Singapore Police Use Pokémon Icon Pikachu To Combat Crime

As a hugely popular intellectual property, Pokémon has been used for a lot of things over the decades of its existence. In a rather interesting twist, however, Singapore Police have decided to use the popularity of the property’s iconic electric mouse Pikachu to help spread awareness of crime among young children. The hope was to make the kids more vigilant against those with nefarious intent.

Using pop culture figures or properties to help enforce the law is nothing new. In the case of the Singapore Police, the target audience were children who could be vulnerable to certain types of crimes. This is why they held an event at a Jurong West mall, which featured oversized Pikachu performers, Comicbook.com reports.

Niftily coinciding with a school holiday in the port city, children were able to attend the event and learn about the various crimes that they will need to be aware of. The three main takeaways that the police department was hoping the children will learn is to avoid taking shortcuts down dark pathways, buying counterfeit items, and using phones while driving.

With adults often being guilty of all three offenses, it’s important to teach children that these acts are not acceptable, even as the grownups around them are committing such faults. The Singapore Police Force actually pulled off the event with the cooperation of the Pokémon Company, so this wasn’t just a random conference that involved unofficial costumes.

In any case, it’s clear that there is room for a partnership between companies that own IPs, which are popular among children and authorities that need to get the right message across. When children are presented with information using mediums that they are comfortable with or even enthusiastic about, it’s been proven that they are more likely to retain said information. So dancing Pikachus might just help prevent incidents down the road.