Every inch has a price in Cipinang prison, say visitors
Abdul Khalik The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
A woman produced her identity card and Rp 15,000 (US$1.67), and handed them over to the prison guard at the entrance to the Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta.
The identity card she would get back later after seeing her son, but she still had to cough up Rp 15,000 a go at each of the three subsequent gates.
The last gate is in front of the waiting room, where she hoped to meet her son, who had been sentenced to one year in jail on drugs charges.
"I have to pay them if I want to see my son without having to wait for a long time or to be sent home," 46-year-old Sari told The Jakarta Post recently.
Besides paying for her weekly visit, Sari said she had to pay Rp 200,000 for the cell her son shared with another 25 inmates, plus Rp 250,000 per month for meals.
"I don't understand why I have to pay for the cell, but I'm afraid something bad will happen to my son if I don't. I hope the government does something about this," she said.
As an employee of a firm based in Cakung, East Jakarta, she has to spend a significant portion of her salary to cover all the expenses.
The Cipinang prison has two sections; the first is in the old building and houses 3,249 inmates convicted of various crimes, mostly robbery and murder. The maximum capacity of this section is only 2,000 inmates.
The newly built section is designed for those convicted of drug offenses.
Many visitors said the "rental" for a cell in the new building could reach up to Rp 4 million per year.
Cipinang warden Djoko Mardjo, however, denied that visitors had to pay in order to visit inmates.
"No, we require no payments for visits here. I've never heard of any such payments. Where did you get the information?," he demanded of the Post.
The government says it cannot afford to provide food and healthcare service to inmates.
A recent report from the Ministry of Justice says that the annual health budget provided for inmates is $1.
However, it is not clear whether the money demanded from visitors is used to help cover the prison's day-to-day running costs or is merely part of an extortion racket.
Asked about the penitentiary's budget, Djoko refused to discussed what he called the prison's "internal affairs".
University of Indonesia legal expert Rudy Satrio said that bribery was rampant among officers of the penitentiary because of the lack of state funds for the running of the prison and low salaries.
"It's a give-and-take phenomenon. If an inmate needs good service then he will have to pay for it. The officers will take whatever opportunities arise considering that most of them have salaries of less than Rp 1 million per month," Rudy told the Post.
Another woman in the waiting room, Agnes (not her real name), 36, also voiced complaints, saying that she had paid a lot to ensure her husband's "security and comfort".
For Rp 400,000 per month, her husband had a "VIP room" which was clean and had a fan inside.
She said that she had to pay Rp 200,000 per week for meals and another Rp 150,000 to the guards for every visit she made to her husband -- a convicted drug dealer.
But she would no longer have to pay as her husband's jail term came to an end that day.
"It seems that every inch inside this penitentiary has a price tag. We need money if we want to visit here," said Agnes.