Prisoner rehabilitation the holistic way to go

KAJANG: In an effort to ease overcrowding in prisons, the Prisons Department is aiming to have two-thirds of its detainees undergo community rehabilitation by 2030.

Prisons Department commissioner-general Datuk Nordin Muhamad said the initiative, which began in 2008, comprised the parole system, Compulsory Attendance Order (PKW), inmate re-integration programme and licensed inmate release, among others.

“Overcrowding in prisons is not unique to Malaysia. The department has 82,539 detainees as at Oct 5.

“A total of 76,336 detainees are prison inmates, while 6,203 detainees are undergoing community rehabilitation,” he told reporters after the launch of the amended Offenders Compulsory Attendance Act 2022 at the department’s headquarters here yesterday.

Nordin said the amended law, which was gazetted on Sept 5, would enable inmates who have been sentenced to prison for up to three years to be eligible for PKW, which is probation where detainees serve their sentence by doing community service.

“Prior to the amendment, only detainees with up to a year of imprisonment were eligible for PKW,” he added.

Nordin said 17,025 detainees were serving prison sentences of three years and below.

“We are targeting for them to be eligible for PKW, thus reducing the prison population,” he added.

He said of the 17,025 detainees, 12,746 were prisoners convicted of drug-related offences, criminal offences (4,207), syariah-related offences (49) and others (23).

“The amended law will give the court more alternatives to impose community rehabilitation for detainees,” he added.

Nordin said alternative sentences in the form of community rehabilitation were the way to go, not just to reduce the capacity of prisons, but to protect society as well.

“Our own studies showed that for every 400 people in prison, 60 of them will become repeat offenders. For those placed in community rehabilitation, only one in 400 of the inmates will relapse into crime,” he said.

Nordin said so far, 6,974 offenders have gone through PKW and 94.6% of them have completed rehabilitation.

“We now have 52 PKW centres nationwide. We have requested for 20 more centres from the government,” he said.

Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Dahlan Wan Abdul Aziz said the Prisons Department would be able to save some RM182mil in annual operational costs through in-community rehabilitation programmes.

“A total of RM5.5bil have been spent for the last five years for prisons nationwide.”