The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
Indonesian prisons are overflowing with convicts and authorities worried about their negative influence on city dwellers are exploring shifting them to some of the uninhabited islands in the
archipelago.
Overcrowded jails mean petty criminals like chicken thieves are lodged together with drug traffickers and terrorists, according to Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal, and Security Affairs Wiranto. The inability to segregate inmates based on their crime poses risks of them “exchanging their expertise†with each other, he said.
Construction of new prisons in remote islands will also reduce the scope of inmates coming into contact with the public, the minister told a panel of lawmakers. With most jails located in the middle of cities, it was easy for inmates to engage in nefarious activities, the Cabinet Secretariat said in a statement citing Wiranto, a former military chief. Indonesia can use some of the 6,000 uninhabited islands to relocate its crowded jails, Wiranto said.