ADRIANUS: POLICE THE FIRST TO CONDUCT REFORM

Depok, Nov 19 (ANTARA) - A police observer said here on Thursday that the police was the first institution conducting reform in Indonesia in 1999.

"It is wrong to say that the police have to reform or there has not been any reform in the police institution," Adrianus Meliala from state University of Indonesia said.

He said it was the police that had conducted reform the most compared to other security and law enforcement agencies.

He said it was the police that reformed first in 1999 and compared to other law enforcement and security agencies in the country it had also made more changes.

"There has been a lot of international as well as national recognition about it," he said.

Indeed, he said, four problems still remain hindering them. The first is a chronic problem from the past era of police as part of the military. Until now the cultural and behavioral aspects of the problem have not yet been 100 percent overcome, he said.

The second problem is their reform program has often progressed not systematically or thoroughly and what has been changed are often not evaluated, he said.

Adrianus said the third problem was the reform speed which was not always the same in every unit or function. He said the intelligence unit has been the unit that has conducted the least reform or that is the most difficult to reform while the unit of traffic police and mobile brigade the fastest.

Adrianus referred the fourth problem to the availability of high-ranking officers who would and were able to lead changes which was low.***4***