Crime rate falling: Police chief
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)
Record -- Page 6