Jakarta – Vigilante justice rules the streets of an Indonesian city near here, with at least 42 suspected petty criminals burnt alive or beaten to death by mobs so far this year. Criminologists say the attacks reflect a widespread loss of faith in the police and the justice system. Police say they do not condone the lynchings but can do little to prevent them.

A hospital morgue assistant in the city of Tangerang, near Jakarta international airport, said 42 corpses – 12 of them burnt beyond recognition – had been brought in from January to September. "We normally tag the bodies of the unidentified criminals – most of whom had no ID cards or are hardly recognizable due to severe beatings or burnings – as Mr. X," the assistant, Jaelani, told AFP this week.

He said if nobody claimed the bodies after a week, the city would bury them in a mass grave. "The police know that the burnings and beatings are helping their work and that knowledge is making them lackadaisical in preventing the mob," Jaelani said.

Many Tangerang residents are sick of criminals who do not hesitate to hurt their victims, plant vendor Agus Mulyadi was quoted by Monday's Jakarta Post as saying. "We can no longer trust the police to settle these cases," said Mulyadi, who claimed to have taken part in the beating up of two criminals last month.

Tangerang's police chief, Adjunct Chief Commissioner Affan Richwanto, said police "are normally outnumbered and face possible attack" from angry mobs if they try to stop the lynchings. "I personally regret past brutal actions by residents here but the upside of the street justice is that it helps our work to fight crime in this area," Richwanto told AFP. "There is not much a policeman can do to stop dozens in an angry mob when they are in the middle of a frenzy," he said, adding that the killings normally involved motorcycle thieves and burglars.

Street vigilantism, said criminologist Harkristuti Harkrisnowo of the University of Indonesia, could be attributed to the public's "long-standing distrust" of law enforcers. "It starts with distrust which later leads to civil disobedience. A large sentiment exists that the law will only work for those who have power and the funds," she said. "The public feels that they have long been victimized by the state for its lack of real actions to uphold justice."

By nature, she said, Indonesians are not violent people, "It's just that the current conditions – the four-year long economic crisis and political upheavals – have led the public to take matters into their own hands." Public education starting at neighborhood level and the strengthening of security personnel in restive overpopulated areas could help curb street vigilantes, Harkrisnowo told AFP.

Criminologist Erlangga Masdiana, also from the University of Indonesia, was quoted by Monday's Jakarta Post as saying police should not wash their hands of street justice. He noted that in the long run, reform of the police is necessary. "There must be political will from top executives within the police to reform its institutional structure and culture right to the lowest level," he said.