Police ineffectual in war against crime

Police ineffectual in war against crime

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The police are the main agents in society assigned to ensure
security, right? However, in the event that they are powerless to
crack down on widespread crime, the public must be prepared to
defend itself.

Sooner or later, the public must prepare to protect itself, as
the police unveiled on Wednesday that they were powerless to deal
with the high number of crimes in the capital.

"Yes, we admit that we often fail to prevent crimes from
taking place," city police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam
told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Anton gave the excuse that the police's inability to maintain
security in Jakarta was mainly due to their internal limitations,
including the lack of manpower and funding.

Public concern about the capital's security is rife amid
reports of an increase in street crimes and offenses that occur
every day in the capital.

The feeling of insecurity has deteriorated following the
Sunday bomb blasts and the discovery of two other explosives in
different locations in Jakarta.

After three days of intensive investigation, the police
acknowledged that they were still in the dark about the motives
behind the bomb attack.

Many people criticize the police for their failure to secure
the city and they doubt that the police would be able to arrest
the culprits.

Evi Lestari, an employee of a private company, said she could
not expect too much from the police.

"It seems like they are powerless against criminals here," she
said.

An activist has attributed the failure to the police's poor
intelligence.

Secretary-general of non-governmental organization Police
Watch Adnan Panupraja said on Tuesday that the police should
improve their intelligence alertness. He also suggested that the
police intelligence should coordinate their efforts with the
State Intelligence Agency (BIN), which has stronger, wider and
more established connections than the police.

Meanwhile, criminologist at the University of Indonesia
Adrianus Meliala said that the public should develop its own
self-protection as a major proportion of public places was out of
police reach or control.

"About 60 percent of public places are 'unpoliced'. It allows
criminals to commit offenses without fear of detection or capture
by law enforcement agencies," said Adrianus, who is also a
consultant to the police.

Jakarta has a total of 21,000 police personnel spread across
the whole of Jakarta and covering a population of more than 8.3
million. But many of the 21,000 police officers have to deal with
administrative tasks. Ideally, the ratio of police to population
should be one to 400.