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NU Slams New Exclusive Prison for Corruption Convicts

Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization has blasted the government’s new prison wing for corrupters, labeling it as a scheme to “protect profiteers.”

“Corrupters are to be held in a more comfortable jail where they enjoy greater privacy,” Nahdlatul Ulama executive board member KH Masdar Farid Mas’udi said. “What has happened to common sense? What does the government really want?”

He was commenting on the plan to move corruption convicts to a specially built wing of a Jakarta penitentiary.

He said that even in ordinary jails, corrupters received special treatment by colluding with the prison management and given their new exclusive wing would have even more of an opportunity to do so.

“A special prison for corrupters is redundant but it seems this was just the work of people who stood to profit from the project,” Masdar said.

He said that instead of building more prisons, the government needed to find more effective and efficient ways of punishing the thieves.

“What we need is to punish corrupters in a way that has a deterrent effect and can at the same time make corrupters people of greater virtue,” he said.

In Masdar’s view, corrupters should be penalized not only by sending them to prison but also by confiscating as much of their wealth as possible.

“What corrupters fear most is losing their assets or riches. So the state should seize as much of their possessions as possible besides jailing them.”

He said another way of making corrupters repent was also by sentencing them to community service.

“This will be more humane, psychologically more healthy and of benefit to the society.”

The present methods of penalizing corrupters had failed to deter people from committing the crime, much less made culprits repent or become better people, he said.

Late last month, Constitutional Court Judge Akil Mochtar said corruptors should get the same treatment as other criminals, including rapists.

“They should not be moved to a separate wing. The mistakes or crimes they committed make them no different than murderers and rapists,” Akil said.

Antara