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s part of a campaign to enforce discipline within the corps, the Jakarta Police has dismissed 22 officers in the past year.

Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Sutarman said the dismissed officers were guilty of criminal conduct.

“Most of these officers were involved in cases such as extortion, drug-related crimes and taking absence without leave,” Sutarman said at the Jakarta Police headquarters on Tuesday.

Sutarman was quick to add, however, that none of the dismissed officers were involved in sexual harassment cases.

He also said the dismissal of the errant officers would set an example for future offenders.

“I have no problem firing more officers should they engage in legal and ethical violations in the future,” he said.

“I would rather lose a lot of bad cops and keep a few good cops in
the force.”

Jakarta Police internal affairs chief Sr. Comr. Agusli Rasyid said he would not disclose the names of the dismissed officers, saying it was confidential and would be kept in police records.

The greater Jakarta area, a sprawling metropolitan of more than 19 million people, is manned by 27,895 police officers, roughly one officer for every 680 people.

University of Indonesia criminologist Bambang Widodo Umar criticized police efforts to rid the force of bad officers, saying it was too little too late.

Bambang said the number of police fired was miniscule compared to the massive corruption plaguing the police corps for years.

“These officers are merely the tip of the iceberg. If [police] wanted to dig deeper and investigate further, there are a countless number of corrupt cops, mostly in precincts,” Bambang told The Jakarta Post.

He said this dismissal of corrupt cops was the police’s obligatory gesture of reform. “An infraction, however insignificant, can greatly affect the image of the police,” he said.

Bambang said he believed corrupt officers were mostly the product of a corrupt institution.

“The bad behavior is only possible from an ill-guided structure, which does not focus on good moral standing but instead only on physical development,” he said.

Bambang also blamed the poor standing of the police on the weak approach of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“The President constantly claims that he can’t and won’t interfere in police investigations. This suggests that his commitment to upholding the law must give way to political and economic considerations,” Bambang said.