ABC New Australia
In short:
Indonesia’s government has signalled a shift in its approach to some drug laws, in part to address overcrowding in jails.
A senior minister told reporters that drug users would be sent to rehabilitation instead of prison.
What’s next?
Legal experts warn the move will just relocate drug users from prisons to rehab facilities.
Former drug user Jennifer Agatha was sentenced to two years in an Indonesian prison in 2021 after police found half a gram of methamphetamine on a friend.
“At the time, I didn’t feel any remorse or guilt, I blamed others,” said Agatha, who served her time and now lives in Surabaya, a city on Java island.
The 28-year-old said punishment for her drug offences was not effective because she lived in jail “alongside other drug addicts and dealers”.
Inmates often exchanged tips on how to run drug businesses without getting caught, she said.
“I was even thinking [about] how to find drugs inside prison,” she said.
But people in situations like Agatha could soon be able to avoid jail, under proposed changes.
Just days before the remaining five Bali Nine members were transferred to Australia, Indonesia’s government signalled a shift in its approach to some drug laws.
Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister of Law, Human Rights and Immigration Yusril Ihza Mahendra told reporters last Thursday during a doorstop that the government planned to amend the country’s drug laws so that users would be sent to rehabilitation instead of being sentenced to prison.
He said the changes would follow the “spirit of restorative justice” under the new Criminal Code set to replace the existing code in January 2026.
The existing code was inherited from the Dutch East Indies colonial government.
Mr Mahendra said the government now considered drug users to be “victims” who needed to be “rehabilitated while being guided by the state”.
The penalties for drug smuggling are set to remain unchanged.
While he did not specify when the law would be amended, he said the change would help tackle jail overcrowding.
According to the government, Indonesia’s detention centres and prisons are operating at 200 per cent of their capacity with around 70 per cent of the cases in those facilities related to drug offences.
“Perhaps the number of inmates will decrease drastically but that doesn’t mean [drug users] are free because they’re not sentenced to prison,” he said.
“They will still undergo rehabilitation.”
Calls for decriminalisation
Under Indonesia’s existing Narcotics Law, penalties for convicted drug users range from a minimum prison sentence of one year for a minor possession offence to a maximum of life imprisonment.
The penalty for drug smuggling offences in Indonesia is life in jail or the death penalty.
For years, legal experts and organisations in Indonesia have advocated for the Narcotics Law to be revised.
However, criminal law experts, including Institute for Criminal Justice Reform executive director Erasmus Napitupulu, have criticised the government’s proposal, arguing the policy change would simply move overcrowding from jails to rehabilitation services.
“Not all drug users require rehabilitation,” said Mr Napitupulu, referring to recreational drug users or people who used drugs once.
“What we need is the decriminalisation of drug users, by providing a non-punitive and non-criminal response to drug use for personal purposes.”
