Police chief wants better resources

Police chief wants better resources

JAKARTA (JP): Nearly one in five items of police equipment are
not in working order, National Police Chief General Dibyo Widodo
said yesterday.

He said most equipment was old and not performing to its
optimal level.

Dibyo said 59.4 percent of equipment was in average condition,
22.8 percent in poor condition, and 17.8 percent was damaged.

He said the lack of money to replace and buy equipment was
affecting officers' performance and a major obstacle to them
improving their image.

Dibyo said Indonesia needed more police and that ideally there
should be one police officer for every 750 people.

This means Indonesia should have 266,666 police officers. It
has 184,283 officers now.

Dibyo said the police planned to recruit 10,000 officers
this year.

The number of Mobile Brigade companies would be increased from
77 to 49, he said.

Dibyo was speaking to promote today's Police Day,
commemorating the National Police force's 51st anniversary.

"The biggest challenge for us all is to improve the attitude
of our personnel so they properly understand their duties," Dibyo
said.

He said police needed support in their fight against crime,
which had become more violent, especially in big cities.

The number of crimes reported fell 5.56 percent and the crime
rate dropped 4.12 percent from January to June this year.

The number of crimes solved dropped 5.7 percent because, he
said, police were occupied providing security for the general
election.

Dibyo said that the police arrested 25 alleged drug users and
129 drug traffickers in the first three months of this year.

The police also confiscated 715,980 grams of marijuana, 320
grams of morphine, 315,785 grams of heroin and 1,924 Ecstasy
pills in the January-March period, he said.

He said that the police detectives' capability would be
further improved to deal with drug-related crimes.

Dibyo explained that the number of traffic accidents increased
by 5.47 percent to 8,304 cases during the first six months of
this year from 7,873 cases in the same period last year.

Restructure

Dibyo said the National Police would be restructured and a new
position of Vice National Police Chief created.

Deputy positions will be replaced by assistants.

It was not clear whether the change was planned in line with
police efforts to improve their public image.

Dibyo refused to give details of the changes or when they
would take place.

But he said it was not necessary to separate the police from
the army to get them to behave more professionally.

"In my opinion, the police's position within the army is for
the time being correct," Dibyo said.

"It's just a matter of convincing people and making them
realize that the police actually belong to them," Dibyo said.

He said better coordination with the army was important if
police were to improve their performance.

A new regulation was needed to support the police's position
within the army and to strengthen its role in promoting internal
security, Dibyo said.

"The current 1961 regulation, number 13, on police matters is
already too old," he said. (cst)