Drugs-related crimes most prominent in West Jakarta: Police

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Drugs-related offenses are the most common form of crime in West Jakarta, as indicated by the significant number of people involved in drugs who are detained by the police, a senior police officer announced.

"The police arrest an average between 35 and 40 people per month in drugs-related offenses," said Sr. Comr. Iwan S. Ismet, chief of the West Jakarta Police precinct, in an interview with The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Iwan said the number accounted for more than 50 percent of those detained for crime in the district, which stood at around 70 people a month.

Iwan attributed the significant number to the huge number of entertainment spots sprawled across the area.

Iwan said various entertainment places such as nightclubs, karaoke clubs, massage parlors, bars, cafes, including hotels, were prone to drug-trafficking.

"Most drug transactions take place at such entertainment places," Iwan said, referring to the police report on the arrest of drug criminals.

Iwan said, however, that significant drug offenses did not necessarily mean that West Jakarta was a center for drug syndicates.

"West Jakarta only operates as their market. Drug supplies come from outside the mayoralty," he said. "That's why most people arrested for drug cases in West Jakarta are small fish rather than the movers and shakers."

"Many of the big boys are reportedly operating in Tangerang, Karawang and some places in North Jakarta," he said.

Those drug networks could be unveiled after the police traced a chain of black market syndicates, Iwan said.

Aside from drugs, the other top two types of crimes in West Jakarta were car and motorcycle thefts and robberies, or curanmor Iwan said.

"In October alone, we seized 22 suspects of such crime," he said.

According to police data, there are two locations in West Jakarta considered high risk targets of such crime: The intersections at Grogol and Cengkareng.

"Those locations are a center of various public activities, including public transportation and business, so it is difficult for the police to prevent the crime," said Comr. Slamet Rijanto, chief of the West Jakarta Police Operation Control Center.

Slamet noted that the limited number of police officers coupled with the vast areas that they had to monitor meant that car and motorcycle crime remained relatively high.