Singapore Prison Research Articles

The empowerment of the educational concept of spiritual rehabilitation of muslim prisoners in Singapore Prison

The Singapore government pays considerable attention to rehabilitation programs for prison inmates. The programs have proven to be influential in keeping recidivism rates relatively low. Muslim prisoners are no exception. Although not all of them are willing to change, the right concept of rehabilitation can motivate prisoners to rebuild their lives. This research tries to offer the concept of religious-based rehabilitation education for Muslim prisoners through Islamic education. The research method used is a qualitative method using a qualitative descriptive approach. The type of research is case study research by focuses on a literature review. The data used is taken from documents related to rehabilitation activities in prisons that have occurred and scientific research that has been done before. The results suggest that there are four important foundations in the concept of religious-based rehabilitation education for Muslim prisoners in Singapore prisons. The four foundations are the purpose of the concept, the program or curriculum of the rehabilitation education program, the process of the rehabilitation program, and finally the evaluation of all the programs that have been developed. Abstrak Pemerintah Singapura memberi perhatian yang cukup baik pada program rehabilitasi para narapidana di penjara. Program-programnya terbukti dapat mempengaruhi dalam menjaga tingkat residivisme kembali berbuat jahat menjadi relatif rendah. Tak terkecuali dengan para narapidana muslim. Meskipun tidak semua dari mereka bersedia untuk berubah, namun dengan konsep rehabilitasi yang tepat dapat memotivasi narapidana untuk membangun kembali kehidupan mereka. Penelitian ini mencoba menawarkan konsep pendidikan rehabilitasi berbasis religius untuk para narapidana muslim melalui pendidikan Islam. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode kualitatif dengan menggunakan pendekatan deskriptif kualitatif. Jenis penelitiannya adalah penelitian studi kasus dengan memfokuskan penelitian pada kajian pustaka pustaka. Data-data yang digunakan diambil dari dokumen-dokumen yang terkait dengan kegiatan rehabilitasi di penjara yang sudah terjadi dan penelitian-penelitian ilmiah yang telah dilakukan sebelumnya. Hasil penelitian menawarkan ada empat pondasi penting dalam sebuah konsep pendidikan rehabilitasi berbasis religius untuk para narapidana muslim di penjara Singapura. Empat pondasi itu adalah tujuan konsep itu dibuat, program atau kurikulum dari program pendidikan rehabiltasi tersebut, proses dari program rehabilitasi, dan terakhir evaluasi dari semua program-program yang telah disusun.

Communication gatekeepers and moral arbiters: mothers’ roles when fathers are incarcerated

While studies show that quality communication during incarceration can contribute to better family relationships, the security and correctional requirements of prisons place heavy constraints on the form and frequency of contact. We interviewed families who have an incarcerated father in the Singapore Prison system to understand how they negotiate the various forms of constrained contact and the meaning they attached to such encounters. We found that families tend to use visitations as opportunities for play or bonding instead of serious talk for working through conflict or interpersonal issues, which require more frequent and extensive dialogue. Letter writing afforded an opportunity for the latter, but the screening of content hindered the sharing of intimate details and exploration of personal issues. Additionally, as mothers inherited an unexpected expansion of their roles—as primary caregiver, advocate for the incarcerated spouse, and sole breadwinner—they tended to become the de facto gatekeeper, not just of access and communication to the father, but also as a powerful arbiter of his moral standing. The study points to the significance of more family-centric communication policies in correctional settings.

Development of a new occupational therapy service in a Singapore prison

Statement of context In April 2011, a contract between Singapore Prison Service and Institute of Mental Health paved the way for setting up the first occupational therapy service within the prisons. A well-defined workflow was put in place and a variety of group activities were drawn up to improve life management and social skills among offenders. Critical reflection on practice Occupational therapists found it challenging to provide authentic occupations for offenders within the custodial prison setting, but were able to gradually create pockets of opportunities to improve socialization and assign worker roles for them. After 1 year of occupational therapy intervention, the offenders showed an improvement in all functional domains of the adapted Task Behavioural Scale. Through close collaboration, correctional officers were also gradually supportive of new therapeutic initiatives. Summary Overall, the occupational therapists found that they had gained new valuable skills in adjusting therapy to cater to different risk levels.

Institutions as enablers of wellbeing: The Singapore Prison case study

Wellbeing research has long found a correlation between the subjective wellbeing of individuals and the quality of their private and public institutions. But which way do the causal arrows point, and what can be done to improve institutions? Only real-life experiments can answer these two questions convincingly. Prisons are frequently considered schools for criminals rather than creators of wellbeing. Thus they provide a tough test for institutional changes intended to improve wellbeing. Since 1998 the Singapore Prison Service has converted its prisons into schools for life, thereby improving the lives of inmates, prison staff and the community at large. In so doing, the Prison Service exemplified five key lessons from subjective wellbeing research: the importance of social context, benevolence, trust, building positive outcomes, and top-to-bottom engagement in a shared purpose. By any measure, the results have been impressive, ranging from a one-third drop in recidivism to improved staff morale and better social connections between prisons and the rest of society.

Prison's Spoilt Identities: Racially Structured Realities Within and Beyond

This article begins by seeking an explanation for the solidarity between Malay inmates and guards in perpetrating abusive and discriminatory treatment towards Malay transvestites. In the course of explaining an empirical phenomenon in the Singapore prison, this article has examined Singapore's history and ethnic demography, the ethnic Malay minority's lack of socio-economic development and modernisation vis-à-vis the ethnic Chinese majority, geo-politics, the ideology and strategic choices of the state's political elite and their implications for inter-ethnic interactions between Malays and Chinese. As this article will argue, prison culture, rather than being divorced from larger society, is in effect able to articulate and elaborate on the processes of social exclusion faced by ethnic Malay minorities and male transvestites in Singapore society. By shifting the conceptual focus from ‘prison in society’ to ‘prison of society’, a new analytical dimension of informal inmate culture and social structure has been realised; one which suggests immense possibilities for prison literature.

A study of outrage of modesty offenders in a Singapore prison.

Outrage of modesty (OOM) offenders cause considerable annoyance and distress to their victims. The offending behaviours include touching, grabbing or fondling of erogenous or non-erogenous parts of the victim's body. The purpose of this study is to examine a prison cohort of OOM offenders and to compare them with a group of OOM offenders who had been remanded in a state mental hospital. All prisoners serving sentence over a two-year study period were interviewed. They were of similar mean age to the hospital cohort but were better educated, more likely to be married and most were working. Victims tended to be young females with an average age of 19 years. Psychotic disorders were rarely present, although 15% had a dissocial personality disorder. Those with previous OOM convictions were likely to have had past psychiatric consultations and were more likely to be unmarried. However, there were no statistically significant differences between convicted first-time offenders and repeat offenders with respect to age, educational level, nature of offences and alcohol consumption. The prisoners were less inclined to commit their offences in the mornings. Breasts and genitalia were the favoured targets for molest action, irrespective of time or place or whether the offence was committed by a first or repeat offender. The offences were often committed along staircases, corridors and in crowded public places.

Singapore Prison Service

“Work is not a right; it is a privilege”, said Wong Hoi Kit, commenting on the labour policy implemented by the Singapore Prison Service. “We have a captive labour market; the prisoners are eager to work, as it gives them a chance to interact with others, while it helps the time go by.” The motto of the Singapore Prison Service was “Security – Humanity – Rehabilitation”, and considerable energy was focused on rehabilitating inmates by teaching them skills, through on‐the‐job training, during their prison terms. To this end, inmates were put to work, and that which they produced was sold for profit. Mr Wong – who had his MBA from Queen’s University, Canada – was chief executive officer of Singapore’s Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE); in this capacity, he was seeking to identify commercially‐viable food industry opportunities, which would meet the objectives and constraints of the prison environment. These could include primary production, manufacturing, packaging and catering.

Dr. Lim Hock Siew speaks from Singapore Prison (Date — 18.3.1972) (through his legal adviser)

Dr. Lim Hock Siew speaks from Singapore Prison (Date — 18.3.1972) (through his legal adviser)