Challenges and image
The National Police Force has a myriad of problems and perhaps as many hopes and despairs. For decades there have been complaints among the national police leaders about the poor social and economic conditions of police members, which hamper efforts to improve public service and increase professionalism of the force.
So at least once a year, on July 1, Police Day, this nation hears about the sad situation of the members of the police force, while the public lashes the force with criticism of worsening service and the inability to curb the rapidly increasing crime rate.
In order to paint a clear picture of the pitiful living conditions among police officers, Jakarta's Police Chief, Maj. Gen. Dibyo Widodo, said recently that only 38 percent of the 17,000 members of the police force -- who serve the 10 million people in this city every day -- own homes. The statement of the National Police chief, Gen. Banurusman Astrosemitro, earlier about the social and economic conditions was even more heartrending. He said this week that although the meal allowance for police officers had been increased it still stands at Rp 1,500 (70 U.S. cents) compared to the Rp 5,000 spent to feed each of the police dogs daily.
Worse still there is no answer in sight for this long and complex problem, which directly influences police performance.
But no matter what explanations are made, the complaints, rebukes and criticism are bound to continue due to the public's desperate need of quality service from the police force.
In light of their disappointment in the current situation, most people believe that to use the social and economic conditions of the police members as an explanation for not meeting the public's expectations is irrelevant because the civil servants are also still badly paid, yet they have tried to improve their service to the public.
What seems most deplorable to the public is that the police force seems to think that its image can be sacrificed in the effort to improve its members' welfare. The truth of this can be seen not only in the presence of so many unauthorized middlemen in the police licensing business, but also in the way the force handles major criminal cases.
In the case of the brutally murdered labor activist, Marsinah, who died in East Java in 1993, the police have plainly failed to make their position clear. They have tried to no avail to make clear why the interrogation of murder and torture suspects was done in such a way that it clashed head-on with standing legal procedures. The ensuing situation was such that the Supreme Court felt justified in exonerating all of the convicts in the case of all charges. The Supreme Court ruling also required that the police start the investigation once again, right from the beginning.
And the recent detention of a nine-year-old boy in a Yogyakarta correctional institution designed for adults has not helped improve the image of the nation's police force. The statement that the decision to incarcerate the child was made according to law sounds too much like self-justification because other authorities concerned with the law have branded the act as unlawful.
Still in the realm of public service, the police announced last year that car owners could renew their ownership documents once every five years instead of once a year, which had been a great nuisance to the public. But later the police changed the policy and reimposed the yearly obligation for no palatable reason.
The logic that the annual extension helps deter car theft has been refuted by the recent police statement that the rate of car theft has increased. The confused public cannot be blamed if in this case they always suspect the police of offering mysterious reasons for policy flip-flops.
While the police are sure to be facing gigantic challenges in the future -- for example how to improve their professionalism in order to fight against more sophisticated and complex crimes -- they also will have to improve their tarnished image, otherwise they will further lose the public trust.