Tougher recruitment seen as positive

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Police's decision to tighten their recruitment procedures following a fatal shooting incident involving two officers is seen as a positive move to help avoid a similar incident in the future, but some warn that bribery could interfere with the tougher recruitment standard.

According to the new plan, recruitment procedures will among others, consist of a more complicated psychological test for candidates who wish to join the force and more frequent tests on recruits and officers.

Chairman of non-governmental organization Police Watch Rashid Lubis told The Jakarta Post over the weekend that a higher standard of recruitment procedures was necessary to produce better quality police officers.

However, Rashid warned of lingering practice of people bribing recruitment officers as a short-cut to enter the force, and of certain high-ranking officers giving recommendations to certain candidates.

"If the candidates do not go through the standard screening procedures, then we won't be able to find out their real quality including their psychological conditions, thus opening the possibility for the recurring of the Jombang incident," said Rashid, referring to the incident last week where First Insp. Sugeng Triyono, an administration staff officer with East Java's Jombang Police shot Adj. Comr. Ibrahim Gani, head of the anti- riot unit. Sugeng killed himself after firing two shots.

The police said the incident occurred because Sugeng was depressed since working as an administration staff, compared to his previous post as the chief of the lucrative traffic section.

Commenting on the shooting incident in Jombang, Rashid said that the two officers were probably old "products" when the recruitment system was fairly simple and prone to outside intervention.

"I think the police are working to improve it. They've been working together with the psychological department at the University of Indonesia for the tests and we can see the results in the next three or four years," Rashid said.

Meanwhile, First Adj. Insp. Moro Kuswantoro of Tanah Abang sub-precinct said that he fully supported the National Police's decision to conduct more frequent psychological tests to assess the mental health condition of each officer.

"It will be good to know whether we're psychologically healthy or not if the tests are conducted more often. We get tested regularly once a year when we extend our gun licenses. If you don't pass the test then you can't get your gun license," Moro said.

However, Moro added that the regular once-a-year test only applies in Jakarta and that he did not know about the conditions in other regions in Indonesia.

Chief Brig. Purnomo said that psychological tests were required by either the officers or by the superintendents, but psychological tests alone could not tell the problems that an officer faced outside his workplace.

"An officer is just a human being who can face trouble at home with his family or his neighborhood and can be depressed with his job as well.

"A test is good for monitoring but it can't eliminate or solve those problems. So we still have to control ourselves so that the Jombang incident will never happen again," Purnomo said.