J

akarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama and the Jakarta Police have promised to take all necessary measures to boost safety following the release of a study on safe cities that puts Jakarta at the bottom of the list.

During a recent meeting with the Jakarta Police, Ahok acknowledged that Jakarta had yet to become a safe city, but said he was sure that his plan to place 2,500 CCTV cameras across the city and optimize a technology-based service would reduce the crime rate.

'€œWe are aware that Jakarta is not safe yet. Therefore, by the end of this year, I expect 2,500 CCTV cameras to be installed to capture things like human faces and license plates in the capital,'€ Ahok said at the Jakarta Police headquarters on Tuesday.

He added that besides the CCTV cameras, he also expected that the newly launched Jakarta Smart City program would help to map areas prone to crime.

He was referring to two smartphone applications called Qlue for residents and CROP Jakarta for civil servants and officials.

Qlue users can report incidents such as crimes or flooding, and officials can respond through CROP Jakarta. The nearest civil servants and officials will be detected through their smartphones and will be obliged to respond to the citizen'€™s report.

On Feb. 26, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released a report ranking Jakarta as one of the least safe cities among 50 surveyed on five continents. The report is based on the relative safety of a city in four categories: digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety.

Jakarta ranks 45th in the personal safety category. The report also mentioned a debate on CCTV cameras, claiming that ubiquitous cameras did not have a significant impact on crime rates.

Ahok said further that most street crimes were committed by people with financial problems and emphasized that he would work hard to raise the city'€™s living standards.

'€œAround 15 to 20 percent of Jakartans earn less than Rp 2.4 million [US$190] a month, which is a decent amount for a single person. However, if a family man with kids can only earn that figure, he may be tempted to turn to crime,'€ Ahok said.

Meanwhile, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Unggung Cahyono underlined that law enforcement officers must be able to overcome any kind of crime.

'€œThe country must not be lost to crime. To that end, we will work together with the city, the High Prosecutor'€™s Office and the military area commander,'€ Unggung said.

He explained that his officers conducted periodical operations to tackle street crime. In January, the police nabbed 2,785 thugs and investigated 445 crimes related to drugs, confiscating 264 grams of methamphetamine, 1.2 tons of marijuana and 12,303 ecstasy pills.

Unggung said the police would also take broad measures to prevent other forms of crime, such as robberies and violent vehicle theft.

'€œI assure you that the Jakarta Police will not stand still. We are patrolling the streets day and night until 3 a.m. in order to make sure the city is safe,'€ he said.

Unggung also commented on the EIU study, saying the study'€™s results would depend on the indicators they used.

'€œIf they had used general-election security and terrorism eradication efforts as the indicators, I am sure that we would have had a better result,'€ he insisted.