Fighting crime in Jakarta

Confronted with the rising crime rate in the capital, Jakarta's city administration appears to have found at least part of the answer: gas pistols to arm the city's public order and civil defense officers. For that purpose, City Hall is reported to have spent Rp. 1.2 billion, or the equivalent of about US$126,315, on the purchase of those weapons.

One might say that at least something is at last being done to alleviate the sense of unease that accompanies people commuting or walking along Jakarta's streets that at some point of their journey they might become a victim of crime. The latest incident, involving the robbery and abuse of a woman by criminals in a taxi which she hailed right in front of one of Jakarta's most prestigious shopping malls, certainly does not help to improve the city's reputation in this matter.

The pistols, therefore, are needed for the officers' self- defense in case they are attacked while carrying out their duty of maintaining order. "People in Jakarta seem to be more brutal," explains Hadi Utomo, the head of Jakarta's Public Order Office. "They often ignore the law and may inflict injury to our officers."

The problem with this latest solution is that with the rate of the Indonesian currency, the rupiah, continuing to fall, that money is enough to buy only 60 gas pistols for a sprawling city of more than 12 million. Each German-made Melcher gas pistol costs about Rp 20 million, which however also covers training and licensing. City Hall had originally planned to buy 500 of the .9- millimeter weapons that can paralyze a person for 10 minutes.

Due to the high cost and the limited budget which the city allowed, only 60 were purchased. They are to be issued to select officers specially screened to carry the weapons with testing aimed primarily at determining the officers' technical and psychological fitness.

To the ordinary citizen, however, 60 pistols to arm a force of some 3,000 men seems to be most inadequate for a city like Jakarta. It is little wonder that the plan has met with immediate criticism from legislators in the City Council. With the effectiveness of the plan in doubt, some legislators believe the money would be better spent improving the city's public facilities. But in any case the money has been spent. The best that people can hope for, of course, is that it will prove effective, at least in curbing crime on the city's streets.

In the long term, however, there is no escaping the fact that Jakarta's public security problems are based on much larger concerns than meets the eye. Overcrowding due to urbanization continues to be a problem that adds to the city's poverty and crime rate. The loss of people's respect for the law as a result of economic and political instability is another.

Unless the stream of urbanization from the provinces into the capital can be stemmed, the problems will remain or become even worse, given that Jakarta stands to lose a considerable amount of income after the provinces attain the autonomy to control their economic resources. On the other hand there is the hope that regional autonomy, which officially started this month, will prompt the regional economies to grow in at least some of the more richly endowed provinces and draw people back from the capital.

In any case, the step has been taken. The money has been spent. Under the circumstances the best thing Jakartans can do is hope that issuing gas pistols to public order and security field officers will help insure greater personal safety for Jakarta's citizenry. Which indeed it might.