Street vigilantism continues

Emmy Fitri , The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Over the past few years it has become common to hear about violence committed by mobs, who beat to death the perpetrators of petty crimes if they get caught red-handed.

And the vigilante justice is still continuing until now.

Only on Friday a man was burned to death in Ciwaru village, Bogor, by local residents who accused him of having an illicit affair with a married woman. The punishment was far beyond one he would get in a courtroom if the woman's husband reported the case to the police. According to article 284 of the Criminal Code, anyone who is found guilty of adultery can be punished by a maximum sentence of nine months in jail.

In Tangerang, residents of Cikoto village who were probably at the end of their tethers by the action of thieves in their neighborhood, took the law into their hands when they managed to nab two motorcycle thieves, Yadi and Sugiman. The ill-fated crooks were mobbed to death on Sept. 3 last year.

Many analyses has been made on the violence, which is also known as street justice. One of the major causes is that the people no longer respect and believe in law enforcement and the law enforcers.

The causes are known..., but such violence keeps being repeated.

Criminologist Harkristuti Harkrisnowo from the University of Indonesia explained that mass justice became widely practiced after the downfall of former president Soeharto in 1998. During the Soeharto era, police and military provided strong shields for the country's security and order.

"Both the police and military were very respectable and at the same time were very powerful. People were really reluctant to deal with these institutions, let alone break the law," she said.

"The vigilante justice reached its peak between 1998 and 2000. I read so many stories of such violence in the media during that period," she said.

The police and other law enforcers really doing their jobs and applying the law properly is one thing that may help to boost the people's trust on these institutions.

Another thing that could be taken into account is to punish those who take the law into their own hands.

The perpetrators of street vigilantism could be charged with violating Article 170 of the Criminal Code on mass violence.

"But I can understand if the police fail to catch all the perpetrators of such violence. Not only is it done by too many people but also because people are usually unwilling to testify against the others because they themselves also committed the crimes," Harkristuti remarked.

Kompas reported on Sept. 25, 2001 that nationwide such incidents of street vigilantism had reached to 216 cases with 99 people killed in 2000. The actual number could be double that as many cases go undetected.

Harkristuti, director of the criminal law department at the University of Indonesia, argued that the educational background of the violence was not one of factors that motivated people to take the law into their hands.

Many of street vigilantes were reported in remote areas but Harkristuti argued that, "In Jakarta where there are many educated people, such practices are also found, but it is more difficult to handle because passersby will join the violence orgy if they happen to come across it."

"It is also the task of the mass media to make it known that it is also a crime to punish people like that," Harkristuti remarked.