A 23-year old female pickpocket named Yeni Suryanti was caught stealing a mobile phone on board a commuter train a few days ago. Despite the victim not filing a report against Yeni to the police, train station authorities decided to punish Yeni by forcing her to stand on the platform of Manggarai train station in South Jakarta on Monday wearing a sign around her neck reading “I am the queen of pickpockets at Manggarai, beware.”
Yeni was caught after a passenger who was getting off of the train noticed that her mobile phone was missing from her bag.
“When the victim was getting off, it turned out the perpetrator was behind her. The victims felt there was something missing from her bag. Then, reflexively, the victim turned and yelled pickpocket, knowing that her cell phone had been taken,” Eva Chairunisa, a spokesperson for PT KAI Commuter Jabodetabek, told Kompas on Tuesday.
The victim yelled at Yeni, calling her a thief. Yeni immediately threw the phone onto the platform but others in the crowd saw what she had done, grabbed her, and took her to the station’s security guard station.
Eva said that the victim had been reluctant to report the theft to the police, so the station’s authorities could only force Yeni to sign a statement not to repeat such acts in the future.
And, of course, publicly shame her by making her wear a sign exaggerating her crime.
Yeni’s theft was obviously wrong, but it was an act likely motivated by desperate economic need – the same need that motivates most pickpockets. We’re doubtful that forcing her to be humiliated in public will act as any sort of deterrent, in the same way that other thieves being publicly shamed at Manggarai station previously did not deter her. There’s also the question of whether train station security even has the authority to enforce such medieval-style punishments.
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