However critics said a more enduring solution did not require flashy proposals, just stronger anti-graft laws to ensure accountability.
2025.03.21
Jakarta
Creative justice: Prabowo’s island-prison plan for corrupt Indonesians involves sharks as gatekeepers
People protest outside the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) building in Jakarta, wearing masks that depict Syahrul Yasin Limpo, a former ex-agriculture minister convicted of graft, and an ex-chair of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Firli Bahuri, who resigned after being found guilty of an ethics breach in a corruption-related case, Nov. 23, 2023.
Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters
Over the years, Indonesia has tried everything to curb the country’s pervasive corruption: high-profile arrests, flashy trials, and even the occasional public shaming.
But President Prabowo Subianto has a new idea.
In a proposal that sounds like a cross between a penal colony and a reality survival show, he suggested banishing politicians convicted of corruption to a remote island surrounded by shark-infested waters so they couldn’t escape.
After all, Indonesia has no shortage of islands – around 18,000 according to the most recent count. And the waters around them host more than 220 species of sharks.
“I will allocate funds to build a very strong prison in a remote location so they can’t escape,” Prabowo said last week.
“We’ll find an island – if they try to leave, they’ll meet sharks.”
However, critics and analysts said that while the proposal may reduce the problem of crammed prisons, somewhat, other measures were required for a more enduring solution. Stronger anti-graft laws and better enforcement to reduce political corruption, as well as quicker reintegration and rehabilitation of convicts through programs such as community service could be an alternative to lengthy sentences, which may help reduce overcrowding in prisons, they said.
A senior official at the national Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) backed the president’s proposal, saying the prisoners shouldn’t be sent food supplies either.
Instead, they should be given farming implements to grow their own crop for food, said Johanis Tanak, KPK deputy chairman, outlining a vision akin to that on the old TV reality show “Survivor.”
When asked how the Directorate General of Corrections viewed Prabowo’s idea, a spokesperson, Rika Aprianti, merely said the agency would follow the president’s directives if the plan moved forward.
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Political corruption at the highest levels is rampant in Indonesia.
For instance, in an extraordinary case, then-KPK chief Firli Bahuri himself was suspended and thereafter fired, in December 2023.
Firli was suspected of demanding bribes to show leniency in a case a minister was fighting, related to, what else, but corruption.
This month, five senior executives from Indonesia’s state-owned energy company, Pertamina, were arrested on corruption allegations.
Prabowo has been railing against corruption in recent months, but his perspective on punishing convicts keeps changing.
In December, he suggested that corrupt officials could avoid prison if they returned stolen money. His plan then changed to granting amnesty to thousands of inmates, including corruption convicts.
The amnesty plan was floated in relation to another of Prabowo’s projects – reducing prison overcrowding.
Indonesia’s prisons hold more than twice the number of inmates than they have the capacity for housing. This has led to mass jail breaks, inmates taking control of the prison, and tragic fires, among other incidents, over the years.
A mere three days before Prabowo voiced his idea to build a prison on a remote island, around 52 inmates broke out of an overcrowded facility – breaching three locked doors – in Indonesia’s Aceh province, local media reported.
Prabowo’s new incarceration proposal came in the context of the Pertamina case and the latest prison break.
Firli Bahuri, then chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), enters his car after responding to a summons at the KPK Anti-Corruption Education Center building in Jakarta on Nov. 20, 2023, upon being named a suspect in a corruption case. (M. Risyal Hidayat/Antara Foto/via Reuters)
An expert in anti-corruption studies, Zaenur Rokhman, said that Prabowo had made many speeches about corruption but none has translated into policy – probably because he himself lacks a clear idea.
“Corruption is an economic crime, and punishing it with just prison time is not enough,” Zaenur Rokhman told BenarNews.
“The country needs to revise its anti-corruption laws and implement reforms to ensure a cleaner, more accountable law enforcement system,” said Zaenur, a researcher at Gadjah Mada University’s Anti-Corruption Study Center.
“That’s what Indonesia truly needs, not a president delivering bombastic speeches without concrete follow-up actions.”
Corruption trials in Indonesia are often broadcast live, ensuring maximum public exposure, and authorities sometimes arrest suspects in front of cameras or conduct high-profile raids to showcase their commitment to fighting corruption.
But Indonesian courts have historically handed down light sentences to those convicted. And financial penalties have been similarly ineffective
Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has struggled with corruption for decades.
In Transparency International’s (TI) 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, Indonesia ranked 99th out of 180 countries, indicating a persistently high level of corruption
According to a research paper published by the Berlin-based TI, a few factors playing together are responsible for Indonesia’s inability over decades to rid itself of corruption.
“The high costs of election campaigns have … encouraged candidates to seek support from the private sector or misuse public funds and resources,” said the paper titled “Cause of Corruption in Indonesia.”
“At the same time regional election commissions which are responsible for overseeing the process were still ill-prepared to enforce the laws.”
Corruption is also likely facilitated by factors such as politically connected networks, poorly paid civil servants, low regulatory quality, and weak judicial independence, it said.
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A plainclothes Indonesian policeman (center) detains a prisoner (left) who was among those who escaped during a mass jail break from the Sialang Bungkuk prison on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, as a soldier watches over the situation, May 5, 2017. (Rony Muharrman/Antara Foto/via Reuters)
Corruption was institutionalized under President Suharto’s authoritarian rule from 1966 to 1998, although he publicly condemned corrupt practices.
Suharto’s administration allowed such practices to flourish as a means of consolidating power, and his rule was marked by a patronage system in which loyalty to his regime was rewarded with economic opportunities.
Attempts to tackle corruption gained momentum after Suharto’s ouster in 1998. The KPK was set up in 2003 and granted sweeping powers to investigate and prosecute corruption cases independently.
Under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–2014), the KPK intensified its operations, arresting high-ranking officials, business executives, and even cabinet ministers.
During the government of Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, the KPK’s pre-eminence was gradually attenuated and in 2019, its independence completely taken away.
Jokowi put the KPK under presidential oversight, raising concerns about the integrity of Indonesia’s democratic governance, although he had said back then that the agency had become too powerful and thus unaccountable.
These and other pitfalls ought to be guarded against, said Willy Aditya, chairman of the parliamentary commission that oversees law enforcement.
He warned that placing corrupt officials on remote islands must not become an extrajudicial punishment beyond what courts mandate.
The plan could be a potential solution to Indonesia’s severe prison overcrowding, but that alone is not enough, Willy told BenarNews.
“Rehabilitation programs are essential so that inmates, regardless of their crimes, can reintegrate into society after serving their sentences,” he said.