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Playing good cop, bad cop with us
Last week, I and my colleague Fajrimei A
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Last week, I and my colleague Fajrimei A. Gofar led two sessions of a focus group discussion (FGD) in the North Jakarta Police precinct. Participated in by North Jakarta residents, businesspeople, religious leaders and representatives of women's groups, youth organizations and public transportation owners, the FGD was aimed at gathering information on the community's satisfaction over the North Jakarta Police's service.
It was the chief of the police precinct, Sr. Comr. Susetyo Cahyadi himself, who sought advice from us through the discussion.
Interestingly, people turning up for the gathering were demanding better communication with the police. They want a closer relationship with the police because they rely on the police for protection and 'better communication will make us eager to address security and public order issues together with the police'.
The community's demand for a better relationship with the police is, in fact, a good call.
Perhaps, many police officers think that solving crimes is more important than having 'a good police-community relationship' because solving crimes will directly impact people's security.
However, in practice, it is the good police-community ties that generate security.
A good police-community relationship will lead police to better understanding the public's concerns (especially those related to crimes), so that people will always file reports with the police any time crimes occur, provide information and intelligence to the law enforcement agency, voluntarily serve as witnesses or whistle blowers and testify in court. In turn, police will be more proactive in minimizing crimes and conducting crime prevention efforts, instead of simply reacting to calls for service (Jeffrey Ian Ross, 2013).
Regarding public mass communications, the Indonesian police have established a public relations division, whose duties include providing information to the public (the media, NGOs, organizations, groups, stakeholders, etc.) and building public trust.
In general, the Polri's public relations have been working quite well. The public can obtain information about the Polri openly and often, although once the police defied a decision of the Public Information Commission that ordered the police to provide the Indonesia Corruption Watch with access to information related to 'fat bank accounts' belonging to a number of police generals.
The police's most recognized efforts to promote openness are of course the TV coverage of the Polri's activities and its engagement with social media, as well as the involvement of young, good-looking police officers in the Polri's public activities to attract a greater audience.
However, we must remember, in terms of police service, public relations is very different from community relations.
Even though community relations and public relations may be connected with each other, they are not the same (Ronald D. Hunter et al., Police-Community Relations and the Administration of Justice, 2004). The differences lie on their purposes, the activities they involve and the type of citizen reaction or interest they presuppose (Hunter et al.).
Police's public relations activities are designed to create a favorable environment for its operations. They keep the public informed of the police institution's goals and operations and enhance the police's image. The targets are citizens who passively accept and approve what the police department is doing. There is no feedback or input from the citizens for the police, according to Hunter.
Community relations, on the contrary, seeks to involve the citizen actively in determining what and how police services will best serve the community and in establishing ongoing mechanisms for resolving problems of mutual interest to the community and the police. Through community relations, citizens give the police constructive and pivotal feedback and input.
Now that the Polri's public relations division is doing its job well, what it lacks is community relations. Being deficient in this point, the police department will mostly conduct a reactive mode of response to community problems ' something we have continuously seen from Indonesian police.
The most recent example is the Engeline abuse case that led to the little girl's death. The police are seen to 'only' react to the crime that had been committed.
The Polri should do its homework in its community relations, considering that the lack of police-community ties will only perpetuate the 'public fear of police' rather than making people feel safe with the police's presence.
This work should be handled well, so that the community, particularly citizens who are at risk because of an increasing crime rate, the impoverished and homeless, will never again regard the police as an occupying and untouchable force that does more harm than good.
Hopefully, we can see the work done soon because Indonesian citizens are tired of dealing with bad cops. It's time they play good cops with us.
Happy birthday National Police.
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The writer is researcher at Marthinus Academy, Jakarta, and managing editor of ourindonesia.com.
