Determining Factors of Community Safety to Combating Crime in Neighborhood Residential

Gated and guarded communities in Malaysian are commonly identified with a cluster of houses surrounded by fence with controlled access to provide some sense of crime protection for communities. Safety awareness nowadays has become as one of the most fundamental in the residential area issues particularly in the urban area. There are often displayed in the news where crime that involving matters related to the property such as house breaking, vehicle theft, snatch thief, robbery and others. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Guarded Neighborhood implementation in Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya residential area. The objectives of the study (i) to identify the physical characteristics of the concept that are been implemented in the neighborhood residential and (ii) to determine the effectiveness of Guarded Neighborhood Concept. The study applied questionnaire interview of 98 households as main research strategy to address the research objectives. The findings of the study demonstrated that the guarded communities in Bandar Utama residential area is functioning as a one of the approach in make their residents feel save and give them a sense of safety and secure from any of crime threat. The implementation of guarded communities is only act as one of the option in solving crime problem but in this study, it has been proved that there is still a crime incident recorded which happens even after the implementation. This research will help local authorities to review the current guidelines on guarded neighborhood, thus develop more effective strategies to mitigate crime in neighborhood areas.