The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) works to keep Americans safe at home by countering international crime, illegal drugs, and instability abroad. INL helps countries deliver justice and fairness by strengthening their police, courts, and corrections systems. These efforts reduce the amount of crime and illegal drugs reaching U.S. shores.
Challenges: Indonesia is a religiously and ethnically diverse archipelago, with a population in excess of 246 million living on more than 6,000 inhabited islands and speaking over 250 languages. A strong partner for the United States and a leader in the region and the United Nations, the world’s third largest democracy emerged from four decades of authoritarian rule in the late 1990s. While criminal justice institutions are taking steps to reform and develop, they continue to be plagued by corruption, a top-heavy bureaucracy, and serious resource constraints. Additionally, Indonesia’s extreme geographic dispersion, with over 54,000 kilometers of shoreline, provides opportunities for transnational crime and terrorism to foster, potentially threatening the region, U.S. allies, and the United States. Indonesia’s success as a democratic nation, including its recognition of the need to respect human rights and the rule of law, is critical for U.S. objectives in fostering democracy, maintaining regional stability, and countering global extremism.
Goals: INL works to implement programs that assist in Indonesia’s transition to more effective, modern, democratic, and professional law enforcement institutions, and improve courtroom procedures, organizational capacity, and overall competencies of the criminal justice sector. INL programs also work toward strengthening Indonesia’s maritime domain awareness and bolstering maritime security to combat transnational crime. There is particular emphasis on effectively addressing key transnational crimes such as terrorism; corruption; natural resources, human, and wildlife trafficking; child sexual exploitation, and money laundering.
Accomplishments: INL programs in Indonesia, through our partners at the Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) and the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development (OPDAT), have assisted the Indonesian National Police (INP) and the Indonesian Attorney General’s Office in modernizing and reforming their agencies. With U.S. assistance, the Indonesian National Police developed and adopted a use of force policy that meets and exceeds international standards. To date, more than 70,000 officers have received training on the policy and it is being used as a model for other agencies. The program also worked with the Government of Indonesia to develop a Standard Emergency Management System that has now been adopted as national policy and has become the national model and system for management response to national disasters. INL’s OPDAT-implemented program has worked with the Attorney General’s Office to develop specialized capacity to prosecute transnational crime, corruption, and environmental crime. Additionally, support to that office’s training capacity has led to regional recognition of its training center as a model. INL programs implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have assisted the INP in addressing increasing threats in the area of cybercrime. To date, the INP has received technical training on investigating cybercrime, and successfully apprehended several Indonesian hackers in Surabaya.