Recently, you may have noticed a lot of regular civilians wearing navy blue shirts with the National Police’s ‘Turn Back Crime’ logo written on them, shirts which closely resemble those that were officially issued to the police. Surprise, surprise, the widespread availability of thise shirts has led to a rise in police impostors in Indonesia lately.

“With the shirt, a suspect was going around looking for underage kids driving motorcycles. When he found a target, the suspect asked for the license and registration [of the victim], and when they had none, [the suspect] took away the victim’s motorcycle,” said Bandar Lampung Police Spokesperson AKBP Sulistyaningsih as she recalled a recent motorcycle theft by a police impostor in the Sumatran city, as quoted by Antara News.

To prevent such things from happening again, Sulistyaningsih said that National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti has released a circular instructing the police to enforce a ban on ‘Turn Back Crime’ attire.

“Such attire was made especially for Interpol and police officers, so civilians aren’t allowed to wear it,” she said.

She added that, as per the circular, civilians caught wearing the shirt can be jailed for up to 3 months.

While the police’s concerns about impostors may be valid, it’s pretty hypocritical of them to criminalize wearing the shirt since it was readily available for purchase at a police convention in Jakarta just last month.

In fact, Antara reported that the ‘Turn Back Crime’ polo shirts were among the most popular merchandise at the convention. They were also reportedly sold during Car Free Day in Jakarta and at the Jakarta Metro Police headquarters. One distinguishing feature between the police and civilian versions is that the word “police” appears in English on the civilian version, while the official police version uses the Indonesian word “polisi” instead.

It’s not clear if the ban takes that distinction into account. If not, then the police should apologize for the mistake of releasing the shirts in the first place and begin offering refunds to civilians who bought the now illegal clothing item from them.

Update: Speaking to Liputan 6 today, National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti denied banning civilians from wearing ‘Turn Back Crime’ shirts.

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