Police urged to help maintain public security
JAKARTA (JP): Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman, expressing concern over the recent urban crime wave, urged the public to actively participate in the Environmental Security System (Siskamling) to help maintain public order and security.
Siskamling is an Indonesian way of patrolling at night, carried out in shifts by members of a neighborhood unit.
"Maintaining order and security is not only the duty of the police, but the community as well," Soesilo, who is also head of the Association of Retired Servicemen (PEPABRI), was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.
Soesilo made his remarks after signing a cooperation agreement with state-owned international telecommunication company PT Indosat and state-owned telephone monopoly PT Telkom over the weekend.
The increasing brutality displayed by criminals need not be answered by "shock therapy", Soesilo said, "we just need to use the existing laws to handle the problem."
Soesilo was apparently referring to the on-the-spot shootings of criminals which darkened the early 1980s. This kind of therapy, known as petrus (mysterious shooting to death of criminals) was designed to drastically reduce criminality.
That the urban crime rate has reached alarming proportions is supported by the research conducted by the Service Center for Justice and Dedication to Law (PPKH) at the University of Indonesia.
11 incidents
According to the study, every 13 minutes there are 11 criminal incidents in Jakarta, 60 percent of which fall into the category of property crime.
Purniati, a criminologist who is also a PPKH researcher, said a similar crime clock occurs in a number of Indonesia's other large cities such as Surabaya, East Java, Semarang, Central Java, and Medan, North Sumatra.
Criminals are becoming more sophisticated, she said, adding that at the same time they are becoming more sadistic.
"They are not concerned with the identities of their victims. They victimize everyone, irrespective of whether they are children, women, members of the Armed Forces or even generals," Purniati said, referring to the recent murder of Brig. Gen. TMF Tampubolon, after being attacked by a number of scoundrels.
It seems that today's criminals are not satisfied with simply stealing the possessions of their victims. They do not hesitate to batter, slit their victims' throats or even shoot them to death, Purniati said.
All this, according to Purniati, is caused by unscrupulous competition to earn a living and heavy pressure to maintain a certain lifestyle in a metropolis like Jakarta. (06)