One of the most interesting parts of Indonesia’s Criminal Statistics 2024/2025 does not come from police records or victimization surveys. It comes from the Village Potential Census (Podes), a BPS data collection that treats every village and urban ward (desa/kelurahan) as a unit of observation. It includes a question about mass brawls in the past year.
The result grabs attention: the share of villages and wards that experienced a mass brawl rose from 1.85% in 2021 to 2.41% in 2024. And the province with the highest share is… DKI Jakarta, at 18.73%.
Before jumping to the conclusion that Jakarta is the “most brawl-prone province”, let us read the numbers calmly. This is where statistical thinking helps us avoid rushing to conclusions.
What does Podes actually count?
Podes does not count the number of brawls. It counts the percentage of villages and wards that experienced at least one incident in the past year. So a ward with ten incidents and a ward with one incident are both counted as “experienced”. The indicator measures the spread of conflict, not its intensity.
The recorded types of mass brawl include several forms: fights between resident groups, between residents of different villages, clashes between residents and security forces, between residents and government officials, fights between students, and inter-ethnic conflict. In 2024 the most common type was fights between resident groups, which rose slightly from 1.00% (2021) to 1.09% (2024). BPS lists common causes such as insults, misunderstandings, juvenile delinquency, and old grudges.
National trend: up, but from a small base
The rise from 1.85% to 2.41% is a relative increase of about 30%. In absolute terms it is only about 0.56 percentage points. Both views are correct, and both should be stated together. Saying “up 30%” without context sounds frightening. Saying “only half a point” may downplay it. It is better to give both.
BPS interprets this as social conflict potential in the form of mass brawls still being fairly high and tending to spread to more areas, and names several possible factors: rising mobility, tension between residents, economic pressure, and local conflict resolution mechanisms that are not yet optimal. That is a reasonable explanation, but note that this data does not test causes. It only describes a pattern.
The reassuring side: most conflicts are settled peacefully. In 2024, 94.29% of incidents were resolved peacefully (down from 95.49% in 2021), and about 5.71% remained unresolved. Even a small decline deserves attention because it signals challenges in village-level resolution mechanisms.
Variation across provinces
The three provinces with the highest percentages in 2024:
| Province | Villages/wards that experienced a mass brawl |
|---|---|
| DKI Jakarta | 18.73% |
| Maluku | 11.41% |
| North Maluku | 11.33% |
And the lowest: Riau Islands (0%), South Kalimantan (0.20%), and North Kalimantan (0.41%). The gap between DKI Jakarta and the national average (2.41%) is almost eightfold. BPS says the difference reflects inequality in the intensity and frequency of mass conflict across regions, and points to socio-economic, cultural, and community interaction patterns as possible causes.
The statistical trap: areal units that are not comparable
This is where care is needed. The indicator is computed per village or ward. But villages and wards are not uniform in size. A ward in DKI Jakarta is typically densely populated with a small area. A village in Kalimantan or Papua may have few residents spread over a large area. In a small, dense ward, the chance of at least one incident in a year is naturally higher, because many people interact in a tight space. With smaller and denser units, the percentage of “wards that experienced an incident” tends to be higher even if the number of incidents per resident is not.
In statistics this relates to the modifiable areal unit problem: results can change depending on how we divide regions into units of analysis. The percentage of villages is not the same as incidents per 100,000 residents. They answer different questions.
So 18.73% for Jakarta does not automatically mean Jakarta residents are involved in mass brawls more often than residents of other provinces. What we can safely say: in Jakarta, the proportion of areal units (wards) that experienced at least one mass brawl in a year is the highest. To conclude more, we need measures adjusted for population and more detailed incident data.
What can we learn from a criminology perspective?
Mass brawls are interesting to study because they do not fit neatly into the “offender and victim” framework of, say, theft. They are collective crime, often rooted in community tension, identity, and rivalry. Some relevant theories: social disorganization theory (weak cohesion and informal control in dense neighborhoods with high turnover), strain theory (economic pressure driving frustration), and communal conflict approaches. The strength of peaceful resolution at village level (94.29%) also reminds us that local social capital, such as community leaders, resident mediation, and customary law, is an asset often neglected in security policy.
Three notes for readers of this kind of data
- Separate spread from intensity. The percentage of areas with an incident is not the number of incidents.
- Beware of areal units that are not comparable. Compare areas of similar size, or use per-capita measures.
- Do not infer causes from patterns. Descriptive data points to where, not why.
Two interesting research designs
Podes data opens several research possibilities. The first is a multilevel model: villages and wards are nested within districts, regencies, and provinces. We can test village-level factors (density, inequality, facilities, neighborhood security activities) alongside broader regional factors, without violating independence assumptions. The second is spatial analysis: do mass brawl incidents cluster geographically? Techniques such as Moran’s I or spatial cluster analysis can show whether there are “hot spots” that cross administrative boundaries, so prevention policy can be designed across regions.
The role of early detection and mediation
BPS highlights the importance of strengthening village officials, community leaders, and community institutions in early detection and mediation. The fact that about 94% of conflicts end peacefully at the local level shows that this capacity already exists. A smart policy would strengthen the mechanisms already working, for example mediation training for village officials and communication forums between youth groups, rather than replacing them with a purely repressive approach. For fights between students, schools and families play an important role that police statistics do not capture.
Quick Q&A
Is a mass brawl the same as student brawling? Student brawls are one form. In the Podes classification, mass brawls also include fights between resident groups, between villages, clashes with security forces, and inter-ethnic conflict. Because the scope is wide, interpretation by type is more meaningful than the combined figure.
Is the rise from 1.85% to 2.41% alarming? It is a rise worth monitoring, but the base figure is still small and most cases are settled peacefully. A more useful question is whether the trend continues in the next census, and which regions show the sharpest increases.
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