Publication

This report analyzes developments in the Indonesian security forces. It assesses the devolution of police functions to civilian auxiliaries on Bali and Lombok. While many resources are going into community policing, the trend in some parts of Indonesia seems to be to allow untrained and unaccountable local civilian groups to provide protection or fight crime in place of the police. This trend is the product of developments after the Suharto government fell in 1998, including a breakdown in law and order, distrust of the police, a shortage of police personnel, and the effort to decentralize the country by devolving political and economic power to local government, particularly at the sub-provincial level.