Coordinating Minister Yusril Is Looking For Solutions To The Problem Of Declining Over Prison Capacity

Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration, and Correction Yusril Ihza Mahendra/ANTARA

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration and Corrections Yusril Ihza Mahendra assured the government community to try to find a way out of the congestion problem of correctional institutions (prisons) through the improvement of laws and regulations.

"Believe me, we will try to find a way out to overcome the prison density problem," said Yusril as quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, November 14.

Yusril admits that the problem of overcapacity or overload of correctional institutions in Indonesia is not easy to overcome.

No matter how many correctional institutions, he said, would never succeed in eradicating crime itself because various types of crimes increased in line with changes in society.

"Therefore, it is necessary to have a deeper thought, in fact, in terms of legislation, especially narcotics," said Yusril.

Based on the Narcotics Law which is currently still in effect, narcotics users in the country are still sentenced to prison.

Yusril said, one of the considerations that is currently taking place in the midst of the government is not imprisoning drug users anymore, but rehabilitating them.

"Should the (narcotics) user be rehabilitated by the state, while the dealer is convicted? Sometimes it happens that are dealers but users too, because it is very selective," said Yusril.

The complexity is still being discussed by the current government. For him, it is necessary to find a solution to overcome the overload of prisons, which are more than 50 percent of the residents from narcotics cases.

"This is very difficult for the development of prisoners. Fostering them is not easy, especially people who are narcotics users are placed in one institution with another person who is not actually a user," added Yusril.

The Ministry of Law noted that currently 52.97 percent of prison residents, both prisoners and detainees, are those caught in drug abuse cases.

Overall, 271,385 people languished in prisons and state detention centers throughout Indonesia. Thus, of these, 135,823 people were prisoners and prisoners in drug cases.

In addition, the number of prisoners and detainees in prisons was recorded to have exceeded the capacity of 140,424 people. That way, there is an overcrowded figure of 97 percent.

The Narcotics Bill (RUU) was considered by the Chairman of Commission III of the DPR Habiburokhman to be included in the 2025 Priority Legislation Program (Prolegnas) list.

"Commission III of the DPR RI considers the proposal of the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) to include a bill on the Criminal Procedure Code, a bill on Narcotics, which has been over-carryed, yes, to the 2025 Priority Prolegnas list," said Habiburokhman.