88 Attitudes toward ICT of Law Enforcement Officers: A Case of the Royal Malaysia Police Attitudes toward ICT of Law Enforcement Officers: A Case of the Royal Malaysia Police Associate Professor Hajah Rugayah Hashim, University Technology Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam, Malaysia, [email protected] Abdul Latiff Abdul Rahman, University Technology Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam, Malaysia, [email protected] Wan Narita Mustapha, University Technology Mara (UiTM), Perak, Malaysia, [email protected] Abstract mounting corruption in the police force; expanding civil society including proliferation of non- One of the primary characteristics of policing of government organizations; rise in public expectations the next century will be the proliferation of and demands for transparency and accountability; technology as an important component of law and greater consciousness of human rights; are enforcement. The successful law enforcer or placing increasing pressure and challenges upon policeman of the future will be marked by an ability PDRM to adapt, modernize and enhance its services to incorporate and directly apply a wide range of and performance. A key challenge for the technology in their interactions with the public. organization is to regain the good image it enjoyed More than simple data access, policing technology during the period of the 1960s to 1980s, an image is increasingly being used as a means by which the that has been seriously undermined in the last decade police and the public interact. The overall objective due to mounting public perceptions of corruption and of this study is to measure the attitudes of the Royal abuse of power in PDRM [1] Malaysia Police workforce towards the use of information and communication technologies in policing and then ascertain the relationship 2. Background between these attitudes and the policeman’s job experience and productivity. With a response rate The Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) has a long and of 77.67% from the 600 questionnaires sent to 14 distinguished history. While the Malay Sultanates identified police headquarters throughout established various institutions to perform Malaysia, the results showed mediocre attitudes rudimentary police functions, in particular toward ICT and working with computers relative to enforcement of the law and maintenance of peace, usefulness, confidence, liking and anxiety. The the beginnings of a modern police force can be traced findings of the study will outline important back to 1807 with the introduction of the "Charter of managerial implications related to introducing and Justice" in Penang. The Charter established a Court implementing new technology uses within law of Justice and clear the laws enforced by the Police. enforcement personnel in Malaysia. A second Charter was issued in 1825 when British colonial rule extended from Penang to Singapore and Keywords: Computer attitudes, police, law Melaka. Police forces were organized in all three enforcement, ICT, computer usage. Straits Settlements under the British.The Royal Malaysia Police saw some of its finest years during 1. Introduction the Emergency period of 1948-1960 and thereafter, when the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) With the growing penetration of ICT technology, launched its armed bid to take over power in the attention tends to shift from readiness to usage of country. The police force was rapidly expanded, ICT for different purposes. Most enterprises today growing seven-fold in strength to 161,281 personnel use computers, and Internet access of enterprises at the height of the Emergency in 1950. It consisted including the public sector particularly in law then of 31,164 regular police, 44,117 special police enforcement. and 86,000 auxiliary police. As the authority responsible for internal security and public order, the As the Royal Malaysia Police or PDRM enters the police bore the brunt of the counter-insurgency twenty-first century it is also being called upon to campaign, assisted by the military in deep jungle reinvent itself in order to better respond to a rapidly operations. changing environment and new challenges. Dramatic changes in demography; intense and The period saw the establishment of several sustained urbanization; massive immigration; rapid important components in the Federation of Malaya development of residential areas adjacent to ever- Police. One was the Special Branch, which was the growing urban centers; continuous advances in body responsible for intelligence gathering. It technology, especially information and quickly gained international recognition as a quality communication technology; globalization; intelligence service. The other was a para-military increasing sophistication of crime; rise in police force to engage the insurgents in deep jungle transnational crime; perceptions of widespread and guerrilla warfare. It was first named the Flying Communications of the IBIMA Volume 3, 2008 Hajah Rugayah Hashim, Abdul Latiff Abdul Rahman and Wan Narita Mustapha 89 Squad, then the Jungle Squad, and finally Jungle which are the weak areas that we should focus on in Companies. An off-shoot was the VAT 69, trained order to achieve the goals of Vision 2020. along the lines of the British Special Air Service. Another unit that gained fame was the Senoi Praaq, comprised of Orang Asli. Besides these, the Special The government has also visualized a computer for Constabulary, Auxiliary Police and Auxiliary every home in Malaysia. With Moore’s Law coming Women were also established. The Auxiliary true to form, buying a computer should no longer be Police were later renamed Police Volunteer Corps a financial constraint. According to Moore’s Law, [1]. computers will become faster, cheaper, and smaller. With computers having invaded nearly every area of 3. Significance of Research our lives, it is impossible not to choose a career without using a computer to work with. The new millennium and Vision 2020 bespoke of computers being part of our daily existence. The Information Era or Knowledge Economy (K- According to Keinschrod, Kruk, and Turner [2], “the economy) requires everybody to computer literate impact of the computer on society is as significant as and computer competent. In his speech at the 1993 that of the first printing press”. Kinzer, Sherwood, International Conference on Trade and Investment, and Bransford [3] suggested that computers could be then Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Seri Dr. used to improve learning in the classroom by Mahathir Mohamad stated that the establishment of providing practice and feedback in mathematics, a competitive economy must mean, among other spelling, and word identification. Computers can things:- also be used to simulate a laboratory in science or chemistry. They can be used to keep track of • An economy that is technologically proficient, students’ progress or to gain access to national fully able to acquire, adapt, innovate and adopt computerized networks, which contain information that is not available in the school library. the latest in modern technology and to keep up with it; Sullivan [4] stated that without knowledge of • An economy driven by brain-power, skills and computer’s purpose and its benefits, an individual may show signs of anxiety, reduced job performance, diligence in possession of a wealth of and increased job insecurity. Anxiety toward information, and able to utilize it. computer use is expected to be negatively related with computer skills, such as low anxiety toward computer use should be related to higher computer Furthermore, the Prime Minister continued by skill and high anxiety with lower computer skill [5]. saying that, “The structural transformation envisaged by Vision 2020 means also that human Thus, the purpose of this study was to gather resource and labor must continuously be upgraded information concerning the attitudes of the Royal in order to meet the needs of the higher value- Malaysian Police workforce toward learning about added and technology-oriented sectors. This and working with information and communication upgrading process will require the combined efforts technologies (ICT). Specifically, this study will of both the Government and private sectors. This identify attitudes such as usefulness, confidence, is the reason why the Government today is liking and anxiety when using computers relative to focusing seriously on education as an industry age, education, gender, and computer experiences. rather than merely as a basic social facility The findings from this study would be relevant as provided by the Government. Educational and one of the sources of reference for policy makers and training services will contribute towards economic top management of the RMP in order to improve the growth even as they cater to the nation’s manpower current computer competency of the police officers needs.” This is also at par with the Ministry of so as to determine the needs, trends and training in Education’s mission statement which is “to develop computer usage. a world class quality education system which will realize the full potential of the individual and fulfill 4. Findings the aspiration of the Malaysian nation” it is best that students at UiTM Shah Alam, have a better The survey instrument used for this research was the attitude towards learning about and working with 1998 version of the Survey of Attitudes Toward computers. Therefore, by undertaking this Learning About and Working with Computers research, we hope to identify certain traits, criteria developed by Prof. Brenda