recent case, in which a prisoner was beaten to death by fellow inmates, reflects the Kerobokan Prison authority’s inability to cope with the institution’s chronic problems, in particular the problem of overcrowding.
Designed to secure 300 prisoners, the prison now houses more than 1,000, while the total number of security guards is fewer than 100. Kerobokan warden Bowo Nariwono admitted that overcrowding was one of the primary factors behind the increasing frequency of violent incidents among the prison’s population. He hinted at the fact that the current number of on-duty guards was simply inadequate to be able to mount effective monitoring and supervision. “The total number of guards is 75 officers and they are working in shifts, with each shift involving 17 guards,” he disclosed. It means that at any given time, there are only 17 officers assigned to control a population of more than 1,000 inmates, which is a ratio of 1 officer for nearly 59 prisoners.
“The rising violence is one of the impacts of overcrowding. But I don’t want to place all the blame on this factor,” he stressed. Bowo promised to improve the ability and competency of the guards as well as devise a better security and monitoring system to prevent similar incidents from taking place in the future.
Last week’s violence resulted in the death of Edi Suwito, a 38-year-old suspect in a robbery case. He had been arrested by Kuta Police detectives, who later transferred him on Jan. 11 to the prison, pending trial. On the following day, his dead body was found inside his cell. There were multiple wounds and signs of torture on his body, prompting police to launch an investigation.
Fifteen inmates, who shared the same cell with the victim, initially claimed that he had committed suicide. The investigating officers did not accept that explanation. “We collected evidence from the cell and meticulously questioned all the occupants. The forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts yielded a different version of events.
It turned out that the victim had been beaten and tortured prior to his death,” Badung Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Beny Arjanto said Tuesday. The police eventually named 13 inmates, including a Malaysian national Eddy Lem Tiang Soon, as suspects in the homicide case. Two other inmates were cleared of any suspicion. “They did not participate in the assault; they stood by in silence and watched it,” Arjanto said. Arjanto disclosed that one of the suspects, identified as Ahmad Yusuf, aka Ucup, was the one who triggered the assault. He harbored a grudge toward the victim because the latter had conned one of Ucup’s relatives. “We seized items from the cell that had been used to attack and torture the victim, including a pair of aluminum poles, two wooden batons, a broken spoon, broken scissors, three bamboo sticks and a lighter,” Arjanto said, adding that the suspects will be charged with assault and battery resulting in death, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment.
Suwito is not the first prisoner to have died in a violent incident inside Kerobokan. In October 2011, another inmate, Muhammad Arif Hamzah, was killed in a clash between two rival gangs of inmates.