The Tangerang prison fire was a fire that occurred in an overcrowded prison block in the city of

Tangerang Tangerang (Sundanese: , ) is a city in the province of Banten, Indonesia. Located on the western border of Jakarta, it is the third largest urban centre in the Greater Jakarta metropolitan area after Jakarta and Bekasi; the sixth largest city pro ...

Banten Banten ( id, Banten; Sundanese: , romanized ''Banten'') is the westernmost province on the island of Java, Indonesia. Its capital city is Serang. The province borders West Java and the Special Capital Region of Jakarta on the east, the Java Se ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, in

Greater Jakarta The Jakarta metropolitan area or Greater Jakarta, known locally as Jabodetabek (an acronym of Jakarta–Bogor–Depok–Tangerang–Bekasi), and sometimes extended to Jabodetabekjur (with the acronym extended to include part of Cianjur Regency) ...

. The fire began at about on 8 September 2021 (, ) in sector C of the Tangerang prison, killing 41 inmates and injuring a further 75. More victims succumbed to their injuries on the following days, raising the death toll to a total of 49 people.

Background

Prison system

The Indonesian prison system has been overcrowded for years, partially due to stringent laws governing

narcotic The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "to make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiates ...

s and a focus on incarceration rather than rehabilitation for those that violate them. Sector C (Chandiri Nengga), the affected prison block, held inmates incarcerated for drug-related offenses. The Class I prison in Tangerang had a capacity of 600, but was holding more than 2,000 inmates. Sector C had been built to hold 38 inmates, but had held 122 at the time of the fire.

Tangerang prison

The Tangerang prison, officially known as the Tangerang Class I Correctional Facility (), was constructed in 1972 as a substitute for the

Glodok Glodok () is an urban village of Taman Sari, West Jakarta, Indonesia. The area is also known as Pecinan or Chinatown since the Dutch colonial era, and is considered the biggest in Indonesia. Majority of the traders and residents of Glodok are Chin ...

prison, which at that time had been sold to a private company. The prison was inaugurated on 6 December 1982, by the Director General of Prisons. Although the prison was initially intended to incarcerate

white-collar criminals White collar may refer to: * White-collar worker, a salaried professional or an educated worker who performs semi-professional office, administrative, and sales-coordination tasks, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor ...

, a surge of

drug-related crime A drug-related crime is a crime to possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse (such as cocaine, heroin, morphine and amphetamines). Drugs are also related to crime as drug trafficking and drug productio ...

in 2008 prompted the government to transfer drug-related criminals into the prison. , 60% of inmates in the prison were imprisoned due to drug-related cases.

Fire

The fire started at 01:45 local time, when a small fire occurred in sector C2 of the prison. A prison employee, Iyan Sofyan, heard screams from inside the sector's cells. Several other wardens and guards tried to evacuate the entire sector, but were only able to evacuate 20 inmates. The sector housed inmates being held for drug-related offences and had a capacity for 38 but at least three times that were housed there with a spokeswoman for the ministry's corrections department reporting that 122 individuals were housed in a space for 38. According to the prison's protocols, the inmates were kept in locked cells, but as the fire spread the prison employees did not manage to unlock every room. All the deaths occurred in the locked cells. Firefighters were alerted of the disaster shortly after, and around 30 fire trucks were deployed. The fire trucks arrived on the scene at 02:00, had the fire under control by around 03:00, and finally extinguished the flames roughly two hours after they began. Multiple Indonesian officials immediately arrived at the scene. Police chief of Jakarta Inspector-General M. Fadil Imran arrived in the morning and deployed around 150 police, mostly ''Brimob'' members, to secure the prison perimeters. Minister of Law and Human Rights

Yasonna Laoly Yasonna Hamonangan Laoly (born 27 May 1953) is the current Minister of Law and Human Rights of Indonesia. The injured victims were brought to the Sitanala Hospital and the Tangerang Regency General Hospital. A day after the fire, three critically injured victims died in hospital, bringing the death toll to 44. The death toll rose to 46 six days after the fire. The death toll later rose to 49. Most of the dead inmates were imprisoned for drug-related crimes, while a number of others were imprisoned for terrorism and murder. Two of the dead inmates were foreigners: one from

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

and the other from

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. All of the injured inmates were convicted for drug-related charges.

Investigation

Initial investigations by the police indicated that the fire occurred due to a

short circuit A short circuit (sometimes abbreviated to short or s/c) is an electrical circuit that allows a current to travel along an unintended path with no or very low electrical impedance. This results in an excessive current flowing through the circuit ...

. The electrical wiring of the prison had not been upgraded since the prison was built in 1972, and there was also a shortage of fire extinguishers. Minister_of_Law_and_Human_Rights_Yasonna_Laoly_in_the_Tangerang_prison_fire_press_conference

Minister_of_Law_and_Human_Rights_Yasonna_Laoly_in_the_Tangerang_prison_fire_press_conference

Aftermath

Member of the

People's Representative Council The People's Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia ( id, Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Republik Indonesia, DPR-RI), also known as the House of Representatives, is one of two elected chambers of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), ...

Syarifuddin Sudding Sarifuddin Sudding (born 6 August 1966, also "Syarifuddin Sudding") is an Indonesian politician. He currently serves as a member of the People's Representative Council The People's Representative Council of the Republic of Indonesia ( id, ...

demanded responsibility from Laoly in regards to the incident. In response to the demands, Laoly formed five teams to assist in handling the incident, with each team being responsible for victim identification, victims' funerals, victims' family recovery, coordination of handling, or public relations. The

President of Indonesia The President of the Republic of Indonesia ( id, Presiden Republik Indonesia) is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Indonesia. The president leads the executive branch of the Indonesian government and is ...

Joko Widodo Joko Widodo (; born 21 June 1961), popularly known as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is the 7th and current president of Indonesia. Elected in July 2014, he was the first Indonesian president not to come from an elite ...

, via his spokesperson Fadjroel Rachman, delivered his condolences to the victims and stated his expectation that the disaster could be handled with few casualties. Following the accident, Laoly announced that the relatives of the victims would be compensated. Each

next-of-kin A person's next of kin (NOK) are that person's closest living blood relatives. Some countries, such as the United States, have a legal definition of "next of kin". In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, "next of kin" may have no legal d ...

of the deceased would receive Rp 30 million (US$ ). Mayor of Tangerang

Arief Rachadiono Wismansyah Arief Rachadiono Wismansyah (born 23 April 1977) is the mayor of Tangerang since he was elected in 2013. Supported by the Democratic Party (Indonesia), Democratic Party, he is also the owner of a hospital network. Personal life Wismansyah was born ...

announced that the city would provide financial compensation for the relatives of the victims.

References

{{Coord, 06, 11, 12, S, 106, 38, 25, E, display=title 2021 disasters in Indonesia 2021 fires in Asia Building and structure fires in Indonesia Disasters in Java History of Banten Residential building fires September 2021 events in Asia Prison fire Urban fires in Asia Prison fires