Cargo crime in Malaysia was once the second highest in the Asia-Pacific region due to the increase of cargo from Singapore, the world’s busiest port, is routed overland through Malaysia. The US daily, New York Times has reported, quoting figures compiled by the Transported Asset Protection Association, said more than US$22.7 million (RM68.9 million) worth of goods was reported stolen from Malaysian sea ports, airports, warehouses and trucks from the year 2007 to 2010 (Gooch, 2011). The reluctance of companies in Malaysia to report losses mean that the total value of goods stolen here is likely to be higher than reported. While transporting goods through Asia-Pacific countries is generally safer than other parts of the world like the Americas, Africa and Europe, there is little question that cargo theft and supply chain threat have increased throughout Asia; the New York Times quoted (Gooch, 2011). Malaysia, which lies along a number of important trading routes, is a particular concern. Malaysia is increasingly becoming a key thoroughfare, as more companies ship their cargoes to and from neighbouring Singapore, which is connected with much of the rest of Southeast Asia through Malaysia road. This has led companies to take greater security measures by employing armed escort, using electronic seals and installing GPS systems onboard their trucks to prevent hijacking and other cargo crimes. Statistics in Table 1.1 below is related to cargo crime in Malaysia. The cases are classified by various types of cargo crime such as hijacking, warehouse robbery, warehouse break-in and theft of laden truck. Attached below are some of the effects or consequences of cargo crime which may impact the transportation and logistics industries in Malaysia:
I. For business operating on “just-in-time (JIT)” concept, the loss of cargoes may threaten viability, particularly if insurance coverage is inadequate or compensation payments are contested.
II. Companies can be exposed to litigation, liability suits or other impacts on their brand name through crime related incidents – stolen cargoes can be expired or ineffective due to bad storage which exposes the company to dissatisfied customers who bought the goods or materials.
III. Stolen cargoes reduce profits exponentially by losses in sales opportunities of the distributors. The new ‘competitors’ (criminals) are selling the cargoes at lower prices or minimum ‘cost’ (stolen cargoes) where the genuine distributors will never be able to compete.
IV. Furthermore, the illegal sale of stolen cargoes undercuts prices in legitimate businesses.
To better understand crime displacement, a research that is directed to its effects should be initiated instead of relying on the primary outcomes of crime prevention initiatives. Such research would be concerned with a main program that provides a setting for better understanding of crime displacement. Such research would also allow its researchers to focus on methodological problems associated with the measurement of crime displacement, in particular those that are related to the potential effects to be dispersed across area, time, and offense type (Barr & Pease, 1990). Crime incidents are neither uniformly distributed over area nor randomly distributed. Numerous researchers have identified various sociological, temporal and behavioural characteristics of offenders and crime locations that confirm the non-random nature of crime clustering (Chainey & Ratcliffe, 2005).
Building on both routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson 1979; Felson, 1998) and rational choice perspective (Cornish & Clarke 1986, 1987; Clarke & Felson 1993), Brantingham and Brantingham (1993a) presented the idea that crimes occur when criminally motivated individuals come into contact with suitable victims or targets as they travel between places or through areas that are known to them and wherein they are comfortable. Brantingham and Brantingham (1993a) commented that within cities, criminal behaviour is highly patterned and frequently localized. Based on the design characteristics of urban areas and their demographic and socioeconomic groups cluster therein, certain areas will experience disproportionate amounts of particular types of crime (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993b). This idea, combined with place-specific attempts by crime prevention practitioners to reduce crime, is central to the displacement of crime. The central tenet of crime displacement is that criminally motivated offenders, when prevented from committing crime at a particular location or in a particular way, will not be dissuaded from criminality but will simply be displaced to commit crime in some other area. Repetto (1974) identified five forms of displacement as the result of blocked criminal opportunities. Barr and Pease (1990) took a more theoretical approach in considering crime displacement and concluded that displacement of crime is simply a reorganization or redistribution of the area and time in which a potential offender comes in contact with a potential victim. Most studies of crime displacement tend to test for spatial displacement (Hesseling, 1994). However, in a rare non-spatial example, Yang (2008) focused on economic risks and loss resulting from changes in Philippines Custom policy, identifying predominantly method displacement, where changes and increases in enforcement of Custom policy caused adaptations in methods of evasion of payments duties.
Crime displacement may eliminate the effectiveness of crime reduction operations by pushing crime to nearby areas or other crime types. As Clarke (1995) noted that the uncritical acceptance of crime displacement may also mean that increases in crime, which might have occurred anyway, have sometimes been wrongly attributed to displacement. Where crime displacement does occur, it is usually the result of situations that force criminal to access nearby opportunities not within the confines of the operation. This idea was echoed by Eck (1993) who concluded that prevention and crackdown efforts focused on unique situations will have less displacement than prevention or crackdown efforts focused on general situations. Cornish and Clarke (1987) conceptualized crime displacement from the perspective of rational choice theory. From their assessment of the choices made by criminals in the decision to commit crimes and their choice of targets, it is believed that crime displacement could best be explained and understood by concentrating on the criminal’s personal decisions and choices made in committing crime. The decisions, opportunities, costs, and benefits associated with particular offenses, in Cornish and Clarke (1987) view, work to establish the confines of displacement within different categories of offense. If this is the case, then it becomes less plausible to justify a generalized approach to crime displacement and requires practitioners and researchers to be more open to the possibility that crime displacement might or might not occur with different spatiotemporal (and other displacement typology) characteristics for different crime types and situations.
Hijacking of trucks with cargoes is a great concern as well as a burden to Malaysia economy and the logistics industries. It will also impact the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Malaysia as high cargo crime rate will cause the investors to move away from Malaysia. It is very important that industry players such as Malaysia Police Force, security professional and logistics industries working together to develop a cooperative approach to the problem faced. Success can only be achieved if all the players combine their effort and cooperate. In order to achieve the cooperative approach; it is utmost important that criminological analysis of the phenomenon such as crime perpetrator, victims, justice system, the development of prevention and the theories explaining the phenomenon be made. Despite the highly scientific relevance, it appears that too little research is being conducted in Malaysia to identify factors related to cargo crime within the supply chain security in Malaysia. We need to have a better understanding as to why there is no absolute reduction in crime despite numerous preventive measures taken by the authority to prevent cargo crime.The developing interest in crime prevention began slowly in the 1970s, gained significant momentum during the 1980s and is now becoming an important subject in criminology. Regardless of how they are designed to function; crime prevention tactics seem particularly vulnerable to having their effectiveness reduced by the occurrence of crime displacement. When criminals are prevented from committing one crime, they shift their manner of committing the crime in some way that they may replace the blocked opportunity with another unlawful act and crime, which is commonly said to be displaced (Barr & Pease, 1990). There are a number of different ways in which offending patterns may shift to accommodate the introduction of preventive strategies, but with all types of displacement, the end result is the same. Crime is not ultimately prevented at all, but simply altered into different form of displacement. Because no overall reduction is achieved, crime displacement would seem to eliminate completely any benefits that the prevention of crime may bring.