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Comprehensive reforms needed to tackle prison overcrowding: Activists
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A burned-out cell at the Tangerang Class I Penitentiary in Banten is pictured on Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021, following a fire that killed 49 inmates. (AFP/Handout/Law and Human Rights Ministry)
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ctivists are calling on the government to introduce comprehensive prison reform measures to end overcrowding in Indonesia’s correction facilities, including by exploring alternative schemes for the rehabilitation of drug offenders.
Many activists have blamed the judicial system, the prevailing Criminal Code (KUHP) and the punitive attitude of the country’s law enforcement officers, particularly when it comes to drug-related crimes, for the state of the country's packed prisons.
The 2009 Narcotics Law permits judges to send drug offenders to rehabilitation centers instead of behind bars, but the option is rarely used. Meanwhile, activists say that law enforcement officials often mistakenly classify drug addicts as drug dealers or drug traffickers.
According to data compiled by the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), as of February last year, more than 140,000 inmates were in prison because of drug-related crimes, which accounted for 52 percent the total prison population in the country over the same period.
Read also: Activists, experts caution against slapdash reform to tackle prision overcrowding
ICJR executive director Erasmus Napitupulu said the government needed to introduce comprehensive measures to seriously tackle overcrowding in penitentiaries.
“In our opinion, the government should grant mass amnesty to people charged with drug offenses on the basis of medical assessment. And this could be extended to other crimes that are considered petty,” Erasmus said in a webinar held on Sept. 20, adding, however, that this should not be extended toward drug traffickers, who, according to the 2009 Narcotics Law, should receive much harsher punishments than drug users.
