Four crime-prone areas to be targeted

Four crime-prone areas to be targeted

JAKARTA (JP): Among a number of major areas of concern which
have emerged in the last six months, there are at least four
areas of criminality to which the police have yet to give proper
attention.

The first is order and security on trains, particularly those
in the Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi areas.

Hundreds of thousands of people, particularly those in the
lower income brackets, commute by train on a daily basis and are
driven to making constant complaints not only about the poor
service but, more importantly, about poor security.
Unfortunately, the security problems have been prevalent for too
long now and have, seemingly, come to be considered as normal.

The second area of concern is order and security on city buses
and at bus terminals. A Jakarta Police report says that in the
first six months of this year alone, 105 criminal incidents took
place on city buses and at bus terminals.

This shows a significant increase of 45 percent over the
figure recorded for the same period in 1999. Again, the police
have not done much to deal with these cases.

The third problematic area is security at sea. Illegal fishing
by foreign trawlers, oil smuggling which has disrupted oil
distribution at home and the seizing of a number of vessels
carrying artifacts illegally retrieved from shipwrecks are just a
few examples of how security at sea is yet to receive proper
attention from the police.

It is true that the navy is also responsible for keeping watch
over maritime security, but this does not mean that the police
should simply leave matters to the navy.

Unfortunately, naval vessels have often been found to back up
smuggling, one of the reasons why the police find it difficult to
thoroughly deal with such cases and therefore seem to turn a
blind eye to the matter.

The fourth area concerns the protection of forests. Illegal
felling by locals and outsiders is taking place almost every day
in the many forests of Sumatra, Kalimantan and even Java. This is
a very difficult problem to solve and it has inflicted great
losses on the state.

The police should no longer entrust forest rangers to take
care of forests as the rangers have a rather poor record of
achievement. Illegal felling by non-locals is by no means a new
problem but only recently have the public and the police shown an
interest in it. In this regard, it is only proper to raise
questions about the integrity and public accountability of forest
rangers.

Activists at Polwatch believe that apart from the government,
the community has the largest potential, resources and
responsibility to help the police overcome their constraints.

The police have often involved the community in the
maintenance of order and security: nightwatch in villages,
citizens' band radio activities to overcome traffic congestion
during the Muslim Lebaran post-fasting festivities, and the
establishment of task force units to provide security during
general elections are a few examples of that involvement.

Often, however, such participation only helps to resolve
problems partially. How do we ensure effective and efficient
community participation in maintaining order and security?

The police need a wider-range of support, particularly to
overcome order and security disturbances which have assumed a
greater level of complexity and multidimensionality. A new format
of involvement must be sought, one which is oriented more towards
the solution of problems in a holistic and directed manner.

The police must first be open. They should provide the
community with access to increased and more varied information
about how cases are handled, as long as this conforms with the
prevailing laws and does not disrupt the law enforcement process.

University students undertaking their working stints, for
example, could be involved in the conducting of investigations.
This involvement would reduce the work load of the police and at
the same time allow the community to learn about and indirectly
monitor how an investigation process is proceeding. When later
some of them join the police, they will no longer feel awkward
and confused.

Community participation in such activities is not new. In
Argentina and Chile, for example, the community and the police
have a common agenda in undertaking joint patrols. In Hongkong,
through the Independent Police Complaints' Committee (IPCC), the
community plays a role in determining whether institutional
cooperation between the community and the police should be
continued or otherwise.

Polwatch believes there are five prerequisites for sustainable
and effective cooperation between the police and the community.
These are as follows: 1) bottom-up planning; 2) a multi-level
approach; 3) equality in membership; 4) a self-supporting basis;
and 5) supremacy of the law and law enforcement.

The fulfillment of these five prerequisites will ensure that
the cooperation program being fostered will achieve its targets,
namely order and security and the restoration of public
confidence in the law and the law enforcement institutions,
particularly the National Police. (Adnan Pandupraja)