[Kabar-indonesia] School of hard-knocks for Indonesia's juvenile offenders [2 reports]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: JP: Government planning to reduce child inmates' sentences 
[for important anniversaries and religious festivals]

The Jakarta Post
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

It's the hard-knock life for juvenile offenders 

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Blitar

It's half past one in the afternoon and "Amir", 16, and "Agus", 14, are 
pushing a small cart along a corridor in the juvenile detention center in Blitar, 
East Java.

Plates of rice and vegetables are arranged on the cart, lunch for the 
children being held in the three-hectare facility. 

When they arrive in front of a cell, Amir places a tray carrying five to 
seven plates of rice by the cell door. Agus reaches for another tray filled with 
plates of vegetables and sets it down. 

"We do this chore nearly every day, so our friends won't go hungry," Amir 
told The Jakarta Post. 

Amir and Agus are two of the 126 children being held at the center. Amir, 
from Tulungagung, East Java, was sentenced to six years detention for robbery. "I 
was drunk at the time, which is why I agreed to go along with my friends when 
they robbed someone," he said. 

Amir has served four years of his sentence. He has received several 
remissions for good behavior while in the facility. "I'll be out in about a year if 
nothing happens," said the boy, his left arm covered in tattoos. 

Agus is unwilling to talk about what he did that landed him in juvenile 
detention. 

East Java has just one juvenile detention center, the one in Blitar. Though 
described as a special detention center for young offenders, it looks much like 
a typical adult prison, with ubiquitous iron bars separating the cells. 

"Physically, a juvenile detention facility should not be different from any 
other house of detention. The only difference is that security and supervision 
should be tighter," the head of the East Java Child Protection Council, Sri 
Adiningsih, told the Post. 

Blitar's juvenile correctional facility consists of 450 cells. Two iron gates 
serve as the main entryway into the center, which was built in 1961. The 
administrative office and the detention cells are separated by a three-meter high 
gate made of iron bars with sharp ends. 

The cells encircle a courtyard, soccer field and mosque. The cells, which 
measure seven meters by four meters, are each occupied by six or seven detainees. 
A child who is considered a "problem" will be placed in one of the isolation 
cells at the far end of the facility. 

There is currently one boy being held in isolation. 

"The boy frequently commits sodomy. It would be risky to mix him with the 
others," said a guard. 

A communal bathroom is located next to the area for drying clothes. "There 
are only two sources of running water in the center, and both are filthy. I have 
proposed the facility add other water sources and install taps in different 
places, but to no avail," said Adiningsih. 

There are occasional outbreaks of skin problems as a result of poor 
sanitation. 

Classrooms for elementary school, junior high school and high school students 
are located behind the mosque. The children study standard school subjects, 
as well as being taught life skills. 

Teachers from state schools in Blitar come to the center to teach the 
children. Six elementary school, eight junior high school and five high school 
students passed their final exams in 2006. 

The center also teaches the detainees arts and crafts, such as gamelan and 
dance, wood carving, mat weaving and sewing. 

Handicraft products produced by the children are sold to parents and other 
visitors. There is a soccer field, table tennis facilities and a volleyball 
court, as well as a TV room. 

"The TV set is broken right now," said a guard. 

Mishcan, the head of the facility, acknowledged the center had a number of 
problems. But he said they were doing what they could on a very limited budget 
to address these problems. 

"We want to change the physical appearance of the center by removing the iron 
gates and bars, but that takes a lot of money. Where can we get the money?" 
Mischan said. 

The center does not receive money from the provincial or regency budget. 

Employees must seek funds from the Blitar administration to cover its annual 
operational costs of around Rp 800 million (US$89,000). 

"We receive Rp 289 million for meals, but we really need more than Rp 300 
million to meet the required standards," said Mischan. 

Then there are all the costs and the problems of trying to house more and 
more children on a budget that never seems to increase. 

The losers in all of this are the children housed in the center. While not 
innocents, having committed various acts that got them locked up, they do 
require proper care, including schooling and counseling, if they are to have any 
chance of leading productive lives once they are released. Without this care, 
there is a good chance they will just find their way back to the Blitar facility, 
or in a few years into an adult prison. 

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The Jakarta Post
August 1, 2006

Government planning to reduce child inmates' sentences 

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

The government is planning to give sentence remissions to juvenile offenders 
on important anniversaries and religious festivals, Justice and Human Rights 
Minister Hamid Awaluddin says.

Speaking during a visit to a children's wing of a jail in Makassar on Sunday, 
Hamid said if the additional remissions program was approved, youth offenders 
would have their sentences reduced at least three times a year -- on 
Independence Day, during major religious festivals and on National Children's Day, 
which falls on July 23. 

Hamid said the remissions, of a minimum 15 days and a maximum six months, 
would get children out of jails and back with their families faster, giving them 
more time to develop their potential as productive members of society. 

He said the move would show the government's "love and concern" for the 
nation's youth, who would only learn from older criminals if they spent too long in 
jails. It would also treat child offenders in the same way as adults, who 
also received sentence reductions on national holidays, he said. 

The minister said children would not be given sentence reductions unless they 
had behaved themselves inside -- the same criteria that was used for adult 
prisoners. 

The country currently has more than 3,000 prisoners between the ages of eight 
and 17 in detention. Many children have to share rooms with adult prisoners 
because only Jakarta has opened a special children's penitentiary. 

In South Sulawesi, a special prison for children is being constructed in 
Pare-Pare, about 150 kilometers to the north of Makassar. 

To protect children from abuse and psychological harm, they need to be 
detained in completely separate facilities from adult prisoners, with specialized 
jailers and social workers, Hamid said. 

"Ideally, juvenile prisoners should be accommodated in special penitentiaries 
for children, designed in many colors to depict a child's world and equipped 
with playgrounds and study rooms," he said. 

The country also needs special children's courts as well, Hamid said. 
However, a lack of money means this had not yet happened he said. 

Unicef South Sulawesi branch head Purwanta Iskandar hailed the government's 
plans for juvenile prisoners. 

"Children should not be jailed, but returned to their families or communities 
for rehabilitation. Sending children to jail will only negatively impact 
their development and behavior," he said. 

He hoped the amendments to the 1997 Children's Courts Law could be completed 
quickly so youth offenders did not always end up in prison. 

The age of responsibility should also be raised from eight years to 12 years, 
he said. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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