.
Volunteers and grassroots leaders already conduct patrols in and around train stations under the Citizens on Train Patrol initiative supported by the South West Community Development Council.
