Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – Lawmakers on Friday gave tacit support to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights' request for an additional Rp 3.5 trillion ($389 million) to build new prisons, but they had one condition: stop slashing the sentences of graft convicts.
Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar told House of Representatives Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, that the additional money would be used to build 31 new penitentiaries and detention centers, as well as to renovate a number of prisons that were damaged by earthquakes.
"In the proposed 2011 state budget, funding for new jails and renovating old ones has yet to be included," Patrialis said.
In the 2011 state budget, the government proposed giving the ministry Rp 4.8 trillion, or a Rp 467 billion reduction from 2010.
However, Patrialis said the new jails were pet projects of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and were vital to the ministry scoring good marks in its presidential evaluation.
In an evaluation by the Presidential Working Unit for Development Supervision and Control (UKP4) a few months ago, Patrialis said that the ministry scored poorly in some areas.
"One of the problems is that we didn't build new jails as instructed by the president," Patrialis said.
Syarifuddin Sudding, a Commission III lawmaker from the People's Conscience Party (Hanura), said the commission would most likely approve the ministry's budget request because its lawmakers had seen overcrowding for themselves on working visits to the archipelago's penitentiaries.
"We must use a more humane approach when we look at providing more jails," Syarifuddin said.
He also said that a driving factor in the large number of government-approved remissions, or sentence reductions, for inmates was the limited space available in the country's lockups.
"We could approve the proposal, but we would also require that the ministry avoid granting remissions for inmates, especially for those convicted of corruption," Syarifuddin said.
House Commission III legislators last month proposed a ban on slashing sentences for people found guilty of corruption after a public furor was sparked by sentence cuts granted to high-profile graft convicts, including former Bank Indonesia deputy governor Aulia Pohan. Aulia is the father-in-law of Yudhoyono's eldest son.
Overcrowding in prisons is a major problem in the country. According to ministry figures, as of April of this year, about 140,000 inmates were being detained in 413 prisons, which were originally designed to house less than 90,000 inmates.
In January, the government announced a Rp 1 trillion prison expansion plan, around the time that Artalyta Suryani, a businesswoman convicted of bribery in 2008, was discovered to be enjoying lavish privileges at the Pondok Bambu Women's Penitentiary in East Jakarta.