This article approaches the issue of militias as barely regulated actors in the provision of security, and the challenge of containing them in the context of security sector reform in Indonesia. Since independence, militias played a pivotal role in representing the central state in areas of limited statehood and hence in the Indonesian state-building process. In cooperation with the military and police, militias were deployed to maintain the political status quo. Even after Suharto’s resignation and the onset of political reforms as part of reformasi, militias continued to act as an unregulated instrument to assert not only state control but to serve particular interests as well.