Rizky Amelia – Indonesia Police Watch says relations between the police and the public are deteriorating and have called on the government to take urgent action.
IPW director Neta S. Pane attributed the worsening relations and growing number of clashes between the public and the police to the National Police's failure to improve the quality of its officers.
Neta urged the National Police to improve officer conduct or risk a further fall in public perceptions.
"Most attacks on police facilities stemmed from public frustration with police arrogance, repressiveness and the police's overwhelming tendency to side with businesspeople. The public seems to turn to police only at the point when they have lost all hope for justice," Neta said.
Neta said that in the first half of 2013 there were 58 police assets damaged or torched by mobs in 14 incidents, a rate higher than across 2012. The damaged assets include 13 police offices, 25 police motorcycles, eight police cars and two police official residences.
Neta said that in the first quarter of the year, six policeman were attacked by mobs and seven others were slashed with blades. Five of the victims were police officers while the rest were troopers.
Neta said that in all of 2012, a total of 85 police assets were damaged or torched by mobs. The assets were 56 police stations, 18 police vehicles and 10 police motorcycles and an unidentified number of official residences.
In 2011, only 65 police facilities were attacked. "The number was much smaller in 2010 when only 20 police offices were attacked by mobs," Neta said.
So far in 2013, there have been 143 people arrested for involvement in the conflicts, in which 23 people have been reported as injured and five people as having died. "On the police side of the conflicts, 15 officers have been injured and two police officers have died," Neta said.
Neta added that vandalism and torching of facilities was an issue across the archipelago, but that the highest concentrations of conflicts between the police and the public are in North Sumatra and Papua, where mob attacks stemmed from clashes with low-ranking police officers.
Thirteen police officers fell victim to mob violence in the first three months of this year. In April, Neta said that so far this year, 13 police employees had been mobbed and stabbed.
On March 27, Adj. Comr. Andar Siahaan, the subdistrict police chief in North Sumatra's Dolol Pardamean, was killed by a mob of about 100 people. The violence erupted when Andar attempted to arrest a gambling operator.
On the same day, Adj. Comr. Suhardiman, a member of the Aceh Police, was stabbed to death, allegedly by his neighbor, in Ulee Kareng, Banda Aceh. The victim was at a roadside coffee shop when he and the assailant got into a dispute. According to IPW data, 29 police officers were killed and 14 were injured in 2012, up from 20 police officers killed in 2011.
Neta attributed the violence to several factors, including low awareness of the law, the discriminatory attitudes of police officers and the lack of training on gathering evidence properly.
"Considering these conditions, members of the National Police should improve the quality of their training so that they can become more professional. In the future, the public will increasingly be desperate in their actions, considering the complex socioeconomic problems they face," he said.
On March 24, First Brig. A.N.L., 30, from the Way Karya subdistrict police in East Lampung, was attacked by a crowd after he was found sleeping at a woman's home while her husband was away but escaped with his life.
Indonesia has long prided itself on being a law-abiding nation, but the failure by the police and the legal community to uphold the law has resulted in what former Vice President Jusuf Kalla has described as "jungle law."
Many clashes between the police and the public involve land disputes, where the police are suspected of acting as agents for land holders.
As well as clashing with the public, the police have also maintained testy relations with the military, often leading to violence.