Former hoodlums need jobs: Rights activist

Former hoodlums need jobs: Rights activist

JAKARTA (JP): The government should help repentant street
hoodlums find employment because joblessness will only drive them
back to their old habits, a human rights activist said yesterday.

After providing vocational training to the street thugs, the
government should provide them with jobs, said Maj. Gen. (ret)
Soegiri, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights.

Soegiri said that it was mainly unemployment which had caused
many people to become hoodlums and that, therefore, the creation
of jobs would be the best remedy for the social problem.

He acknowledged that the public, notably employers, might be
reluctant to accept rehabilitated hoodlums.

"But everyone should realize that street crime is not only the
police's problem but that of everyone in the society. So people
should put forward ideas about how to solve the problem," he was
quoted by Antara as saying in Lampung.

In the continuing war against street hoodlums, police across
the country have rounded up thousands of people in major cities.
Many have been released while others have undergone vocational
training in military training centers.

The crackdown on hoodlums was prompted by the murder of a
police officer in a Jakarta shopping complex last month. However,
the military has insisted that the operation is merely an
intensification of an ongoing war against street violence.

Soegiri proposed that companies tightly screen former hoodlums
seeking work with them.

"Companies need to be selective so that they will not go
bankrupt as a result of (former hoodlum) employees reverting to
bad habits," he said. (29)