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NO MORE OF THIS: Posters like these, printed in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, will be put up in primary schools and preschools and displayed at grassroots events as a warning to pranksters. -- PHOTOS SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
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THE police have had enough of prank calls.
They are putting up posters to warn the public not to indulge in nuisance calls to the 999 hotline and are investigating more of such calls now.
Prank calls - which number about two every minute - are a perennial problem which the police want to stamp out.
The posters - printed in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil - will be put up in primary schools and preschools and displayed at grassroots events.
One design, pitched at children, shows a boy who is dialling the hotline for fun being warned against it by a friend.
Another design, targeted at the wider public, has this message on a mobile phone screen: 'Making nuisance calls to 999 is an offence!'
Last year, about 1.05 million of the 1.62 million calls made to 999 were hoaxes. Based on 2004 and 2005 figures, one in five of such calls were made by children, though the proportion has since improved.
Last year, a 12-year-old boy called the police and said an explosion was going to take place in Singapore.
The boy, who used his mother's mobile phone, hung up quickly but the police managed to trace the call. The boy was given a stern warning and the phone was confiscated.
The police are also investigating more such cases. They hauled up 45 people for investigations last year, more than double the 19 in 2004. In 2006, 43 were investigated.
In the past four years, 47 people have been prosecuted, and some of them jailed. The others got warnings from the police.
Those who call emergency numbers with the intention to harass can face up to a year's jail or a fine, or both.
The United Nations (Anti-Terrorism) Regulations, put in place in Singapore after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, dole out a stiffer maximum penalty of five years' jail and a $100,000 fine. This applies to the spreading of false threats of terrorist acts.
The police also want the public to be more aware of when they should call them. Some people mistakenly call for matters unrelated to police work, such as noise pollution from construction work.
Information on when to call the police can be found at www.spf.gov.sg/999
joolin@sph.com.sg
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