Indonesia to replace prison guards with crocodiles

NOVEMBER 10, 2015

by Shayne Jacopian

The chief of Indonesia’s drug law enforcement agency is looking to use crocodiles to guard a proposed prison for drug offenders, Mashable reports.

Budi Waseso, chief of Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency, is going to travel to North Sumatra to try and find the most vicious crocs. “I will search for the most ferocious type of crocodile," he said. "You can't bribe crocodiles. You can't convince them to let inmates escape.”

Nope, we suppose you can’t.

This is part of a “pet project” of Waseso’s. He has called on the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights to build a prison on a remote island for drug dealers, in order to prevent them from having any communication with the outside world, the Jakarta Globe reports.

He’ll be visiting a crocodile breeding center in North Sumatra soon. “I will also travel to Papua and Sulawesi to see which crocodiles are fiercer.”

“We will place as many crocodiles as we can [around the prison].”

Reptile expert, Lisa Powers, is skeptical of this practice, however.

"It would only work as long as the inmates were afraid of the crocodiles," she said. "[Indonesian officials] would also have to starve the crocs. Most crocodile species do not care so much for human flesh, and the two species known to readily prey upon humans do not occur in Indonesia."

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