Over Half of Child Prisoners Are in Adult Jails, Officials Admit

Jakarta Globe, Made Arya Kencana | December 23, 2010

Denpasar. Fifty-seven percent of the more than 6,000 children incarcerated across the country are locked up alongside adult offenders rather than in juvenile detention centers, according to child welfare officials.

Teenagers locked up in a youth prison in Tangerang. Child welfare
advocates say law enforcement should be focused on rehabilitating
young offenders. JG Photo/YC Kurniantoro

Sutarti Sudewo , deputy minister for women’s empowerment and child protection, said the problem came down to a simple lack of space. She said Indonesia had 16 juvenile detention centers, which were only able to hold 2,357 of the country’s 6,273 registered young offenders.

Of the remainder, 3,576 are locked up in adult penitentiaries, while the rest are housed at the 15 children’s centers run by the Social Affairs Ministry or welfare homes run by charitable groups.

“To make matters worse, the government only has 34 certified social workers for children,” Sutarti said on Thursday during a seminar in Denpasar on children and the justice system.

The country has seen a significant increase in the number of juvenile detainees this year, from last year’s figure of 5,308. Sutarti said this was a point of concern.

“Everyone needs to be concerned about how and why there’s been this big increase in the number of children being jailed,” she said.

Apong Herlina, from the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection (KPAI), a nongovernmental group, said juvenile offenders should be subjected to restorative or reparative justice rather than criminal prosecution.

Restorative justice treats a crime as an offense against the victim rather than against the state, and allows for a variety of options for the offender to make reparations, including by apologizing, returning stolen items or doing community service.

“Law enforcement agencies from the police up to the judges must begin taking into consideration what is in these children’s best interests,” Apong said.

“Applying restorative justice in the case of juvenile offenders is particularly appropriate because these children need to be given the chance to better themselves in the future.”

She said several state institutions had signed a joint agreement on imposing restorative rather than criminal justice against child offenders, but the idea had not yet caught on with law enforcers in the field.

The institutions backing the idea include the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, the Social Affairs Ministry and the National Police.

“We’ve advocated on behalf of [many child offenders] and ensured they were all sent to either a juvenile penitentiary or a children’s shelter,” said Nyoman Masni, the KPAI Bali chairwoman.

“We’ve also ensured that these cases don’t disrupt their education and that they can continue their studies.”

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