meet in Europe and later marry. But at the airport
on her way home, her spanking new Samsonite
suitcase – a gift from Eddy – was ripped apart by
customs officials. Beatrice was horrified to see that
it contained several kilos of heroin. Clearly she had
been set up by Eddy, who, it turned out, was a
member of a powerful drug cartel. Arrested, she
languished in prison for two years before she was
tried. Her sentence: death by hanging. On appeal,
her sentence was reduced to life in prison. Efforts
on the part of her grandmother and an impassioned
attorney managed to stir up public opinion, finally
leading to Beatrice’s release after ten years. While in
prison, her spirits were never broken: she taught
herself Malaysian and Cantonese; she became a
model prisoner and a leader as well as a medical
supervisor, caring for her fellow inmates (Saubin
1991).
In Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam,
criminal law prescribes caning as an additional
punishment to imprisonment for those convicted of
certain non-violent crimes, such as narcotics pos-
session, criminal breach of trust, and alien smug-
gling. The caning, which is carried out with a
half-inch-thick wooden cane, commonly causes
welts, and sometimes causes scarring. However,
male criminals age 50 and above, and women, are
exempt from caning.
In Indonesia, the Directorate General of Correc-
tions is under the administration of the ministry of
justice. The system used by the directorate in carry-
ing out its responsibilities is based on the pemas-
yarakatan system, as stated in Law No. 12 of 1995.
This contains the rule that the treatment of offend-
ers is aimed at efforts to manifest social reintegra-
tion, that is, the recovery of social relationships,
and the unity of the prisoners as individuals, social
creatures, and creatures of God.
The directorate currently operates 427 correc-
tional institutions throughout Indonesia. Indonesia
has 4 female prisons, whereas 129 units are pro-
vided for male prisoners. In mid 2002, there were
2,111 female prisoners, while male prisoners num-
bered 57,377. However, prison conditions are
harsh. Mistreatment, the extortion of inmates by
guards, and violence among prisoners is common
(United States Department of State 2002). The
incidence of mistreatment drops sharply once a
prisoner is transferred from police or military cus-
tody into the civilian prison system, or into the cus-
tody of the attorney general. Nine prisoners died at
the Kebon Waru Prison in Bandung, West Java,
from untreated illnesses, according to press reports
in July 2001. Credible sources report that prisoners
in some facilities are beaten routinely and system-
east asia, southeast asia, australia, and the pacific 431atically, as punishment for infractions of prison
rules and to coerce them into giving information
about other prisoners. During an August 2001 raid
on Cipinang Prison, in East Jakarta, police seized
knives, swords, sickles, machetes, firearms, and
hand grenades, which had been smuggled into the
prison for the inmates, according to press accounts.
It is no secret that prisoners can get better treatment
and better conditions by bribing guards.
In relation to overcrowding of prisons in Indo-
nesia, the number of detainees and prisoners in-
creased gradually from 44,344 in 1995 to 48,256
in August 1999. This increase in numbers was
likely caused by recent economic, social, and polit-
ical developments. It was claimed by the office of
the Directorate General that numbers were still
below the capacity of the Detention Houses and
Prisons Branch (APCCA 2000).
In 2003 Scottish academic Lesley McCulloch and
her American friend Joy Sadler were accused of vio-
lating their tourist visas by carrying out research
and cataloguing alleged human rights abuses in
Aceh, a province on the northern tip of Sumatra,
which had experienced 26-year-long separatist
conflict and had been granted by the government
the right to institute Sharì≠a law. McCulloch and
Sadler revealed the extent to which they were
allegedly assaulted, intimidated, harassed, and forced
to witness hour-long torture sessions, while being
detained in Indonesia. They say, however, that their
treatment was luxurious, compared with the regu-
lar severe beatings suffered by other inmates,
which, the women claimed, often kept them awake
at night. This is a clear example of a political situa-
tion influencing the conditions of prisons and pris-
oners (Aglionby 2002).Bibliography
J. Aglionby, British woman held in Indonesian prison tells
of beatings and torture of inmates, Guardian, 25
November 2002, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/
Story/0,2763,846959,00.html>.
APPCA, Record of the twentieth Asian and Pacific
Conference of Correctional Administrators, Report
prepared and compiled by D. Biles, N. Morgan, and
A. McDonald, Sydney, Australia, 5–10 November 2000.
V. Kingi, The children of women in prison. A New
Zealand study, paper presented at the conference on
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Adelaide, 31 October–1 November 2000.
F. Malekian, The concept of Islamic international crimi-
nal law. A comparative study, London 1994.
B. Saubin, The ordeal. My ten years in a Malaysian prison,
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Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor,
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