Last month, Agus Andrianto, the Minister of Immigration and Corrections, warned that prisons nationwide were at 87% over-capacity.
After Monday’s incident, Andrianto told Antara news agency the facility at Kutacane was built to accommodate 100 people but currently housed 368 inmates.
Many of the men were in jail on narcotics-related charges. Andrianto has suggested that more drug addicts should be rehabilitated rather than criminalised, in an effort to reduce the burden on overcrowded jails.
But concerns have also been raised about under-staffing.
Andi, a warden at the facility, told The Jakarta Post: “The security ratio was unbalanced. If the inmates had incited a riot or attempted an escape, the available personnel would not have been enough to control the situation.”
For now, officials said they are combing the region to locate the escapees, and encouraging anyone still at large to hand themselves in to avoid tough new punishments.
Doni Sumarsono, the area’s police chief, said: “We are still actively searching for the remaining fugitives and urge them to surrender. It’s better to turn yourselves in than face harsher sentences.”
This is not the first jailbreak in Indonesia.
In November last year, seven inmates escaped a detention centre in central Jakarta by breaking through bathroom grilles leading to a sewer, while four men scaled the walls to escape a facility in Central Kalimantan in 2023.