Criminologist deplores arson against buses

JAKARTA (JP): The habit of the public to express its anger by setting city buses on fire recently shows that many members of the society have been influenced by the culture of violence, a criminologist has said.

Johannes Sutoyo, head of the Criminology Department of the University of Indonesia, was quoted by Antara news agency as saying yesterday that the recent burning of Metro Mini buses by angry passengers or the general public is just a small example of the tendency among our society to resort to violence to solve problems.

In the past 10 days three Metro Mini buses and a bus of another transport company in the city have been burned by angry passengers after they killed three road users and injured four others.

This is the last series of road mishaps which involved Metro Mini buses. The most serious one took place last March when a Metro Mini bus careened into a muddy North Jakarta river killing its 33 passengers. The reckless driver, who escaped to his hometown in North Sumatra, was only arrested last month.

Johannes said that many members of our society seem to have lost trust in the law enforcers and decided to take the law into their own hands.

"We should put an end to this grim tendency by implementing the law. Otherwise the habit might develop into a more dangerous social brutality where the people can be easily incited into breaking the law," said Johannes.

Johannes said a heterogeneous society like Indonesia usually has great potential to provoke conflicts among people of different race, ethnic and religious groups.

The criminologist also notices that the trend to idolize violence has been fashionable in Southeast Asia lately.

Dominant

"History has also told us," he said, "50 percent of the victims of war and domestic armed conflicts are from this region."

This, according to Johannes, shows that the culture of violence is more dominant in Southeast Asia -- which includes Indonesia -- than in advanced countries.

"We should have an effective strategy to put an end to this habit step by step."

In order to achieve the goal, he said, the authorities should jump forward to advocate the supremacy of law by introducing a quick and fair legal processes.

"As long as the legal system is not fully functional many people will tend to take law into their own hands," he said. He added that "as long as we do not have such a concept, arson against public transportation, or brutal riots protesting extravagant musical shows, like the ones which have happened in the past, will repeat themselves.

"It would be even unhealthier if our people have started to believe that the only correct and quick way to have justice is through violence.

"They seem to ignore the truth that by resorting to violence they will only create problems, not solve them," Johannes said. (tis)