Society sans police is not necessarily a disaster
I've been in Indonesia for a little over a month now, and I think I'm finally starting to understand what many on this have spoken about before - the high price of living in a society where law enforcement is simply a matter of paying support to the biggest gang of them all - the police. In Indonesia it seems it's not uncommon to be asked to provide supplements to a policeman's income if you require their aid or if you are pulled over on the road.
If you break the law on anything but drug charges and serious crimes the provision of a small supplement will likely see you back on your way.
While it's easy to say that this is simply the Asian way, I have to wonder what the cost of this is to the social fabric of the nation as a whole. When the police can't be trusted to do their job, who protects the citizenry from each other? When the police can't be trusted to do their job, who ensures the legislature is honest? Why should anyone refrain from illegal activities if the sole price is a one-off fine of roughly Rp.20000 (about US$2)?
However what I find most surprising is that on the whole people in Indonesia are no more likely to break the law than people in Australia, despite the fact that here it is so much easier. Does that suggest that people on the whole are naturally law-abiding, and that laws as such are largely unnecessary, or can the cause be attributed to the existence of an alternative source of justice?
Law enforcement in Indonesia seems to rely more on the kinds of social cohesion that western society seems to lack - if someone does wrong, they're more likely to be punished by their peers than by a quick call to the police. Whether this is a good thing or not I don't know, but I did find it interesting.
The loss of such cohesion is perhaps the reason we have such a growing need for police enforcement ourselves. Something to think about anyway.