Gambling: Can police bite the hand that feeds them?

Gambling: Can police bite the hand that feeds them?

Abdul Khalik
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Immediately after taking office in July, National Police chief
Gen. Sutanto ordered police chiefs across the country to crack
down on gambling, threatening that those who failed to deliver
would lose their posts and face criminal charges.

Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani took up the
challenge by announcing publicly that he would close down all
gambling dens in the capital and surrounding towns within one
week. In effect, Firman was suggesting that he could do better
than the police chief.

Gambling centers did indeed appear to be closed, but people
familiar with gambling in the capital said it was business as
usual even at the height of the crackdown.

"We know very well how the police behave. They are serious
only at the beginning of a campaign. They staged massive
crackdowns on gambling just to please the public in the first few
months.

"We had stop just for a while and then resumed operations soon
after. Gambling is one of the police's sources of income, you
know," Yohannes, who owns several gambling dens in the capital,
told The Jakarta Post recently.

City police arrested hundreds of suspected gamblers
immediately after the campaign was announced, but the Jakarta
Prosecutor's Office revealed in November that it had not received
one single case file on gambling from either the Jakarta Police
nor the National Police Headquarters.

The public is cynical about the police's seriousness in
fighting gambling as no big gambling den owners have been
arrested.

High-ranking police officers are thought to accept monthly
payments from gambling lords, while low-ranking officers earn
additional income from street gambling, including togel (illegal
lotteries).

"How can they arrest us when we give them huge amounts of
money every month? Every gambling boss in the capital gets
protection from high-ranking officers either with the Jakarta
Police or the National Police. We wouldn't have the courage to
operate without a guarantee from a police general," Yohannes
said.

The way police handled gambling activities is indicative of
the way other crimes were fought this year.

Hilman, 36, a resident of Kebon Jeruk in West Jakarta, for
instance, complained that city police had failed to solve his
case involving a stolen car.

After he bought a car, presumably from a businessman, Hilman
tried to renew the car's registration, only to be arrested for
buying a stolen car.

"I showed them (police) all of the car's documents to convince
them that I got the car legally and that they should arrest the
seller. But instead of tracking down the seller, some police
officers forced me to leave the car at the Jakarta Police
Headquarters and since then nothing has happened," Hilman told
the Post.

He has no idea what happened to the car, let alone to the
money that he gave the man who fraudulently sold him the car.

"I found out later that the police officers were friends with
the seller. I forgot about getting my car back, but I swear I'll
never ask the police for help again. I've had enough of them,"
Hilman said.

According to data from the Jakarta Police internal affairs
division, the number of police officers reported for criminal
involvement increased 400 percent to 80 this year, compared to
merely 20 cases last year.

"Criminals know that they can buy police officers. They are
not afraid of committing crimes over and over again. In this
case, the law cannot deter people from criminal activity,"
University of Indonesia legal expert Rudy Satrio told the Post.

He said the involvement of police officers in crime, including
robbery and drug dealing, for additional income also reduced
their credibility when cracking down on those crimes.

According to data from the Jakarta Police, more than 4,000
armed robberies, some involving police officers, occurred this
year, up from around 3,000 last year.

Special operations aimed at curbing traffic violations in the
capital are seen by many as a way for city police to get
additional income.

"I was ticketed in the operation, but I have no idea what I
did wrong. They were just looking for mistakes to extort money
for me. That's why I always feel nervous if a cop stands near
me," Pujianto, an employee of a private bank, said.