Public has little faith in government, law enforcers

A public opinion survey has revealed a poor perception of the performance of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration in law enforcement and also that the general public distrusts law enforcement agencies.

The Indonesian Survey Circle’s (LSI) survey showed that only 29 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the government’s performance in enforcing the law.

“All segments of society, whether in rural and urban areas, rich or poor, with low or high levels of education, are dissatisfied with law enforcement,” researcher Rully Akbar of the LSI said.

The LSI found that the dissatisfaction stemmed from rampant corruption involving government officials, unresolved social conflict and the high level of impunity enjoyed by members of the National Police and the Military.

“Our survey concludes that the state has committed human rights violations against the people by allowing rampant corruption to happen and by condoning the actions of vigilante groups,” Rully said on Sunday.

For the survey, the LSI interviewed 1,200 respondents as well as engaging with them in focus group discussions between April 1 and April 4.

The survey also found people in rural areas and in lower income brackets were more suspicious of the government.

“More than 60 percent of the respondents live in rural areas and these people are convinced that law enforcement is particularly tough on people without access to capital or power. These people think that the law favors the middle and upper classes, especially those who have financial capital,” LSI researcher Dewi Arum said.

The survey concluded that “the less educated the people, the more alienated they are from the law.”

The LSI also found that government law-enforcement failures, including the failure to provide justice for religious minority groups, had encouraged more Indonesians to resort to mob rule in resolving legal disputes.

“More than 30 percent of our respondents preferred to use mob rule rather than rely on the authorities and the legal process. This is their only way of imposing fair punishment on perpetrators. This is a significant number, and it will continue to increase unless the government starts to enforce the law,” Dewi said.

Not only had Indonesians lost faith in law enforcers, they had also became more violent in responding to injustice, Dewi added.

This tendency has been demonstrated in a number of violent attacks against individual members of the police or against police’s posts, including the recent attack that claimed the life of Adj. Comr. Andar Yones Siahaan in North Sumatra; as well as attacks on government buildings.

Andar, chief of the Dolok Pardamean Police precinct of North Sumatra, was beaten to death by dozens of people during a raid on a gambling den in late March.

As a solution the LSI called on the government to improve the welfare of the country’s law enforcers to prevent them from abusing their power for their own personal interests. (

Margareth S. Aritonang, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Mon, April 08 2013, 10:19 AM

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