Jakarta's crime rates decline
JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto said on Thursday that the number of crimes in Greater Jakarta this year declined by 19.37 percent to 25,817 cases from 32,017 crimes last year.
In short, the city this year recorded 71 crimes per day as compared to 88 crimes per day in 1993, Hindarto said in a year- end press conference.
According to Hindarto, the significant drop recorded this year was mostly due to active participation from community members and their support of the massive joint police-military operations against crime in this city.
"Jakarta alone, now home to about 11.5 million people, in addition to Tangerang, Bekasi and Depok with another four million people, requires a great force of power to fight crime," he said.
"We really hope to further reduce the number of total crimes in this capital city or at least maintain our current achievements," he said.
As happened in earlier years, crime in the city this year is still dominated by vehicle theft, breaking and entering, armed robbery and aggravated assault, the two-star general said.
High
"Even though the four crime categories have shown a significant drop this year, the total number of vehicle theft cases are still high", Hindarto said.
This year (the Chinese Year of Dog), the police have recorded a total of 160 student brawls in the city involving 10 student deaths, 79 wounded, 917 arrested and 795 detained. The brawls also caused damage to at least 36 public buses.
"Student brawls are everyone's problem. So, we need support, especially from parents, to kindly pay attention to their children and surroundings," Hindarto urged.
In drugs cases, the police managed to uncover 145 out of a total of 170 cases reported this year.
"A total of 22 drug trafficking networks were busted in addition to 285 drug users and dealers being arrested. Seized this year were 105,772 grams of marijuana and 802 grams of heroin," Hindarto said.
In 1994, police recorded 1,407 traffic accidents killing 492 people and injuring 1,500.
Central Jakarta, which ranked second last year in the number of cases of the eight police precincts, topped the list this year, followed by North, East, West and South Jakarta, Depok, Bekasi and Tangerang.
One of the city police's most notable achievements this year was the arrest of four young men for their role in brutally killing an Army general, Brig. Gen. Toga Manahan Franklin Tampubolon, in April.
The police also arrested two staff members of the U.S. embassy here and two Dutch tourists during a raid at the Borobudur Inter- continental Hotel in Central Jakarta in February. The aliens were on the brink of closing a deal worth thousands of U.S. dollars. and police confiscated over 7,500 restricted pills from one of the foreigners' residence in South Jakarta.
They also solved the case of a kidnapped teenage girl in West Jakarta by shooting to death the lone abductor.
In a similar case, the city police have arrested two private detectives from Australia who were hired by a German woman to take her two boys from her estranged husband.
On the other hand, Hindarto admitted, the city police are still facing a number of crimes which have yet to be resolved.
"We are trying our best to solve all top priority crimes in an effort to wipe out crimes," pledged Hindarto, who is scheduled to leave his office sometime in early 1995. (bsr)