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)