GOVT URGED TO SEND CONVICTED CORRUPTERS TO NUSAKAMBANGAN

Medan, Nov 20 (ANTARA) - The government should adopt a policy whereby convicted corrupters are to be immediately sent to the prison island of Nusakambangan, off Central Java's southern coast, for greater "psychological effect" on the convicts as well as the public, a legal rights activist said.
"If need be, the government should select another island and build a prison there especially reserved for connvicted corrupters," Aldian Pinem, president of Legal and Political Struggle (PHP), said here Thursday.
"Putting convicted corrupters in ordinary jails is not creating the needed psychological effect and shock therapy," he said. "In fact, in ordinary jails, they never learn their lesson or feel shame," he added.
According to Pinem, in normal state penitentiaries, corrupters can still be visited by their supporters who keep offering sympathy and support as if they are heroes.
In order to give them a real shock therapy, the government should select an uninhabited island and build a prison there where corrupters must serve their sentences, he said.
"Thereby, people will also become more afraid to commit corruption," Pinem said.