Minister of Law and Human Rights Yasonna Encourages Revision Of Narcotics Law For Over Capacity Solutions In Prisons

JAKARTA - Minister of Law and Human Rights (Menkumham) Yasonna Laoly said that overcapacity in prisons is a classic problem.

"Overcapacity is a classic problem", Yasonna told reporters, Wednesday, September 8.

He has two ways to deal with this overcapacity problem. The first way to solve this problem is to push for a revision of the Narcotics Law. This is because 50 percent of prison inmates are narcotics convicts.

"Our problem is narcotics crime violations which represent more than 50 percent of the capacity of prisons throughout Indonesia. The handling is narcotics. I have long proposed revision of the narcotics law", he continued.

In an effort to revise the Narcotics Law, only dealers will be prosecuted and must serve a prison term. Meanwhile, users are required to undergo rehabilitation.

"For example, drug users, we hope that they will be rehabilitated. If all of them are put in prisons, they won't fit. there might be 4 million of them (the number of narcotic inmates), now it's 270 thousand, we are already overwhelmed", he said.

Even building new prisons, he said, was not a solution to this problem. Because the growth of crime is too fast, then the cost of building prisons is also not cheap.

Then, the second way is by redistribution of prisoners. This means placing inmates from crowded prisons to quieter prisons.

Although in the end, even that method still led to the accumulation of the number of prisoners.

"That's also will be overcapacity. We have been scolded by the Head of the Resort Police, the Chief of regional police (Kapolda) during COVID-19 we restrained those who were detained, not being brought into us, because of COVID, I first issued a policy of assimilation and integration at home. We have reduced the number of prisoners enough, but still can't reduce capacity, I used to be criticized even though I got an award from the UN for that policy", said Yasonna.