Over Capacity Of Prisons, Arsul Sani Insinuates Law Officials Only 'Hook' For Rehabilitation Of Certain Groups

Debris from fire in Class 1 prison in Tangerang, Banten (Photo: ANTARA DOK)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission III of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Arsul Sani, believes that the legal culture in Indonesia must begin to change. This is in response to the full capacity of correctional institutions (Lapas) with the majority of inmates in narcotics cases who should be able to be rehabilitated.

"The politics of criminal law and our law enforcement must change. Due to the prison population, the majority are convicts of drug cases, most of whom are pure abusers," said Arsul, Wednesday, September 22.

Arsul explained that Article 127 of the Narcotics Law stipulates that victims of drug abuse must undergo rehabilitation. However, in reality there are still inconsistencies in law enforcement from the apparatus. For example, he said, those who received rehabilitation were only for figures from certain classes and circles.

"In reality, we still see that certain figures from certain classes are carried out with rehabilitation programs," explained Arsul.

Law enforcement from the National Police, BNN, or the Prosecutor's Office, he said, actually criminalizes narcotics abusers, so that prisons become overcapacity. The Secretary General of PPP assessed that increasing the number of prisons was not a solution. This is because there is a limited arithmetic series budget. "Meanwhile, the addition of the inmates is like a geometric progression, so it will not be overtaken," he said.

Therefore, according to Arsul, coordination between law enforcement institutions to implement the Narcotics Law consistently needs to be done to solve the problem of overcapacity.

"But it seems that the synergy and coordination of our institutions has not yet produced a determination on how to overcome this, how do we apply Article 127 of the Narcotics Law in a pure and consistent manner," he said.

Previously, the Minister of Law and Human Rights (Menkumham) Yasonna Laoly, promised to immediately revise the Narcotics Law with the DPR. The reason, he said, is that more than half of the inmates who live in prisons are drug convicts. "We have to change the narcotics law plan, there are several articles. Actually the government has been wanting to do that and there are slight differences among government institutions," Yasonna said in a working meeting with the Legislative Council of the DPR and DPD RI on Wednesday, September 15. "Because more than 50 percent of the contents of our prisons are drug (convicts), that's something very strange," he continued.