New Narratives in Corrections and Alternative Sanctions

Project description

The last ten years has seen the increase of 75% of prison population in Indonesia. According to various analysis approximately 70% of the prison population is related to drug offenses. The 634 state detention facilities are overwhelmed with over 200% detainees above capacity.  This condition makes it difficult for inmates to have adequate contact and supervision from prison and probation officers as staff capacity is limited.

The OKP TMT+ New Narratives in Corrections and Alternative Sanctions is a capacity building project.  The aim is to support innovations in the correctional service in Indonesia by introducing reforms and strengthen their capacity to manage offenders whilst in detention and outside. The TMT+ will contribute to Indonesian efforts to introduce alternative sanctions in criminal justice.

Aside from the capacity building, the training aims to reduce institutional gaps and strengthen coordination with correction service departments. Currently, there is little awareness of what probation work is and what the benefits are for the different partners in the criminal justice chain. Probation service is limited to supervision of offenders whilst in detention. This forms a barrier to introduce new measures like alternative sanctions that could help to reduce the prison population. More awareness and understanding are needed to ensure that the coordination between the different departments / organisations will improve and that the benefits of probation work can spill-over to these departments.

The TMT+ outputs are built around three training interventions.

1. Support and collaborate with project Dutch and local project experts to strengthen the initial training programme for probation and prison staff
2. Provide a mutual working space for knowledge exchange between the NL and Indonesia on policy and regulation reform.
3. Awareness creation, coordination and collaboration with stakeholders in the criminal justice

The TMT+ project will be implemented by a Dutch Consortium composed of Saxion University, the Centre for International Legal Cooperation (CILC) and the Dutch Probation Service.