Redesigning the Police
Three thousand pages finally arrived on President Prabowo Subianto’s desk. Thick, heavy. And like all state documents, it is full of hope as well as anxiety.
What was submitted by the Commission for the Acceleration of Indonesian National Police Reform (KPR Polri) is not merely a report. It is akin to an indirect admission that our police affairs cannot be resolved with sticky notes or coordination meetings over coffee.
If a 3,000-page report is needed, it means the chaotic state of the police is no longer a tangled thread, but more like the city’s electrical cables that have been crossing each other without a map for so long.
You know, KPR Polri was established directly by President Prabowo Subianto on 7 November 2025. It is a non-structural body with a clear mandate: to accelerate institutional reform, enhance professionalism, and improve the governance of the Indonesian National Police (Polri).
Led by Jimly Asshiddiqie, with members such as Mahfud MD, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Supratman Andi Agtas, Otto Hasibuan, Ahmad Dofiri, as well as experienced figures like Idham Azis and Badrodin Haiti, the commission worked over a period of eight months.
Eight months—long enough to dissect old wounds, but also short enough to avoid debating too long with vested interests. Finally, on 5 May 2026, they reached the near-finish point by submitting the final report to the President at Merdeka Palace.
They summarised six main recommendations. One of them, which is definitive: maintaining the position of Polri under the President. Also, limiting the placement of personnel outside the structure. Note: “limiting,” not prohibiting.
Other recommendations: strengthening Kompolnas as an overseer, promoting demilitarisation, revising the Polri Law along with dozens of its derivative regulations, and maintaining the DPR’s approval mechanism in the appointment of the National Police Chief.
In other words, the commission’s work is not just about mapping problems, but already touching on the design of solutions. The public only needs to wait to see whether the direction formulated is truly implemented by the President, or stops as a neat blueprint that is never realised.
The commission’s work also reflects one thing that we often take lightly: documenting the disease honestly. Those 3,000 pages are not just a number; they are an institutional autopsy.
There are also eight verbatim books of public voices, plus a policy summary. This shows that the diagnosis of the “illness” of the police is quite complete. This is no longer a matter of “there might be problems,” but “this is the list of problems, from upstream to downstream.”
Yet it is here that the irony of our reforms often begins: we are very meticulous in diagnosing, but often flee when entering the operating room.
Because the real question is not about the thickness of the report, but about the courage to touch the heart of the matter. And that heart is named Law Number 2 of 2002 on the Indonesian National Police.
As long as this foundation is only patched up, reform will be like repainting a house with a cracked foundation: it looks new, but remains fragile.
Therefore, if this commission is truly working as an “acceleration of reform,” its results must not stop at normative recommendations such as improving services or career restructuring. Those are important, but they are cosmetic. True reform must enter the design of power.
First, regarding the limits of authority. Polri must not become an institution that “can do everything.”
In the theory of the modern rule of law, power that is too broad without separation of functions will give birth to conflicts of interest and abuse.
When one institution can do everything—investigate, prosecute, monitor, even influence cyberspace and intelligence—then it is no longer merely a law enforcer, but the power ecosystem itself. This is where the law revision must dare to simplify, not expand.
Second, regarding oversight. This is the point most often mentioned by the public, but most rarely resolved. Internal oversight, no matter how sophisticated, always has limitations. It is like a mirror in a dark room—there is a reflection, but the light is not enough.
Therefore, external oversight must be strengthened structurally, not just symbolically. Not just giving advice to the President, but having real authority to correct, even to punish.