THE Prisons Department wants more inmates serving lenient sentences to be granted parole and allowed to undergo community-based rehabilitation process as it can bring about positive changes in them.
Its deputy director-general (Community) Datuk Ibrisam Abdul Rahman said their statistics showed that of the total number of inmates who had undergone community-based rehabilitation, only 0.4% returned to criminal activity compared to those who had served their time in prison, which made up 13%.
“Some 6,000 inmates are on parole and undergoing community-based rehabilitation across the country. We see them showing good progress because they are living with their families and within their community as a preparation for them to face the outside world after being released from prison.
“Some of them also work with certain companies under the supervision of parole officers and officers at work. We are targeting 23,000 prison inmates to serve community-based sentences by 2030. In fact, our system (community-based sentence) has also been recognised by prisons in other countries.”
He said this to reporters after witnessing the handover of duties as Penang Prison director from Roslan Mohamed to his successor Zulkifli Abdul Manah in George Town today.
Roslan will is the new Melaka Prisons director.
Overcrowded prisons
Meanwhile, Ibrisam said the number of inmates in all 40 prisons nationwide stood at 70,000, exceeding the capacity of 62,000, but it is still under control.
He said among the prisons experiencing overcrowding were the Sungai Buloh Prison and Kajang Prison as the number of inmates in both prisons had exceeded 6,000, far beyond the maximum capacity of 3,000 people.
The number of inmates at the Seberang Perai Prison and Penang Remand Prison had also exceeded their capacity of 1,500 and 1,100, respectively, he added.
“In total, there is a surplus of 8,000 inmates nationwide, but the situation is still under control because we have 10 satellite prisons nationwide,” he mentioned. – March 17, 2022
