Expert, police play down street crime fears
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
When the administration announced plans to issue a regulation lowering the allowed opacity of tinted car windows in order to help the police enforce the three-in-one traffic policy, many motorists cried foul.
Safety-conscious Jakartans said taking away their dark car windows would put them at risk, as car thieves and muggers would be able to look them and their possessions over. At least two street robberies last week seem to have confirmed these fears.
Trapped in traffic on Jl. Kramat Bunder in Central Jakarta last Tuesday, Daisy, 26, was caught by surprise when the street singers to whom she had just handed some change pointed a pair of scissors at her and her friend, Desmaris, through the slightly open window.
The street singers took their mobile phones, wallets, some cash and documents.
She thought it was safe to roll down her window a bit to give the street singers some money because it was not dark outside.
Another victim, Frenchman Paul Quinn, will likely never again feel safe on Jakarta's streets after he lost Rp 140 million (US$16,670) on Thursday to robbers who fired a bullet into his vehicle on Jl. Fatmawati in South Jakarta. The bullet is still lodged in the dashboard of his Isuzu Panther.
Many motorists say that although dark car windows cannot completely protect them from crime, requiring them to lighten their windows would rob them of all sense of safety, as anybody could see into their cars.
These concerns should not deter the administration from implementing the car window policy, according to criminologist Adrianus Meliala.
"Of course there is street crime once in a while. But if we consider that there are three million motorists on the streets every day, while the reported number of street crimes is five a day, the number is relatively low," he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
He said crime was inevitable in a big city like Jakarta, and that residents should take steps to protect themselves, for example, by keeping their valuables out of sight of passersby.
City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo said there was no reason for Jakartans not to feel safe while driving, as the police deployed at least 400 patrol cars across the capital every day.
"In addition, we have thousands of patrol motorcycles ... all of the police are equipped with radios so they are ready to give a quick response," he told the Post on Saturday.
The patrol cars, he said, are mostly deployed in and around crime-prone areas.
"If the victims immediately contact emergency number 112, a patrol car will certainly be able to prevent the crime from taking place," he said.