Is Indonesia a safe country in terms of crime? It’s a difficult question to answer and obviously one that would vary immensely from region to region and city to city. But the results of a recent Gallup poll suggest that, on aggregate, Indonesians feel safer and more secure from crime than citizens in most other countries, scoring in the top 10 among the 142 countries Gallup surveyed.
According to the results of Gallup’s 2018 Global Law and Order Report, Indonesia scored a rating of 89 in their index (out of a possible score of 100) indicating that your average Indonesian citizen feel slightly safer than those in Denmark, which scored 88 (as well as citizens in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, France and many other Western developed countries).
Gallup describes the Law and Order Index as “a worldwide gauge of people’s sense of personal security and their personal experiences with crime and law enforcement”. Questions asked in the survey used to tabulate the scores include:
- In the city or area where you live, do you have confidence in the local police force?
- Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live?
- Within the last 12 months, have you had money or property stolen from you or another household member?
- Within the past 12 months, have you been assaulted or mugged?
The report features the results of Gallup’s latest measurements of people’s answers to these questions based on more than 148,000 interviews with adults in 142 countries in 2017 (you can read more about the report’s methodology and download the full PDF here).
Indonesia’s high placement on the index may surprise some, considering the multitude of crime stories from cities like Jakarta (which ranked near the bottom of the Economist’s 2017 Safe Cities Index) and areas like Bali, as well as general perceptions of police corruption. However, when one takes into account the large rural swathes of Indonesia where crime rates are generally extremely low, the relative feeling of personal security among Indonesians starts to make more sense.
