Do your time and don’t let it do you: An inmate pushes a cart filled with food caches at the Cipinang Narcotics Penitentiary, East Jakarta, in a photo taken late last year. Inmate death tolls soared last year by 5 percent to 778 due mostly to poor facilities resulting from overcrowding. More than 140,000 inmates are cramped in cells, which can only accommodate 88,000 people. JP/Ricky Yudhistira
For convicted felons with deep pockets, mostly made up of corruption convicts and drug traffickers, serving time in prison may not be as bad as it’s cracked up to be, as long as they don’t run out of cash to finance just about anything for their comfort while doing their time behind the walls. The Jakarta Post explores the country’s messy prison management. Here are the stories:
Money, they say, makes the world go round. Behind prison walls, it guarantees you don’t lose your place on the carousel.
It is the sole factor that allows privileged inmates to enjoy a semblance of their previous outside amenities.
Goods and services unconceivable for most people on the outside are easily procured by these inmates, including a regular stream of prostitutes and bizarre parties fuelled by free-flow booze, Ecstasy pills and marijuana — as long as there is sufficient cash for the wardens.
“Everything’s possible inside prison if you have the money,” says former inmate Ujang [not his real name], who did time in Kebonwaru Penitentiary in the West Java capital Bandung between 2005
and 2007.
“If you don’t, all hell breaks loose. Torture, humiliation and death will haunt you for the rest of your time inside if you’re poor.”
Wardens generally, though unofficially, classify inmates in a hierarchy based on their financial prowess, with the highest rank comprising corruption convicts, followed by drug traffickers and users, robbers and murderers, and petty thieves and rapists, according to an interview with several current and former inmates.
Thieves and rapists, on the lowest rung, are often employed as servants, couriers or security guards for the wealthier inmates, who are usually given the privilege of selecting their own private cells.
Loaded inmates can fit out these cells with a TV, notebook computer, cell phone, refrigerator, air conditioner and servants, and are allowed the privilege of traveling outside the prison.
Corruption convicts can spend at least Rp 75 million (US$8,000) a year for the complete package of facilities, depending on the prison.
In some cases, drug traffickers and abusers are given carte blanche to distribute drugs not just among inmates, but also beyond the prison walls.
Among the more notorious prisons that run drug trafficking networks in the capital are the maximum security Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta and the Salemba Detention Center in Central Jakarta.
In late 2008, police launched a major crackdown in the two prisons, confiscating thousands of Ecstasy pills and hundreds of grams of crystal methamphetamine, as well as ingredients for manufacturing the drugs.
Collusion with paid-off wardens means the drug lords can comfortably produce and distribute the contraband from inside the prison, according to the police.
However, none of the suspected wardens has ever been prosecuted.
Newly appointed Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar admitted recently that drug abuse and trafficking were out of control in prisons, with many drug dealers considering penitentiaries the safest place to operate from.
“The public has a strong expectation for penitentiaries to uphold transparency, meaning they have to be free from corruption, collusion and nepotism,” Patrialis said.
The minister recently visited several notorious prisons to pledge his seriousness in rooting out prison corruption for good.
However, because the culture of graft in the country’s penitentiaries is so deep-rooted, his pledge is likely to remain just that — mere words.
None of Patrialis’ predecessors has ever succeeded in making a dent in the corruption. Most of their efforts have ended as seminars and research papers, for a host of reasons.
The ministry’s director general of penitentiaries, Untung Sugiyono, says among the factors for the entrenched corruption is the low take-home pay for wardens, who only get about Rp 2.5 million a month.
“You get rogue wardens demanding illegal fees from inmates,” he says.
He adds there are around 29,000 wardens countrywide, supervising more than 140,000 inmates.
The directorate’s limited funding, Untung goes on, has held back efforts to improve penitentiaries.
Last year, his office received Rp 4.3 trillion to finance the operation of the penitentiaries, feed the inmates, pay the wardens’ salaries and build new cells.
The budget constraint has also caused overcrowding at all penitentiaries and detention centers nationwide.
There are 221 penitentiaries (housing sentenced prisoners) and 421 detention centers (housing remand prisoners).
The country’s 140,000 inmates, the directorate says, are currently occupying cells built for around 88,000.
Cipinang Penitentiary, for instance, was designed to house 1,500 inmates, but has a prison population of 2,700.
“The problem of overcrowding has led to decreased health quality, thus reducing the effectiveness of correctional activities and undermining supervision,” Untung says.
The messy penitentiary management may also have played a role in the rising number of inmate deaths last year to 778, up from 750 in 2008, the directorate believes.
Of last year’s toll, 514 died in penitentiaries and 264 in detention centers.
Untung says most of the deaths were caused by illness brought on by the inability to cope with such an extreme new environment.
Inmates receive Rp 2,000 a day for healthcare and less than Rp 7,000 for meals.
Five hundred and nine of the dead inmates had been in prison less than six months, Untung says.
Analysts point out the rising death toll and other ingrained problems in prisons may have stemmed from the ministry’s long-held view that inmates are to be punished, not corrected.
Such a mind-set may also be holding back serious efforts to improve prison facilities, as most bureaucrats consider a messy management necessary as part of the punishment for the inmates.
“Most prisons still use security and discipline approaches, instead of development of human empowerment,” says psychologist and prison management expert Imaduddin Hamzah.
“For instance, most men’s prisons don’t have skills training programs.”
To get to the heart of the problems, Minister Patrialis said he would prioritize building more prisons, in coordination with regional administrations, to help ease the burden on the ministry’s finances.
He said the move was needed to make penitentiaries healthier for the inmates they housed.
“We’ve sent letters to regional administrations to request assistance in building penitentiaries in their jurisdictions, because the prisoners are basically their own citizens,” Patrialis said.
“We expect to be able to assign inmates to new facilities and eventually reduce the overcrowding.”
