Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief Heng Pov on Tuesday promised to reward students who report crimes with a police officer’s title and a salary equal to that of a commune police official.
After graduating from university, students who have taken part in the crime-reporting campaign would be automatically selected as police officials, or receive help in their applications for civil servant jobs, Heng Pov said.
“You report twice, I will list his or her name directly as police official that can get a salary equal to a commune police official,” Heng Pov told more than 600 students at Preah Sisowath High School during a meeting on combating drug use and improving road safety.
“I want to train all of you to become police…and I believe strongly that some students can work harder and more cleverly than current police officials,” he added.
In their first lesson in law enforcement, Heng Pov told the students to look out for jobless people who change motorcycles frequently or people who buy and sell motorbikes at night. Such activities were the signs of possible robbers, he said.
Heng Pov also called for students to avoid drug use, noting that 85 percent to 90 percent of drug users became addicts after friends slipped drugs into their drinks. He also said dealers are willing to give drugs initially without charge to get people hooked.
“Today they give you a cigarette with drugs,” he said. “Then a second cigarette they will also provide for you…but you have to buy the third cigarette with drugs.”
Lun Dalish, 14, a student at Preah Sisowath High School, said she wanted to sign up as a schoolyard police official, adding that 70 percent of school students, mostly from rich families, use drugs.
“I want to be a police official to help those drug addicts,” she said.
