Raid hoodlums, but not vendors, warn experts

Raid hoodlums, but not vendors, warn experts

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration should discriminate in
its handling of hoodlums and street vendors. The city should not
arrest street vendors and other informal traders as the police
arrest hoodlums, experts said on Tuesday.

Noted criminologist Mulyana W. Kusumah and Muslim scholar
Azyumardi Azra said that unlike hoodlums, the so-termed people
with social welfare problems (PMKS), such as street vendors,
singers and informal traders burdened neither the city nor the
people.

On the contrary, they provided jobs amid the current high
unemployment rate, and consequently could reduce the crime rate
in the city. Therefore, they deserved help rather than being
arrested.

"Arresting them would not solve the problem. The city would do
better to assist them, like giving them more places to do
business," Mulyana, from the University of Indonesia, said.

He said the main problem for street traders and similar people
was poverty, and therefore arresting them and putting them in
social institutions would not solve their problems.

If possible, the city administration should create more job
opportunities for them.

Unless the city can provide places or job opportunities for
these street people, it should simply let them carry on their
businesses in the capital.

The city administration has actually differentiated the
actions it takes against hoodlums as opposed to street vendors
and other PMKS. The city has asked the Jakarta Police to arrest
hoodlums, while the city's public order office is responsible for
dealing with PMKS.

The Jakarta Police have arrested at least 600 thugs since
April 16, of which 36 were shot dead for resisting arrest.

The public order office has replicated what the police have
been doing and arrested PMKS and sent many of them to social
rehabilitation centers in Kedoya, West Java, and Cipayung, East
Jakarta.

As many as 20,946 PMKS, including prostitutes, street singers
and vendors, transvestites and the homeless, have been netted by
public order officers in the capital since mid-April. Many of
them were street vendors, totaling 7,791 people.

The city has allocated Rp 12 billion (US$1.09 million) for a
nine-month operation against thugs and public regulations
offenders.

Mulyana agreed on Tuesday that the Jakarta Police should
conduct raids against hoodlums, suggesting that they should focus
more on organized hoodlums. But he did not provide a further
explanation of who the organized hoodlums might be.

He said the city administration should involve the public in
evaluating raids against hoodlums to get feedback on whether they
had reached their targets.

Meanwhile, Azyumardi Azra, rector of the Syarief Hidayatullah
State Islamic Institute, supported Mulyana's suggestion and said
that the public, especially religious leaders, should be more
involved in the operations against thugs.

"We see that religious leaders have a small function in these
matters, including the handling of hoodlums," Azyumardi said in
the same seminar. (jun)