The changing role of the police

By Anton Tabah

JAKARTA (JP): The role of members of society as both subjects and objects cannot be separated. The police was born due to the existence of the society, but society also needs the presence of police to maintain security and order.

This was the ancient Greek philosophy of police existence until the modern theory was born. A country may have no armed forces, but no country is without a police force. This is because a police force is in charge of maintaining order, protecting society and enforcing law in any state.

The foundation of the state in history supports this theory. A good example is the deal for the establishment of the Palestine state recently and how it specifically covers the police force. This example proves an undeniable historical fact of the police's importance.

The Palestine story mirrors that of the Indonesian Police force. The country's oldest organization was born on 19 August, 1945, only two days after the proclamation of the country's independence. It was created by the Committee of the Indonesian Independence Preparation.

Several theories on law enforcement and justice were formulated before Christ was born. These have changed with the passage of time, but studies on law began systematically in the 18th century. These have produced the law theories of Brissot de Warfile (1781), Emile Durkheim (1858) and Roscau Pound and Alan Hunt (1978). They remain relevant today.

The effectiveness of law enforcement is dependent on the working of the five pillars of law, namely the legal apparatus, personnel, structure, bureaucracy and society. Professor Reckless put forward the effectiveness of law enforcement in 3 systems. Those are systems of police organization, law and justice. Professor Reckless concludes that the effectiveness of law enforcement is influenced mainly by political will. The law can be fully enforced, collapse or implemented half-heartedly. The police has an important role in the implementation, and experts suggest that a nation should have a strong police force in order to ensure law enforcement.

How is law enforcement in Indonesia? First, let us observe the components of law her. Legal certainty (Rechtsicherheit), benefits (Zweckmassigkeit) and the law can justify whether the law is enforced or ignored, healthy or sick. If the law is sick, it means it is not enforced properly. The impact is the disturbance of national stability. All people should be equal before the law.

In this philosophical term of reference, we call law enforcement a culture of law. In the traditional saying "Datan mawas kadang sentono uger dosa kapidono", or, literally, regardless of whether the culprity is a friend or relative, he must bear responsibility for his actions. Explicitly, tradition teaches that collusion and nepotism must be banished. This kind of culture exists by playing on our feelings of shame. It is the highest cultural value which is guided by the wisdom of the body. If is part of the Holy Koran's teachings: "If Fatimah (my daughter) commits theft, for sure I will cut off her hand" (Ad Hadiths).

Our legal political references are clear. As written in one of the articles of the 1945 Constitution, every citizen is equal before the law. The political aspirations of the people are mentioned in the Decree of the People Consultative Council dated 9th March 1993, stating: "The law material should be a foundation to guarantee the society in order to enjoy the law certainty, order and protection based on justice and truth..."

Theoretically, law in Indonesia contains philosophical, judiciary and social value. In practice, the law faces many constraints. These include ineffective legal apparatus, delinquent officers, ineffiencient structure and system of justice. In other words, the law is ailing.

This sickness can be seen through the failure of the law mechanism components (law certainly, benefit and justice). The three components of law enforcement can be called healthy if the justice system works properly. Whoever is found guilty should be punished, essential to ensuring non-discrimination.

There are also a lot of constraints on the legal apparatus. The civil code is a colonial product which has little relevance to the national culture. It, naturally, failed to anticipate social and technological developments. For example, in the case of liquor and sex crimes, which are viewed as crimes without victims. In actuality, the loss and danger from these kinds of crimes could effectively ruin the nation.

The sickness of the law will bring to the fore the ineffectiveness of the justice system and undermine the respect of the servicemen. Collusion, corruption and harassment of judges, as well as people versus the government, should be noted.

Operational constraints need more attention. Crime investiga tion is different to business negotiations. Investigations take weeks, days or months, requiring considerable funds and personnel.

The case of Oki, the Indonesian citizen accused of murdering three people in Los Angeles, is one example. Officially, the fund available to investigate this case was only Rp 50,000 (US$22.00). We all know that the complexities of the case and its logistics meant the costs actually ran into the millions of rupiah.

Since there is no proper fund to support the job, police officers raise funds among themselves to speed up investigation even though they should spend from their relatively low salaries. This happens because the police feel special satisfaction in concluding an investigation.

This is also true for the police budget for essentials like gas. This is done routinely because it is the identity of the police force, and budgets are woefully inadequate.

An internal constraint of the police force is that professionalism is still relatively poor. The society is developing rapidly, but it is not balanced by improvement of the police professionalism. It makes obstacles to law enforcement more complex. The public's complaints of the stifling bureaucracy are growing louder.

There is another constraint, more on technical aspects, but quite disturbing to the effectiveness of law enforcement. The technical constraint is the integration between executive and legislative powers, starting from the design up to the implementation of law. It is not well integrated to this day.

Many cases, including the three-in-one traffic policy and regulations on alcoholic beverages, show this. Most people would agree with the regulations, but the small minority is more vocal in its rejection. Thus, we have a silent majority.

This lack of integration is evident in the society's security and order which is written, politically, as follows: The society security and order system (basically conducted by police force) will be developed and prioritize in the prevention and resistance of security and order disturbance. The appreciation of the society on security and order will be developed in an integrated manner (National Guidance Decree, Armed Forces Field Article 1).

In practice, political will is still lacking.

During the New Order government, the police's role has developed. It now involves three state administrations, unique in this country. The Indonesian Police is involved in the systems of public, security and defense, and criminal justice administra tions. The Indonesian police, as a bureaucratic body, is very transparent and has almost no boundaries with society. Therefore, it might be true that the police image is not deteriorating. The real issue is that the demands of society are increasing but this is not matched by police professionalism.

The operation of the police task faces at least nine taxing problems constraints. These are the legal apparatus, structure and infrastructure, political action, the justice system, the culture of mikul dhuwur mendhem jero (shoulder high but buried deep, or literally giving unrelenting praise to officers despite thier mistakes), professionalism, mentality and the bureaucratic structure. These must be solved in this era of globalization.

The writer is a columnist and police major based in Semarang.