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

'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.