Crime rate falling: Police chief

JAKARTA (JP): The National Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dibyo Widodo said yesterday the number of crimes reported to police dropped this year and predicted armed robberies, drugs and student brawls would continue to color the country's crime next year.

Speaking at an end-of-year conference Dibyo said the number of crimes dropped 6.6 percent to 150,806 cases from 166,474 last year.

"This means a crime was committed every three minutes and 29 seconds this year or 14 seconds less often than last year," the three-star general said.

"With people help, police professionalism, and the help of other government offices, police managed to curb crime better than last year," Dibyo said.

The conference was held at the National Police Headquarters.

He said the police's ability to solve crime had increased 60 percent over the last five years.

In terms of ranking the worst crime areas the East Java police headquarters reported the most crimes.

East Java was handled 22,417 cases this year. Last year it was also the most crime prone province with 23,736 cases.

West Java, with 20,401 cases was the second worst and Jakarta was third with 18,830 cases.

On a per capita basis North Sulawesi was worst with 251 cases per 100,000 people, Bali followed with 232 cases and East Kalimantan was third with 222 cases.

Some big cases marked this year like the escape of jailbird Edy Tansil in May, June's pedophile serial killings, the 27 July riot, Central Bank's fraud in August and painting thefts in September. All these happened in Jakarta.

"Student brawls, bank customer and taxi driver robberies also marked the city crime this year," he said.

Judging from this year's trend, Dibyo predicted armed robberies, drug trafficking (especially Ecstasy), and student brawls would still be prevalent next year.

Dibyo said Ecstasy smuggling through Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Bali's Ngurah Rai airport, post offices in Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya grabbed police attention. "The Ecstasy case suspect Zarina also caught the public's and, of course, the police's attention."

He said police arrested 39 people in 27 Ecstasy cases and seized 337,090 pills, 18 capsules, and 2.3 kilograms of powder. "Two cases have been tried, 11 cases are in process, and 13 cases are still being processed at the public prosecutors' office and one cases is still being investigated."

He said some cases that hit newspaper headlines remained unsolved and would become police 'homework', including the killing of Yogyakarta-based reporter Muhammad Fuad Syafrudin (Udin) in August and the armed robbery on the Jagorawi toll road in which Zainuddin Lesmana died in October.

Yogyakarta police arrested a man over Udin's death but released him because they could not legally detain him any longer because the dossier on him was not complete.

"We will correct the dossier on the suspect, Dwi Sumaji, and return it to the public prosecutor next year," Dibyo said when asked about the possibility of finding a new suspect.

To curb armed robberies, special cooperation with the military was needed to conduct operations against illegal gun owners.

"Police will develop the Pelajar Siaga (Student Alert) program initiated by the South Jakarta Police precinct to other police precincts," he said.

In special operations this year, police arrested 657 foreigners for violating immigration regulations.

He said the number of traffic accidents plunged 6.8 percent to 14,912 from 16,003 cases last year.

"The number of traffic accident victims this year was 10,313 while it was 9,677 people last year," he said.

"This year's toll road accidents amounted to 2,496 or 166 more than last year," he said.

He said accidents caused Rp 23 billion (US$10 million) damage this year, a 21.13 percent increase from last year's Rp 18 billion. (jun)

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