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vast stretch of idle land located in Ciangir village, Banten, some 46 kilometers from the center of Jakarta, may be the answer to problems faced by the country’s prisons, which have long been plagued by chronic overcrowding issues.

The Jakarta administration has agreed to lend 30 hectares of its 100-ha plot in Ciangir to the Law and Human Rights Ministry for a new penitentiary.

“The governor gives this plan his blessings,” the secretary of the ministry’s penitentiary directorate, Sri Puguh Budi Utama, said at City Hall on Friday after her meeting with Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat.

“All of the penitentiaries and detention centers in Jakarta are over their original capacity. The situation makes it difficult for [prison] officials to perform their duties properly.”

The Law and Human Rights Ministry plans to build an open-camp, medium security penitentiary that will serve as both a detention center for suspects awaiting trial and a correctional facility.

In the borrow-to-use land scheme, the ministry will manage the penitentiary.

Overcapacity issues plaguing Indonesia’s prisons have lead to prison breaks, rampant illegal fees and even the production and dealing of drugs.

Salemba penitentiary and detention center in Central Jakarta now houses more than 5,000 inmates, more than double its original capacity of 2,000 people.

Meanwhile, there are nearly 7,000 inmates being held in Cipinang penitentiary and detention center in East Jakarta, way over its original design to hold 2,000 prisoners.

A prison brawl broke out in the same facility in 2015, during which two inmates were killed.

In 2013, authorities found raw materials and equipment to make shabu-shabu (crystal methampethamine), owned by notorious drug lord Freddy Budiman, who would later be moved to Nusakambangan prison in Cilacap, Central Java.

He was among four drug convicts executed there last July.

Governor Djarot said that based on preliminary discussions, the planned Ciangir penitentiary will be designed to house around 5,000 inmates.

Besides providing land for the ministry, the city also plans to build a retirement home and develop productive farm lands on the remaining 70-ha area.

The farm lands would also be used by inmates as part of their rehabilitation program.

“This way, the inmates will be productive. If they could make use of the products [of their farming], they would be happy,” he said.

No detailed development plan has been provided yet. However, Djarot said the Ministry would start managing the 30-ha plot of land this year.

Once the new facility is completed, the ministry will populate it with all of the inmates from Salemba penitentiary and detention center.

Djarot then hopes to turn the latter into a museum as the colonial era building is among Jakarta’s cultural heritage sites.

The city administration had previously come up with several plans for its land in Ciangir.

In 2006, it was to be used as a disposal site, but the idea was rejected by the Tangerang regency.

Then, the administration announced plans to build low-cost apartments for Jakarta residents who were struggling to pay rent in the capital, yet nothing came out of it. (hol)