Police 'reality show'

Entertainment centers are no longer good places for people who want to relax, have a drink, listen to some music, maybe talk with friends, since the police could come busting through the door at any minute.

The police have been more vigorous in conducting raids since the new National Police chief ordered an end to all gambling and drug-related crimes.

Nightspots seem to be the police's main target, apparently based on their assumption that most drug-related crimes take place in nightclubs, discotheques and such.

Most people would agree that drugs have become a serious problem in the country. However, the police's apparent belief that anyone who visits a nightspot is a potential drug suspect is extremely misleading and dangerous.

The police invariably bring along television camera crews during their raids on clubs and discos, and hapless visitors end up shielding their faces from the cameras even though there is the great possibility they have done absolutely nothing wrong.

Trying to escape the cameras, the visitors are deprived of their right to freedom from harassment and humiliation.

Both the law enforcers and the cameramen seem to have forgotten that taking somebody's picture and making it public without the person's consent is against the law based on the principle of presumption of innocence.

The visitors' right to hang out in nightspots, which have legal operating permits, is also being trespassed on.

The aggressive police raids on clubs and discos have evoked complaints from nightspot owners. The Association of Indonesian Entertainment Center Owners (Aspehindo) voiced its objections earlier this week, saying the police actions had scared away customers.

Some owners have had to dismiss workers and others are now opening only on weekends because of falling visitor numbers. Aspehindo chairman Adrian Maelite said if the police continued with their raids, entertainment center owners would probably have to fire 30 percent of their workers, more than 120,000 people, over the next couple of weeks.

A recent outing found that several discotheques in Jakarta were deserted following the police raids. This may indicate that (innocent) customers, fearing being caught up in overaggressive police raids, are staying away, or that the nightlife in the city cannot survive without the drugs.

Whatever the case, it is time for the police to review their tactics. If the targets of the raids are drug dealers and users, why don't the police put plainclothes officers into the entertainment centers every single night without involving camera crews? It would be better for the police to bring their own cameramen for such operations anyway, to prevent news of the raids from leaking out to the intended targets.

By using plainclothes officers and their own cameramen during the raids, the police could go about fighting the drug problem in a legal, proper and "more civilized" manner. At the same time the police could answer suspicions that they have some sort of a mutual cooperation agreement with the media. The police want media coverage and the media needs news. If this is the case, who is using who? Public accountability becomes unnecessary under such an arrangement.

No wonder there has been no word from the police on any further legal action against the suspects arrested in the raids. Such reports on the legal proceedings against suspects -- usually carried on television stations -- are very important because many observers allege that criminal suspects often buy their freedom with a bribe to the police.

There must be a new paradigm in the police approach to fighting drugs, or the police actions will be little more than a "reality TV show" dedicated to their superiors. And the Fun Without Drugs campaign will in the end fail.