ASPI releases Special Report: A return on investment: the future of police cooperation between Australia and Indonesia

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ASPI releases ‘Special Report: A return on investment: the future of police cooperation between Australia and Indonesia’, by David Connery, Natalie Sambhi and Michael McKenzie. You can download a copy of this report here.

The relationship between Australia’s Federal Police and their Indonesian counterpart, the Indonesian National Police (POLRI), is a remarkable story of cooperation that has delivered benefits for both countries.

There’s a maturity in the relationship reached by the number of cooperative law enforcement initiatives, particularly since the Bali bombings. But there’s also a freeze in aspects of the security relationship between the two countries and so the police-to-police relationship now is at an inflection point. 

This Special Report examines the history of the AFP–POLRI relationship, articulates its many benefits, and then develops near- and long-term strategies for future police cooperation.
The key recommendations for consolidating the close police relationship include people-to-people activities. The 10-year anniversary of the highly-successful Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation (JCLEC) presents a good opportunity to highlight successful ties. Australia should also invite POLRI officers to Canberra to assist with the security arrangements for the November G20 meeting.

In the longer-term, Australia and Indonesia should leverage police cooperation as a way to add ballast to the bilateral relationship. This should include bringing more POLRI officers to Australia on long-duration secondments, creating a police alumni association, and making more extensive use of the JCLEC to train provincial-level police officers in Indonesia. New initiatives to share criminal threat information with business, particularly in Indonesia, would also be welcome. Regional conditions also provide great opportunities to work together to deliver police development training to the Myanmar Police. Such cooperation would not only leverage the substantial investment that’s already been made in the relationship—it would also add depth and demonstrate the practical value of Indonesian–Australian cooperation, now and in the future.