Jakarta's crime rates decline
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)