Fewer cases solved as police focus on terrorism
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A year-end report by the Jakarta Police implies that city police did not perform well this year because they failed to improve services to the public.
The report, made available to The Jakarta Post, shows that the police only managed to solve 33 percent of the total 34,463 cases recorded this year, or 11,492 cases. Last year, they solved a higher 40 percent, or 13,736 cases, out of the 34,270 offenses recorded.
"Indeed, the level of 'crime clearance' is one of the main yardsticks to measure police performance," said city police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo on Friday.
Commenting on the report, Prasetyo said the police would carry out an in-depth evaluation of the report to find out the causes of their declining performance.
"One of the main causes, I assume, is the fact that many of our detectives have been assigned to help investigate bombing cases, including the recent bomb attack at the JW Marriott Hotel," he said.
He was referring to the Aug. 5 bombing in South Jakarta, which killed 12 people and injured 147 others. The attack was the sixth bombing in the city this year.
Prasetyo did not detail about how many detectives had been assigned to help the investigation.
Meanwhile, Erlangga Masdiana, a criminologist at the University of Indonesia, lambasted the police's tendency to prioritize the solving of big cases so that they neglected lesser crimes.
He said the public would judge whether the police performed well or poorly based on day-to-day interaction between police officers and the public rather than police achievements in solving big cases, which sometimes do not directly impact the interests of the public.
"Any measures to polish their tarnished image won't be fruitful unless they put services to the public in first place," he asserted.
A senior police officer who requested anonymity acknowledged that many police officers failed to provide good services.
"You can witness the excessive paperwork that people must go through to get vehicle registration documents. It has become a common sight, not to mention the illegal fees that must be paid to bribe unscrupulous officers," he said.
According to the year-end report, a crime was recorded every 15 minutes and 26 seconds in the city this year, slightly higher that last year's "crime clock" of 15 minutes and 33 seconds.
Auto theft remained the highest recorded crime this year with 5,524 cases. The number is lower than last year's 6,180.
The number of burglary cases soared by 20 percent to 5,524 from 4,567 in 2002, while robbery decreased to 1,822 from 2,546 cases.