Procedural Justice and Public Perceptions of the Police in Indonesia

Sharyn Davies Adrianus Meliala

John Buttle Presented at the NZAI Indonesia Short Course, 10 November 2012

Outline • An introductory vignette • Procedural justice • Polri • Reform of polri • Re/presentations of polri • Lombok • Data Collection • Public perceptions of polri • Current strategies for improving polri • Procedural justice as a way forward for polri

A introductory vignette • http://www.polri.go.id/galeri-all/galeri/vid/

A introductory vignette

Procedural Justice

Procedural Justice

Procedural Justice • Procedural justice is concerned with making and

implementing decisions according to fair processes. • An example:

o If you are pulled over for speeding and the police officer just issues you a $100 ticket and walks away you will feel frustrated – procedural justice has not been done.

o If you are pulled over for speeding and the police officer asks ‘do you know why you have been pulled over’, and you get to explain your reason, and the officer is sympathetic, and the officer then explains what’s going to happen, and if you know that regardless of ethnicity, gender, class, dis/ability that the same thing will happen to the next speeding person, you will still be upset that you got a ticket, but you will be less frustrated because procedural justice has been followed.

Does the same go in Indonesia?

Polri • Polri (Kepolisian Negara Republik Indonesia,

Indonesia’s National Police Force)

Polri

Reform of Polri

Australian Funded Reform

• “None of us want to see Indonesian fail. We don’t want civil unrest. But let’s be honest, we’re not here because we’re humanitarians or for the global good. We‘re here very much because Australia has vested interests in Indonesia. Our job, the job of the Australian Federal Police, is just one part of the package designed to make sure Indonesia is a successful country. [Laughing] Sounds like I got that off the website, hey, but you can quote me on that, it’s my genuine sentiment. If Indonesia fails, we would have significant problems on our doorstep.”

JCLEC • Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation

o Australian funded

Japanese Funded Reform: Koban

New Zealand

How Polri presents itself

How Polri presents itself

How Indonesians see Polri

Presentation of Policewomen

Perceptions of Polri through images

• Polri promotes itself as a militaristic organisation that operates on power, coercion, strength.

• People see Polri as brutal, ineffective, inefficient, corrupt. o Striking convergence of promotion of Polri image, and its reception.

• Policewomen (polwan) are presented as nice, nurturing, friendly, young, pretty, but too fragile to do anything other than present traffic reports or make cups of tea.

Recap • We have a police force ripe for reform:

o 1999 Reformation, local desire for reform, 9/11, Bali bombings, lots of foreign donor money.

• But the reform is not really making the police better o polri still presents itself as a militaristic organisation, donor money is just

used to address issues of concern for foreign countries, e.g. terrorism, drug trafficking, the needs and wishes of average Indonesians have never been considered.

• Astounding that with all the reports written on polri reform, and the millions of dollars spent, no one has really asked people what they want from their police force. So we asked them!

Data Collection • This is part of a joint research project between myself, Dr

John Buttle (Criminologist at AUT), and Professor Adrianus Meliala (Head of Criminology at the University of Indonesia.

• Our research is supported by New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AUT, and University of Indoneisa.

• This material is based on six-months ethnographic research conducted in Lombok in 2011. Specifically, I draw on 17 in-depth interviews, conducted by my research assistant. Twelve men and five women were interviewed, all were Muslim, and their ages range from 18 to 62, with the average age being 36.

Lombok Imagined • Tourist mecca with beautiful beaches, hotels,

surfing, diving, and volcanoes

Lombok Imagined • An imagined Lombok many locals don’t get to

share.

Lombok • Total area less than 5,000 square kilometers (Hong

Kong is 1,000 square kilometres). • Population is just over 3 million. • The capital city is Mataram, which has a population

density of 6,600 people per square kilometre . • Lombok is one of the poorer areas of Indonesia.

What people in Lombok say about police

• This can be divided into ten categories. o The police are good but … o The police are corrupt .. They need a set bribe o The police can be bought o The police are money hungry o The police aren’t to blame o There’s just a few bad apples o The police are disappointing o The police have no prestige o The police should give warnings o The police need to be polite

• All this links to a desire for procedural justice

Ideal role of police • These aforementioned statements make clear what

people think about the police but before offering suggestions for improving the police it is important to know what people want from their police force.

• People in Lombok had various responses to the question, ‘What do you think the role of a police force should be?’

Ideal role of police • ‘They should protect society and have a close

relationship with citizens’ (Maman). • ‘Police should be polite, especially traffic police. I

have seen some traffic police who are not polite at all when they stop people’ (Wulan).

• ‘Their role is to protect society. They have to be unbiased and not just favour the rich’ (Fitri).

• ‘They need to protect, teach us about rules and how to behave, and set a good example’ (Idham).

Polri should be: • Fair • Set a good example. • Explain why they are fining people. • Should not be motivated by money. • Set rate for bribes. • They must be polite.

o No one mentioned importance of effectiveness, efficiency, military might, power, force – all the things polri prides itself on.

Existing strategies to improve polri

• Special training (e.g. counter terrorism) • Rhetoric about community policing • PR campaigns:

o after initially firing Norman Komaru for filming himself singing while on duty, the police rehired him for PR purposes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-m4SxEvnXA

• Policewomen: o “I deliberately deploy my pretty officers to calm protesters. How can they

resist police women who bring them snacks and drinks? This way, the protesters will think more clearly,” said Makassar Police negotiation team head.

• Dancing polwan Gangnam Style: o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxNSZyn1d38

What’s missing? • Yet none of these strategies really address what the

people want in a police force: procedural justice. • I argue that ensuring police are fair and polite will

have a far more substantial impact on police reform than what is currently being focused on.

Conclusion

• Rather than spending billions of rupiah to strengthen polri, teaching and rewarding police for being polite and fair is the most effective reform that can be undertaken to ensure public compliance with the law.

Thank you!