2012 - Hard, Hot but not all Hell by Rachel Browne Read here
Thank you Lizzie Love for providing photos of inside the prison (for free).
Lizzie and her Lipstick Brigade visit Kerobokan Prison regularly.
The Real Truth
Lizzie Love has been living in Bali for the past nine years and is a regular visitor to Kerobokan Prison.
As Lizzie Love says - 'most of what's been written about the jail and those guarding its population are as out-dated as John Travolta’s white suit in Saturday Night Fever!'
'Bali's always getting a bad wrap on blog sites, tabloids and novels... it seems to me that all they do is create sensational stories that do nothing to help make life any better for those they say are living in squalor' she says.
Certainly Kerobokan prison is no Hotel Hilton but it's not 'squalor' and granted there's no air conditioning in the cells but then again, many people in Bali can't afford this luxury either. There are fans and private toilet facilities. The cells are overcrowded by Indonesian standards and the squat style toilets are normal for the environment, but a few well placed dollars and westerners can pay to have sit down toilets installed. Female inmates keep their rooms clean and tidy just as they would back home. After all, this is what must be their home away from home, or at least they try to make it seem that way. Women are free to decorate their cells with personal items, family or religious photos. Most of the walls are painted a lovely shade of pink so it's hardly gloomy.
Books in both English and Indonesian are available in the library along with fashion magazines. Australian prisoner, Schapelle Corby, keeps a copy of Nelson Mandela's novel beside her bed, a rather intensive read but no doubt inspirational. Inmates do their washing in their cell bathrooms and have a clothes line for drying.Telephones, computers and even Facebook is available to those who can afford to pay.
Some prisoners choose to work in the office. Some female prisoners spend hours beading creative jewelry and listening to songs on their Ipods while others paint their fellow inmates fingernails pretty shades of pink.
Over 1000 Australians travel overseas each year. Around 750 require some form of consular access. When travelling abroad people, regardless of their nationality, become subject to that country's legal system. Their government's will generally do what it can to assist their citizens but there are limitations to what Governments can do.
'They certainly can't rough ride all over Indonesia's legal system, which does in fact give prisoners an opportunity to defend themselves... that's why you get a good lawyer!' says FPSS advocate Kay Danes.
The Foreign Prisoner Support Service has been providing behind the scenes support to many prisoners around the world and says that prison conditions in Bali are far better than many other prisons in the same region. Far from being barbaric, FPSS advocates say the guards who watch over these prisoners are, for the most part, friendly, polite and helpful. Relationships pretty much conform to the way inmates treat them. 'It's not paradise... but it's a far cry from what many call a hell hole' says Danes.
In the men's section, the men have more opportunity for activities and play tennis daily, often having tennis competitions. Lizzie and the Lipstick brigade are in the process of getting approval for a weekly tennis camp with a fellow Aussie tennis coach and his assistant, who work at one of the large hotels. They had just finished building a dog kennel to start an inmate"assistance dog" training program at the jail when the riots broke out.
'This program has been postponed but we're hoping to approach the Minister for Justice again later in the year .....when things have stabilized and repairs complete' says Lizzie then adds... 'The Indonesian authorities are pretty reasonable... and do their best to help prisoners reform... those who want to reform that is!'
Religious services for all different faiths are available daily and there are several churches and mosques at Kerobokan where inmates have free access. Many have made remarkable transformations and some have made incredible progress. Several of the western inmates are completing university correspondence courses,including a Fine Arts degree that has been undertaken by Australian Myuran Sukumaran. Also, on death row, Andrew Chan has undertaken religious studies and often speaks at church gatherings, encouraging other inmates to remain drug free.
There is a soccer field and a fully staffed medical and dental clinic with a methadone drug withdrawal program inside Kerobokan prison. In contrast to tabloid claims that prisoners cannot access get dental care..... it simply isn't true. If inmates need medical or dental attention, more than what the prison can provide, they simply complete the necessary documentation, which is then sent for approval to the warden and inmates are escorted to the doctor or dentist on the outside.
"The facilities inside Kerobokan are hygenic and the Indonesians providing medical care do so with the utmost compassion' says Lizzie.
Inmate mothers who have given birth to babies during their incarceration are allowed to keep their babies in their cells, until approximately 6 months of age. Then their families take care of them since everyone agrees prison is no place for an innocent.
As to the question of what is considered 'reasonable treatment of prisoners' as opposed to tabloid sensationalism headlines like 'Hanging by a Thread' or 'The Inside Story' .....no one who has spent any length of time inside Kerobokan prison wishes to remain there any longer than necessary, but some frequenting the place appear to have created a false impression of the prison in order to push their own agenda. That it may impact on Australians currently on death row, and that they don't care, is the harrowing truth behind this inside story!
2012
