Police perform poorly in detection rate test

Evi Mariani, Jakarta

The Police Watch group announced on Thursday that the Jakarta Police's detection rate as regards crimes that had been reported to them between July 2003 and May 2004 was only 19.3 percent out of 20,904 cases, making a total of 4,033 that had been solved.

"The performance was much worse compared to the previous period during which the city police managed to solve between 30 percent and 40 percent of the cases reported to them," Police Watch chairman Rashid Lubis told The Jakarta Post.

Police Watch revealed that the South Jakarta Police precinct received the most reports of crimes at 4,999 but only managed to solve 16 percent, or 809 cases. Meanwhile, the Port Police received the least number of reports, with only 76 cases, but managed to solve 39 of these, or 51 percent.

The monitoring body pointed out that the Bekasi Police and Depok Police had even lower detection rates, and only managed to solve 11 percent of the cases brought to their notice by the public.

Rashid explained that the reduction in detection rates was due to a number of factors, including the general elections, which had taken up a great deal of police time in providing security and investigating election-related cases.

"Changes in the organizational structures of police forces have also contributed to the declines that have taken place in detection rates," he said.

The restructuring process started in July 2003 and was completed in February of this year.

As a result of the restructuring at city police headquarters, for example, a 60-detective unit under one commander has been divided into three smaller units comprising 20 detectives each.

Critics said the new organizational structure had led to even greater bureaucracy as detectives now needed more time to coordinate as between the different units involved in handling particular cases.

"The National Police must quickly reevaluate the restructuring. The National Police chief, Gen. Da'i Bachtiar, must identify the weaknesses that are inherent in the restructuring that has been carried out, and make the necessary corrections so that it won't hamper police work," Rashid said.

City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo argued that the police are faced with three main problems in solving cases: suspects managing to remain at large even though the police have identified them, crime scenes having been tampered with, and lack of evidence.

I-box Cases handled by Jakarta Police No. Precinct Reported Solved % 1. Jakarta Metropolitan Police 535 95 18 2. Central Jakarta Police 3,042 685 23 3. North Jakarta Police 2,991 635 21 4. West Jakarta Police 2,369 627 26 5. South Jakarta Police 4,999 809 16 6. East Jakarta Police 3,036 509 17 7. Tangerang Police 642 288 45 8. Port Police 76 39 51 9. Bekasi Police 670 75 11 10. Depok Police 2,544 271 11

Total 20,904 4,033 19

Source: The Jakarta Police