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ews reports about rampant motorcycle robberies and a recent explosion inside a shopping mall in Depok, near Jakarta, have led people to question the level of security in the capital and its neighboring cities.

The public has the right to ask where the police are when armed motorcycle thieves can operate with seeming impunity, forcing their victims to give up their belongings at gun or knife point.

Those bandits frequently show no mercy to their defenseless victims. A group of robbers stabbed a 23-year-old man to death in Depok in January and later another gang shot a motorcyclist in his chest in Jatiasih, Bekasi, east of Jakarta. Swords and knives are frequently brandished to scare or even wound victims. Locals who burned to death a suspected motorcycle robber in Pondok Aren, Tangerang early on Tuesday may not have given a second thought to their sadistic method of taking the law into their own hands or the impact on young people in the area but the action reflects the huge deficit in trust in law enforcement.

Such a lack of confidence in public safety was exacerbated by a small bomb that went off inside a toilet in the busy ITC Depok shopping mall on Monday evening. No one was injured, nor was any damage caused in the incident, the serious nature of which the police downplayed. '€œIt sounded like a balloon popping,'€ a counterterrorism unit officer said.

It is indeed too early to conclude that the motorcycle thefts and a minor bomb explosion signal the failure of law-enforcement authorities to protect the people. The police have busted a number of motorcycle theft rings, shooting several suspects dead for resisting arrest, and have seized dozens of weapons. Investigators have even identified a number of perpetrators as hailing from a village in Lampung, who operate in groups across Greater Jakarta.

Whatever the reasons behind the intensity of the crimes, residents, particularly those who rely on motorcycles for their mobility or livelihood, no longer feel secure. They have either refrained from traveling at night or early hours of the morning or have avoided routes where robberies have occurred.

Mainstream and social media have spread warnings regarding roads considered prone to motorcycle theft. This has helped motorcyclists find safe routes but it is not a solution.

Only a police presence will restore a sense of security. At the very least routine night patrols by sub-precinct police would be effective in deterring such robberies. The public also expects a crackdown on the motorcycle-theft gangs.

Tough police measures against criminals will not only improve security and public order, but more importantly will also restore confidence in the police, especially after their protracted standoff against the respected Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The public'€™s support for the KPK in the latest feud involving the two law-enforcement institutions stemmed from the commission'€™s fulfillment of its pledge to fight crime in the form of corruption.

As long as the police fail to prove they really can combat crime, ranging from petty to white-collar crime, from ordinary to extraordinary, they will never win the public'€™s trust or respect.