Questioning The Problem Of Violence In The Work Of The Police That Many People Still Feel

Photo Illustrations (VOI)

JAKARTA - The abuse of power by unscrupulous members of the Indonesian National Police (Polri) is still common. These include acts of violence. Our survey reveals that many people feel this way.

Several days ago, the case of Sarpan, a construction worker who was beaten by the police in the detention cell of the Percut Sei Tuan Police, Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, was busy being discussed. He was persecuted by several police officers. The torture was carried out from beatings to electric shocks.

In fact, Sarpan is not a criminal. The man who is a resident of Jalan Sidomulyo Pasar IX Dusun XIII Sei Rotan Village, Percut Sei Tuan District, Deli Serdang Regency, North Sumatra, is only a witness of a murder case. However, by means of this persecution, Sarpan was asked to admit that he was the perpetrator of the murder of Dodi Somanto which occurred on Thursday, July 2.

According to data from the Commissioner of the National Police Commission (Kompolnas) from January to July 11, 2020, there were recorded 1,923 complaints from the public regarding the Police. From that data, there were 212 complaints related to abuse of power, the second most cases after the problem of poor service were 638. "The problem of abuse of authority includes violence. But not all," said Poengky Indarti when visited by VOI, Saturday.

Aspiration net

We are trying to broaden people's perceptions of acts of violence in the work of the National Police, by conducting a survey of aspiration nets on social media Twitter and Instagram. As a result, the majority of them felt that there was still violence in Polri's work.

The way our survey works is by creating a questionnaire and then distributing it randomly on social media Twitter and Instagram. From there, we succeeded in capturing the aspirations of netizens as many as 582 respondents spread across 106 cities in Indonesia.

Then to measure audience perceptions we use a Likert scale which has five levels of assessment ranging from strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. As a result, of the total respondents who 92.6 percent are millennial (17-30 years old), more than 50 percent feel that there is still violence in the work of the police.

In physical violence, for example, 70.58% of respondents felt that there was still physical violence at the work of the National Police. Meanwhile, 71.54% of respondents felt that there was still psychological violence in the work of the National Police.

In cases of violence that occurred during the investigation process such as in the Sarpan case, not all people felt that there was abuse of authority in this case acts of violence. 16.8 percent of respondents felt strongly disagreed and 14.6 percent felt that they did not agree that there was violence during questioning at the police station. Meanwhile, 20.6 percent felt that there was violence at the police station and 32.8 percent felt strongly.

To discuss this issue more comprehensively and to understand the root causes of problems within the National Police, especially regarding violence, today a VOI Discussion event entitled "Why We Hate the Police" will take place today. The event will discuss the topic of abuse of power, especially in matters of violence perpetrated by the Police.

The discussion, which will be broadcast live via the Voidotid YouTube channel at 3 pm, will be attended by speakers from various circles. Starting from the National Police institution represented by the National Police Public Relations Division, Brig. Pol. Awi Setiyono, Member of the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission III, Nasir Djamil, Commissioner of the National Police Commissioner Poengky Indarti and Senior Researcher of the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform Anggara Suwahju.