Another irksome game

Another irksome game

With the crime rate in this country, especially Jakarta,
rising ever higher, the police have had to redouble their efforts
to curb the alarming trend. And so far police authorities have
yet to devise an effective way to deal with the increasing rate
of vehicle theft.

The most often heard police complaint is that the budget
allocated by the government is barely enough to cover operational
activities, while citizens keep demanding better service.

To overcome their financial difficulties the police have
turned to licensing, which they now look to for another source of
income. The people have thus been asked to share the police's
financial burden but have yet to see any improvements in the
licensing procedures. Those who have paid their vehicle tax
personally in Jakarta, for example, know how tax payers are not
very well respected.

At the vehicle tax office, which is managed by the police in
cooperation with the local administration, the situation is truly
appalling. The situation is even worse at the licensing office,
where unauthorized middlemen, many of whom are on-duty officers,
operate freely.

The police last year promised to modernize the system and
reduce the frequency of the obligation to renew vehicle
registration from once yearly to once every five years. This has
yet to happen and the burden still lies squarely on the shoulders
of the public.

A recent statement quoted the police as saying that steps were
being taken to detect car thefts as early as possible is refuted
by a fact that the police themselves have disclosed: Car theft
has been on the rise lately.

Now as if to add insult to injury the police recently
announced another controversial policy. They now want to impose
an obligation on car owners to have their vehicles physically
inspected by officers every time they renew their registration
documents.

The police deputy chief of operational affairs, Maj. Gen. M.
B. Hutagalung, said this week that the reason behind the new game
is that without regular inspections, it is difficult for them to
monitor the identity of a vehicle.

Is there any veracity behind this statement? Will the measure
reduce the number of car thefts and raise people's hopes of
finding their stolen cars? As the old saying here goes, "You need
to sell your cow to finance police operations to find your lost
goat."

It is worth remembering that one of the main police tasks is
to serve the public as best as possible, not to burden them.
Amidst the already-mentioned public frustrations, imposing this
new obligation is really unthinkable for healthy-minded people.
Nobody can guarantee that it will bring the crime rate down and
the public will have to face an even more tangled web of
bureaucratic procedures at the police station.

The authorities need to understand that the situation is
already notoriously arduous as it is. The obligation to have your
car engine checked from time to time is especially loathsome for
the additional financial burden it imposes on the public.

This latest idea endorses the basic way of thinking among
police officers in dealing with the public; that is, the
presumption of guilt instead of the popularly-accepted
presumption of innocence. The implication of the obligatory
engine checks, in light of the number of criminals roaming around
the city, is that all car owners are in possession of stolen
vehicles. It is the same as banning a person from addressing a
seminar for fear that he or she might say something to