Public Safety - No Longer Safe

In the newspapers recently, there are many articles that seems to complain about our policemen's efficiency and attitudes when handling cases. I had my share with the bad case of how our public safety works during my trip to Cameron Highlands earlier. My hubby also shares with me his bad experience(s) with policemens last time (seems like then and now, there's no diff at all).
When people talks about the public safety here, everyone also has their own complaints. Even today my colleague complained about policemen's bad attitudes when dealing with publics while making reports. Instead of showing their concerns to the case, they criticizes the victim, making them feels more miserable.
The police chief says one bad apple, does not mean the whole depts are the same. It's not that we want to stereotypes all policemens to be the bad apple, but so far, I have not encounter any "good" apple yet. My mother-in-law spoke of a "funny" situation where there was an on-going burglary in one of our neighbour's house. The house owner went out for dinner, and when they came back, they notice someone was in the house ransacking their stuff. They quickly called the police for help. The policemen came with their big guns. They asked the owner to open the door with their key, which they did. Then the policemen asked the house owner to go inside the house first, and they will follow later. The house owner was shocked, and said "you have guns, you should go in first lah...". How can the policemen with weapons, ask a normal civilian without any means to protect themselves, to go inside the house first and encounter the robber. It seems they are using the house owner as a shield to protect themselves instead.
However, we must also remember that it is also our own responsibilities to make our environment safe. We can't always rely on our public safety officers here. They may be underpaid, understaffed, or whatever "under" (who knows oh). There used to be tv ads to promote the public's awareness and relationship with the police force when i was small. Maybe it's time for them to start the ads again to gain public's trust and to buck-up themselves in order to prove to us that they are indeed reliable.