REHABILITATION OF DETAINEES UNDER CRIMINAL LAW (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) ORDINANCE

Mr David Marshall asked the Minister for Home Affairs whether he will make a statement as to the policy of rehabilitation of detainees under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance with special reference to the treatment of those who are Singapore citizens, those who are Federation of Malaya citizens, and those who are citizens of other countries.

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, if you will permit me, I propose to answer Questions Nos. 4, 6* and 7* together because they are all related.

• Questions 6 and 7, standing in the name of Mr David Marshall, reads as follows:

6. Mr David Marshall asked the Minister for Home Affairs whether the detainees at Pulau Senang are required to work; what are the hours and nature of work; and whether and at what rate they are paid for such work.

7. Mr David Marshall asked the Minister for Home Affairs whether all or only selected prisoners detained under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance are sent to Pulau Senang, and what are the principals of selection.

Mr Speaker: Yes.

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Anson is perhaps unaware that the Government had appointed an ad hoc committee to inquire into the existing arrangements for the detention of persons under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance. 1955, and to make recommendations for their rehabilitation. Since the submission of this Report in 1960, except for some minor modifications, the Government has implemented the scheme for the rehabilitation of criminal law detainees recommended by this ad hoc committee.

The detainees who go to Pulau Senang, as I have said just now during the debate on the Supplementary Development Estimates, volunteered to go there and also voluntarily agreed to work there. Detainees who are eligible at present to go to Pulau Senang are Singapore citizens, Federal citizens, and Federation born persons. They have to be medically fit to proceed to Pulau Senang.

Detainees under 17 years of age or over 50 years of age or persons suffering from, say, leprosy, would not be sent there. Provided they are willing to go and their conduct and behaviour at Changi Prison have been satisfactory, eligible detainees proceed to Pulau Senang in turn according to the date of their arrest. Those who are citizens of other countries are not sent to Pulau Senang at present but remain at Changi. Those of them who voluntarily request permission to return to their country of origin are free to do so, and the Government is prepared to pay for their expenses.

Pulau Senang is not big enough to accommodate all criminal law detainees at the same Time. The number of detainees to be rehabilitated is large and as long as there are Singapore born or Federation born detainees waiting to be sent to Pulau Senang, the Government policy is to rehabilitate them first.

Our duty towards these misguided, embittered, and maladjusted secret society gangsters is to return them as better and more useful members of society.

At Pulau Senang detainees go to work from 7.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. and from 12.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. on week days; and from 7.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. on Saturdays. They do not work on Saturday afternoons or on Sundays or public holidays except for normal domestic maintenance. Certain projects such as jetty construction are dependent on the tides and it may be necessary for detainees to work outside the above hours for which they are given compensating time off. No detainee is allowed to work in excess of 44 hours per week without the written authority of the Director of Prisons.

All detainees at Pulau Senang are paid 30 cents a day which is higher than the rate paid to convicted prisoners. The Government is considering a further increase in the rate of wages of these detainees, but, as I have said just now, it must be emphasised that as far as these detainees are concerned, work is of a voluntary nature and accepted as part of their training and the rehabilitation process.

When detainees have gone through the rehabilitation process at Pulau Senang, which averages about 18 months to two years, they are released from detention and are sent on supervision orders to the Work Brigade Camp at Jalan Damai for the final rehabilitation stage. So far, 394 detainees have successfully been rehabilitated at Pulau Senang. At the Jalan Damai Work Brigade Camp, they live, work, receive board and lodging and pay like other members of the Work Brigade and have access to the community as a whole. They return to their families at weekends. After a period of three to six months, their stay at the camp is officially ended, but a number of them so like their new way of living that they volunteer to continue to remain as Work Brigade members at the camp. The rest return to their homes and to society free to come and go, subject to easy supervision conditions for a short period as a final test as to whether their rehabilitation is complete. And they are now better and more useful members of society.

Mr David Marshall: May it please you. Mr Speaker, many matters are raised by the reply of the Minister, but could I start with the question of other nationals? Do I understand this correctly to be the true position, that those who are not Singapore or Federation citizens have no hope of ever getting to Pulau Senang because of the pressure of accommodation there. Shall we put it that way, and that, therefore, in view of the policy indicated by the Minister that he cannot assess their fitness to be released unless they go to Pulau Senang, it means that those who are not Federation or Singapore citizens have no hope of being released at all? Is that the position?

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, they can choose to go back to their country of origin, and the Government is prepared to pay for their expenses.

Mr David Marshall: I do wish the Minister would give a straightforward reply. The answer is, "Yes, they have no hope of being released in Singapore."

Now, the second question is this: Are they all individually informed and do they understand that they can be repatriated to their countries of origin, and do those countries of origin agree to receive these people back?

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Yes, Mr Speaker, all these detainees understand the position, and the country of origin is prepared to accept them back provided they are repatriated voluntarily.

Mr David Marshall: Sir, we have dealt with questions 4, 6 and 7, is that it? Question No. 5.