Viral crime videos become an excuse to put soldiers on the streets

A wave of viral crime videos has fuelled public fear in Jakarta, and officials are using that fear to justify a bigger role for the military on the streets. Writing for Indonesia at Melbourne, Ian Wilson points out a strange gap: police recorded 1,283 street crimes since early May, yet cases of "begal," or motorcycle robbery, had actually fallen between February and May. Several of the scariest clips shared on TikTok turned out to be exaggerated or staged, including one would-be influencer who faked an attack.

Even so, the panic drove a hard response. Jakarta police set up a "begal hunting team," the city governor promised to link all the CCTV cameras under one command, and some voices called for "shoot on sight" measures. The military got involved too: its chief of staff proposed joint army and police patrols, then pulled back after criticism, while the armed forces commander argued that "the presence of soldiers on the ground makes everyone feel safer."

Wilson warns this is a familiar pattern. He points to a similar crime panic in 2015 that put soldiers on the streets, and, more darkly, to the "Petrus" killings of the early 1980s, when the state used fear of crime to justify secret executions. Using crime anxiety to normalise the military in everyday policing, he argues, is a road Indonesia has been down before.

Why it matters

When fear of crime, even exaggerated fear, is used to put soldiers into everyday policing, it can quietly erode the line between the army and the police that protects ordinary people. What looks like safety can become a habit of military control. Watch whether joint military-police patrols return, and whether viral videos keep driving real policy.