ADDENDA, MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS

MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS: MR WONG KAN SENG

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs

Safety and security are key pillars of Singapore's success. They provide the stability that underpins our economic development and the order that ensures our social and communal harmony. How we achieve safety and security will change over time as our operating realities and society change.

The operating environment today is complex and challenging. Our society has grown more diverse as new citizens and foreign residents augment our population and workforce. Today, we also have a younger adult generation of citizens with different Singaporean life experiences from the generations before them. These developments have an impact on our values which in turn are potentially significant to the continued efficacy of the Home Team (HT). The HT’s success has in no small measure depended on strong public support for law and order. For example, it would not be possible to heighten our vigilance against terrorism effectively if not for the support and cooperation by Singaporeans with the security measures put in place at our checkpoints despite the inconveniences.

Technology has also changed social realities everywhere. Even as cyberspace makes a globally connected public a fact of modern life, it also brings new security and societal challenges. In cyberspace, all national borders are porous. With the good of a liberalised exchange in ideas comes the bane of increasing trans-national crime and the export of extremist ideologies. With the empowerment of the individual through social networking and autonomous collaborative action also comes the facilitation of criminals, terrorists and extremists. The challenge for society is how we harness the good that comes with cyberspace and new technologies while dealing effectively with the bad, by remaining committed to the values and fundamentals which have made Singapore what it is today.

Developing the Home Team for the future

On its part, the HT will strengthen its professional capabilities to address increasingly sophisticated and demanding challenges. We will increase our manpower even as we continue to harness technology to cater for the increased volume and complexity of demand. Over the next year or two, we target to recruit 1,500 more HT Officers into HT Departments, including the Singapore Police Force and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

We will explore new and creative options to recruit and retain talent, offering such individuals career possibilities across the entire HT family of departments regardless of the department they might have joined in the first instance. Even within each department, we will develop specialist schemes to significantly enhance the range and depth of domain specialisation.

We will strengthen our legal regime to support the HT. For instance, to address trans-national and criminal organisations, MHA is studying how overseas jurisdictions deal with organised crime, with a view to introducing legislation. MHA will also strengthen the legal

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regime and put in place more comprehensive measures to deal with the persistent loanshark menace. Apart from the foot-soldiers of such syndicates who vandalise and harass, we will also look at measures against the syndicate bosses who profit from and the borrowers who feed the loanshark industry.

To maximise our resources and use officers appropriately for the jobs they have been trained to do, we will review and distinguish between the core and non-core professional functions of the HT in achieving its mission to keep Singapore safe and secure. There will be scope for more outsourcing of less critical functions to private-sector partners. The SCDF has for instance already begun the process of partnering the private sector in the delivery of its ambulance services. Functions that were historically parked with HT agencies for practical convenience at a time when the appropriate public authorities were new and had limited operational resources, will be restored to these agencies.

Strengthening community-based solutions

MHA will work with relevant agencies in and outside Government to develop community-based solutions to community-related problems. As individuals enjoy greater autonomy, they must also accept greater responsibility for their actions. Problems arising from anti-social behaviour, for instance, should be resolved through community-based conflict resolution and mediation arrangements. Differences should be mediated within their communities, and solutions arrived at should be accepted as authoritative. Police will begin by referring disputes between neighbours to the Community Mediation Centres (CMC) for mediation by trained professionals. MHA will also explore with the community more streamlined and structured processes for dealing with the growing number and diversity of issues arising on the ground to ensure that Police resources are deployed effectively and efficiently.

We will need to also invest in and develop community-based structures for the supervision of offenders as we move towards more community-based sentencing options. Even as the Singapore Prisons Service continues to develop its rehabilitative expertise and keep our recidivism rates among the lowest in the world, we need to pay attention to specific categories or groups which have higher re-offending rates. Youth offenders, especially those with gang affiliations, are one such category.

Existing partnerships with the community remain vital and will be nurtured. No amount of home team resources deployed will be as effective as four million pairs of vigilant eyes. Police will continue to work closely with various community partners through the Community Safety and Security Programmes (CSSP), the Safety and Security Watch Group (SSWG) scheme and other related schemes.

The Community Engagement Programme (CEP) carries significant value in the face of rapid change and increasing diversity. The CEP must be sustained and its reach broadened - its activities not only develop preparedness and community resilience but also socialise the younger generations, new citizens and residents to share the values on communal harmony and social cohesion. We will need to revitalise old routes and explore new routes for public engagement to strengthen integration within our society. The CEP as well as other Home Team community programmes to keep Singapore safe and secure for our people and their families are valuable engagement platforms in this regard.

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The Home Team will continue to expand its capabilities, and grow its community partnership. The safe and secure Singapore we enjoy today would not have been possible without public trust and support for the Home Team and its mission. The Home Team must ensure that this vital social capital is not lost, and the Home Team’s positive relationship with the public is strengthened rather than eroded over time in the face of changes in the social and operating landscape.