TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Minister of Law and Human Rights Amir Shamsuddin said that Indonesia needs 65 new prisons since the number of state prisoners that had exceeded the capacity of existing prisons. But the ministry's budget is only enough to build several new prisons and renovate several buildings.
"The government has allocated a budget for 20 prisons; to build new ones and continue the construction of ones that already existed," Amir said on Saturday, July 20.
Amir said there are currently 457 prisoners in the country, a number which is far from sufficient to accommodate some 162 thousand convicts.
Therefore, the ministry is arranging the budget use of Rp 1 trillion, given through the Presidential Instruction No. 1/2010 on the Acceleration of National Development Priorities. Amir said that the budget is too small to build 60 prisons. As a result, some of the prisons have not entirely finished being built. A number of prison constructions have been stalled, waiting for the budget disbursement in subsequent years.
Supposedly, Amir said, the budget is focused on building just 25 prisons, assuming that one prison costs Rp 40 billion. "The concept of building needs to be changed to so that the construction is fully managed. At that time, the government was too excited to build," he said.
The large number of convicts--which had exceeded prison capacity--often triggers problems. This was what happened in Tanjung Gusta Correctional facility last week. The riot stemmed from, among other reasons, the power outage that left them without electricity or running water.
Secretary General of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Bambang Rantam Sariwanto, said that Tanjung Gusta had more inmates that it could accommodate. The prison was built to captivate 1,095 convicts. But in reality, there were 2,594 people imprisoned there.
MUHAMAD RIZKI
