TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Koentjoro, a psychology professor with Gadjah Mada University, said stern action was necessary to address the social problem besetting Jakarta. Among the problems, he added, were street singers and beggars who aggressively asked for money.
In this case, Koentjoro said, what the beggars and the street singers did was similar to that of thugs. “The law in Indonesia regulates these kinds of things. Instead of sending them to social institutions, it might be better to just jail them to create deterrent effects,” he said on Monday, January 12, 2015.
Kuntjoro opined the high number of these “intimidating beggars” partly resulted from the capital’s hard life. “Those who have had experiences with violence survive, so eventually they were organized,” he said, adding that the intimidation had become their casual pretexts and means of survival.
Koentjoro explained the media also played a key role in this matter. “The media show what they eventually emulate,” he said. According to him, the lack of sufficient guidance made some particular actions perceived differently from what they really were. “For example, a scene of cowboys who are on the bottle,” he said.
Koentjoro said alcoholic drinks and stimulating agents, such as cough medicine, were among the factors triggering the street singers’ intimidating behavior. Koentjoro added manipulating environments would be effective when dealing with young beggars, but would prove otherwise with adults.
“For children, we can start by changing the parenting patterns or manipulate their environments,” he said. As for the adults, he added, the government could provide facilities where they could channel their energy in means that could make money. “If they like to fight, just train them to be boxers,” he said.
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