TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Quality of officers main focus of police reform
Comr
Change Size
Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti - JP/DON
President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo nominated acting National Police chief Comr. Gen. Badrodin Haiti for the top police post after his earlier pick, Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, a confidant of former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, who is also the chairperson of the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), was dropped after being named a bribery suspect. The Jakarta Post's Fedina S. Sundaryani spoke with Badrodin about his vision to reform the force that has been criticized for corruption and a lack of professionalism.
Question: What will be your priorities after being inaugurated as National Police chief?
Answer: There are many things that need to be worked on at the police , including recruitment.
So far, the recruitment of police officers has been largely passive, which means that we just wait for people to apply and then we start selecting from that crowd. Those who fulfil the requirements will then be given a proper education.
It's time that we became more proactive in our recruitment. For example, we need to visit schools and encourage students to enter the police force.
Furthermore, we'd like to recruit more officers from remote areas, for example, from Mentawai Islands regency [North Sumatra], so that when they graduate from the police academy, they don't complain when they are stationed back in their home regions.
Oftentimes we send officers to remote regions only to find them complaining and requesting to return to larger cities.
I am particularly concerned about the quality of recruits. That's an important issue we have to solve.
What specific concern about the quality of current police officers would you like to address?
People often file complaints about the quality of our investigations.
We need to have a standard of competency we can hold each investigator to. We can't just rely on their experiences to know how well they work.
The standard would not just be applied to general investigators but to our specialized investigators as well; those who specialize in medical law or banking.
Although we have several specialized investigators, they are currently interchangeable with general investigators and you can sometimes find them working on the same cases. This shouldn't happen.
Will you allocate a larger budget for detectives?
Right now our data shows that the budget for our detective division can only help us solve 36 percent of the cases reported every year.
I will lobby for a larger budget gradually, from 36 percent to 40 percent, to eventually 50 percent and so on.
I have promised our detective division a larger budget as long as they record exactly how much they use for each investigation.
After the conflict with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) over the naming of Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan as a graft suspect, how is the police's force's relations with the antigraft body?
We have no problems at all with the KPK, we are always communicating with them. Take the Menteng Police officer that was caught in Bali [along with PDI-P politician Adriansyah] recently. The KPK has every right to detain him and investigate him if there is proof of the allegations against him.
I want to emphasize once more that the KPK is welcome to investigate him, I will not intervene and neither will the police force.
However, I feel that the KPK should also concentrate on preventative measures instead of merely law enforcement. Eradicating corruption is not just about law enforcement but about prevention and the KPK can do both at the
same time.
How is the police dealing with widespread terrorist groups and rising support for radical groups such as the IS (Islamic State) movement?
Terrorism is not a normal crime. Terrorism is rooted in ideology, and so even if terrorists go to jail, it doesn't mean their mindset will necessarily change when they are released.
It has to do with ideology, not law enforcement. Let's take the Santoso group as an example. When I ended my term as Central Sulawesi Police chief, I instructed my successor on how to deal with these militant groups, who the large figures were and so on. However, it appears he did not care or thought the situation was safe. This allowed the militant groups to come back stronger than ever.
Although people may be impressed by the police for arresting 10 suspected terrorists, it would be much more impressive to change the minds of 100 people.
This should be the job of the BNPT (National Counterterrorism Agency) because they have the budget, but they haven't been going about it the right way.
Budi Gunawan has been touted as your future deputy, what will happen to his case, which is currently being investigated by police?
I have left that up to the detective division chief [Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso] to investigate and he has promised an open case expose involving the KPK, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (PPATK) and several law experts.
Will the police force approve the House of Representatives' request for a legislative police force?
I am still wondering why the House needs more than 1,000 officers. Wouldn't it be better to fix the system first and try to work with [the police officers] that are already there? If they want to rename the security team as the 'legislative police', then by all means, they are welcome to.
