Street vigilantism continues

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.