To understand why young people with a bright future ahead decide to engage in brawl-related violence (Tawuran) is very hard. Tawuran, the term famous for young people’s street fights that often threaten people’s lives, has been a major issue not only in Magelang but almost in every part of metropolitan cities in Indonesia. Kota Magelang is included.
In a recent event, another Tawuran has taken somebody’s life. According to Magelang News.com, our parents’ media, the alleged brawl-related violence on Gatot Subroto Street, Magelang City, in the early hours of Saturday, September 12, 2026, resulted in the death of one victim.
Magelang City Police have detained six teenagers from Magelang Regency, identified by the initials RIA (16), FA (15), KE (16), RK (15), RY (16), and DD (15), who are suspected of being involved in the incident. The suspects are being charged under Article 76C in conjunction with Article 80(1) of Law No. 35 of 2014 on Child Protection, as well as Article 262(1) of Law No. 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code and the Juvenile Criminal Justice System Law.
If convicted of the alleged offences, they face a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to IDR 500 million. The case has attracted public attention because the violence involved minors and resulted in a fatality, while police continue to process the case in accordance with the legal provisions governing children in conflict with the law.
Emotional Management and Culture in Tawuran in Magelang
There is not much research about why young people go for Tawuran and suffer from it. Nonetheless, this crime often results from a failure to manage emotions. The young people who get involved in this illegal action come from low-income backgrounds. They do not have educated parents or a healthy circle to help them manage their emotions.
Therefore, their emotional expression often comes out in simple things: violence and physical attacks. They are ironically trapped in a lack of emotional growth. Usually, physical attacks are infants’ way to express emotion. They do physical attacks because they do not know another way to express their anger; therefore, physical attacks are the easiest way.
However, once they grow up, they know that there are customs, norms, laws, and consequences for committing physical attacks. They started to manage their emotions better due to their experience, knowledge and critical thinking. Ironically, people from the low-income level usually do not have this prior training. They are learning from the street how to survive, and the street knows one thing: unity, loyalty, and commitment.
Tawuran is risky, but it is the most practical way to show that you commit to the group and have your pack to have your back. Therefore, young people are involved in it. Though this crime recently took somebody’s life, yet it was a rare case. Therefore, young people who live on the street still accept the risk and believe it is the easiest way to express anger while joining the pack, giving them strong social status among the survivors.
Reality in Magelang
We can understand why people do it, yet we cannot let it happen extensively. The crime is actually dangerous and threatens the future generation, who act like low-level criminals on the street. Numerous countries treat this type of fights as an itch. You do not have to act immediately, yet as long as it exists, you are not comfortable.
Various attempts have been made to discourage young people from getting involved, but there is no final solution. The solution provided still does not dissolve the core problem of this crime. First, how to close the gap in emotional training that might take ten years but now needs to be compressed as soon as possible.
Secondly, as long as poverty still exists and the streets turn into a jungle of survivors, the fight will still exist. Like the Japanese Yakuza, who cut their thumbs to show loyalty and gain a strong social status, tawuran works like the thumb in a different context. So, Quo Vadis Indonesia?
