Ismira Lutfia – In a study of two prison in Greater Jakarta, only 9 percent of juvenile offenders had access to lawyers, 74 percent shared their cells with adult criminals and 98 percent had reported torture, the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation says.

The foundation's study, which was released on Wednesday, drew from interviews with 100 juvenile offenders at Tangerang Penitentiary in Banten and Pondok Bambu Juvenile Penitentiary in Jakarta between January 2010 and January 2012.

"As many as 74 percent [of those surveyed] said they couldn't go to school and their education had been halted during the legal process," said Muhammad Isnur, an advocate for the foundation, known as LBH Jakarta.

Isnur said 98 percent of respondents reported enduring some form of torture while the police tried to solicit a confession or information from them.

Although Indonesia ratified a law on juvenile courts in 1997, the country lacks a justice system specifically designed for young delinquents and law enforcers often use a punitive approach for young offenders.

Indonesia's 2002 Child Protection Law stipulates that detention should only be used as a last resort and that out-of-court settlements should be prioritized.

But Isnur said that in 71 cases observed for the study, the police and prosecutors did not seek a settlement out of court. "They tend to put the priority on building a legal case [against juvenile offenders]," he said.

Studies in other countries on the prosecution of juveniles as adults have shown that youths held in adult prisons are 7.7 times more likely to commit suicide and five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than those held in juvenile detention centers.

LBH said 60 children in the study experienced ailing health during their time in custody, including some infected with HIV.

Restaria Hutabarat, an LBH Jakarta researcher, said the survey was intended to help monitor the condition of juvenile court proceedings. "We also conducted research on the condition of children prior to being brought to court. We looked at whether their rights were fulfilled, and why or why not," the researcher said.

Isnur said the study recorded a rights violation because most respondents reported a lack of access to education, clean water, playgrounds or health facilities in detention.

LBH, he said, concluded that the legal process "is far from serving children's best interests, and that children should be viewed as victims rather than being prosecuted and sentenced to prison."

Sixty-three of those surveyed had already been convicted while the rest were waiting for their cases to go to trial. Forty-one of offenders were in high school.