'Police Department Customer Care here. How can we help you?'

Winahyo Soekanto, Lawyer, Consumer Care Foundation, Jakarta, winahyo@yahoo.com

One of the fastest ways for the police to change their image from a militaristic force into a civilian police is by winning the hearts of the public through improved services. A strong will, however, is needed before the police can "switch off" their automatic response mode that comes from the excessive confidence of an organization that has had too much power for too long, and assume the mode of a public service company.

The police must expand and improve their public services because this is their essential role. As law enforcers the police are still required to treat offenders with certain standards of human rights. Otherwise, with all the legal power at their discretion and without a strong motivation to serve, the police could easily fall into patterns of abuse of power and police brutality.

When a soldier finishes his training during times of peace, the military would keep him engaged in various educational programs. When a police officer finishes his training, he is thrown straight into "war" within his community. Unlike the soldier, a policeman or woman does not fight "enemies" -- but he must tackle complex social issues and a variety of people.

In today's competitive social, industrial and trade spheres where campaigns for goods and services take place in an aggressive manner, consumers become the most important party in any interchange. Producers of goods or service providers purchase costly software and undergo continuous training for their highly specialized customer care employees and develop customer relations, to ensure customer satisfaction.

The police, whose motto is "to serve and to protect", would be better off realizing that they are basically the servants of the public. They should apply the same careful customer care as goods and services companies do. This is the first step before the police will be able to erase their poor image which has led to the saying "do not report the loss of your chicken to the police or you will lose your goat as well".

Police performance is usually evaluated by their ability to solve criminal cases both through their own investigation and those caught red-handed. This overlooks the question of the quality of their service for the public. It also overlooks the number of unsettled criminal cases, and whether it could be reduced if the police improved their public service.

Police watchdog organizations tend to also concentrate on quantity -- the percentage of cases solved. But what is absent are campaigns for a proactive customer service management. Why not ask the police to create their own, a benchmarking for the customer care management that private corporations usually undertake?

The Jakarta Police have all the necessary tools to offer the best service -- hundreds of newly acquired, luxury KIA Carens patrol cars being organized from one integrated control tower with dozens of telephone lines to take in reports and complaints. They have the sophisticated Global Positioning System to help tract the movement of those shiny cars.

Equipment does not a good service make, however. Hopefully the Jakarta Police also have firm procedures for their personnel to use the new facilities at their disposal. This would mean the establishment of what is known as individual operation targets and work targets of service organizations.

The following are some of the ways with which the police could improve their service:

o The establishment of a "front office" which strives to provide people with a "one stop service" for the handling of complaints. The staff should also take telephone complaints.

o By striving to achieve good response time -- by not allowing the telephone to ring more than three times before picking it up.

o By being efficient in receiving complaints, which should not exceed three minutes so other callers could lodge their complaints also. This should include providing a preliminary solution (so no one would need to mobilize people to storm the police office).

o The constant presence of the patrol cars in various spots to help increase the public feeling of safety. The police should record their response time to reports of cases from members of the public. The time range for the receipt of a complaint until the arrival of the patrol car on the site is usually 10 minutes for a police precinct with mild to heavy traffic.

o By ensuring that the first progress report of the handling of a complaint does not exceed three days, while further action should be taken within 10 days at the latest. When no progress has been made the police should at least be able to show the complaining party that every action has been taken in accordance with standard police procedure.

o By disseminating the information about the new public service through various means including distributing leaflets at the malls.

The police should, again, be able to "switch off" their old response mode both at the individual and organizational levels. The National Police currently has 3,500 basic operational units, called Polsek, with up to 10 policemen at each unit, or an average of one officer for every 900 citizens.

Law No. 2/2002 states that the police are responsible for social order, law enforcement and public service and protection. Polsek, at the forefront of that public service, would have to work very hard to provide decent services with the above ratio.

There is certainly the need to improve the ratio, but there are other ways to make up for the shortage such as making use of the special police forces, the pamong praja police unit, the civil servant investigators, community security (as stipulated in Chapter 3 of Law 2/2002) and the improvement of individual police officers' public service skills. Another way to overcome the shortage is by allocating more police personnel to one area and fewer to another in accordance with local needs.

After all is said and done, however, not much can be done to improve the public service unless the welfare of the police personnel is improved.