Jakarta – The National Police needs to improve its recruitment and training if it hopes to reform its image as a corruption-riddled institution, observers said Thursday.

"The police must involve external institutions in its future recruitment and selection processes, to ensure that short-listed candidates are those who succeeded in passing the tests, and were not selected by means of nepotism or bribery," said Fajar Nursahid, a researcher at the Institute of Research, Education and Information on Social and Economic Affairs (LP3ES).

Fajar was presenting the results of research on police performance during a seminar organized by the National Police Commission. The research was carried out this year using in-depth interviews and focus-group discussions involving 600 people in two cities in East Java.

Fifty-one percent of the respondents said police officers fell short of their expectations. Only 3.7 percent expressed satisfaction with the police's performance.

Fajar acknowledged that involving outside institution would not necessarily ensure a fair recruitment process for officers. He pointed to the East Java Provincial Police, who have cooperated with Airlangga University during its recruitment.

His research found bribery continued to exist in the selection process despite this cooperation.

"There are indications of bribery although it was not as rampant as when the recruitment was fully organized by the police themselves," Fajar said. "It would be hard to make sure that recruitment was 100 percent free of bribery."

Hattah Fattah of the Public Policy Research Center in Makassar said police had to put more emphasis on "emotional qualities" in training new recruits.

"Current education for police cadets puts too much stress on academics and the physical side, while there is limited training to sharpen their emotional and intelligence quotients," he said.

Hattah also said knowledge of local cultures played an important role in helping officers properly serve the public.

"In most cases, like ones in Makassar, clashes between residents and police were triggered by misunderstandings caused by the police's lack of understanding of local culture," he said. (lln)