OVERCROWDING IN PRISONS - THE MALAYSIAN EXPERIENCE Samsudin Murad
Director of Kajang Prisons
Selangor, Malaysia
OVERVIEW OF THE PRISONS DEPARTMENT
The Prisons Department of Malaysia is under the perview of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The role of the Prison Department can be summarised as follows:
(a) Security - to hold the inmates as ordered by the courts until their dates of release.
(b) Rehabilitation - to rehabilitate them so that they can regain their self respect and eventually return to the community as law abiding and socially productive persons.
(c) Safe custody - to ensure the safe custody of inmates during their period of stay in the prison.
There are 35 penal institutions nation-wide. The breakdown is as follows:
¥ Prisons 27
¥ Advanced Approved Schools 4
¥ Correctional Centre 1
¥ Rehabilitation Centre 3
¥ Total 35
As facilitators of rehabilitation, the Prison Department provides opportunities for inmates to participate in the general rehabilitation programme which comprises the following five core elements:
¥ Work/ Vocational Training
¥ Religious Guidance
¥ Educational Persuits
¥ Recreation
¥ Counselling and Therapy
PRISON OVERCROWDING
Inmates overcrowding the penal system represents the foremost of contemporary issues. The increase in prison population can be attributed, amongst other reasons, to the general increase demographically of the nation and specifically of the cities and the - outskirts that also represents the most crime prone areas. It is also, to a substantial extent, because of the increase in the number of foreigners (foreign illegal immigrants) that are incarcerated but in the big majority, within the short sentences and low security category. On the positive side, more prisoners can be attested to better policing, with a higher apprehension and conviction rate and the fact that the public has become more intolerant and punitive towards the increase in crime commission figures.
The problem of prisoners serving sentences vis a vis the facilities that are accorded to them has been plaguing the Department for years. The daily average of inmates nation-wide increased from 20,040 in 1985 to 29,150 in 1998 and dipped down to 27, 21 9 in August 1999. By October it has gone further down to 26, 352. The upward swing can be seen as follows:
31 st December 1985 - 20,040
31 st December 1990 - 22,832
31 st December 1995 - 24,831
31 st December 1998 - 29,150
21 st August 1999 - 27,219
30 October 1999 - 26,352
The detailed breakdown by type of institutions and their total optimum holding capacity is as follows:
Penal Population by Types of Penal Institutions
Type of Institution Population Comfortable Capacity Prisons Advanced Approves School Rehabilitation Centre Correctional Centre TOTAL (as of August '99) 23837 978 2285 210 22935 19945 730 2050 119 27219 Foreign prisoners account for 5,123 or around 18.82% of the daily average penal population. A high percentage of them are from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. Illegal entry, overstaying without valid documentation followed by involvement in crimes are the major contributing factors for this high figure. Fines are imposed for the majority of illegal immigrants. However, instead of paying fine, many prefer to be confined in prison for a few months before being deported.
As a resuit of overcrowding, a number of consequences are evident:
¥ Prisons, which should only accommodate no more than 2,500 inmates must now cope up with prisoner counts of 3,500 or more.
¥ Four of five inmates must be accommodated in a cell designed for a single inmate. Bad sleeping arrangements, in turn, infringes upon the basic human dignity of inmates, staff and volunteers.
¥ It disrupts proper classification and impedes effective rehabilitation and reintegration efforts of offenders and contributes to recidivism.
¥ It places strains on physical and social facilities and presents more negative rather than positive impacts.
¥ It is nonconducive to health and institutional security.
¥ It gives rise to an atmosphere of stress and tension and intensifies the potential danger for both staff and inmates.
Several long term and short-term measures have been utilised to alleviate the overcrowding problem. Among them are:
¥ Transfer of prisoners from populated to less populated institutions.
¥ Renovations and modifications of existing building structures.
¥ Construction of new prisons.
¥ Close co-operation with relevant agencies for example in matters of repatriation and regular statistical reports.
As a long-term strategy, a paper has been submitted to the government advocating the introduction of parole system and other relevant non-custodial measures. Various programmes were discussed including the 'Compulsory Attendance Centre" that was once instituted at the Kuala Lumpur Prison. (It has since been stopped)
Discussions regarding these non-institutional treatment of offenders programme are still ongoing and it is felt that these proposals will be far more effective in addressing the issues of inmate populations which in turn will bring about more rehabilitation results.
MALAYSIA OVERCROWDING IN PRISONS (21 AUGUST 1999)
Prison Present Population Comfortable Capacity Kajang 3668 2500 Kajang(Women) 450 636 Simpang Rengam 1244 1300 Sungai Buloh 3255 2500 Taiping 2040 1700 Marang 960 1300 Pulau Pinang 1664 1300 Johor bahru 2060 1570 Alor Setar 1223 910 Penor 821 560 Seremban 924 800 Jelebu 465 500 Pengkalan Chepa 937 890 Sungai Petani 511 320 P/ Bebas Taipmg 375 590 Banda Hilir 227 200 Sarawak 1022 1115 Sabah 1835 1440 TOTAL 23837 19945 Present Population Comfortable Capacity
Advanced Approved School 978 730
Rehabilitation Centre 2285 2050
Correctional Centre 119 210
TOTAL 27219 22935
PRISON OFFICERS CONCERN
Prisoners numbers aside, what is of more concern to prison officers are the number of inmates of certain categories - the long termers who are, in the majority, classified into the higher security brackets. Various rules and regulations are in place in the administration of these categories of prisoners in their daily routines - family visits meeting with solicitors, court appearances and their referral to hospitals. All these movements invariably exert tremendous onto the officers involved, making routine work at times unpopular with staffs.
As of 30th October 1999, the Malaysian Prisons Department has - within its confines 1 4, 386 prisons in the long sentence category representing almost 620/0 of the total of 23,224 sentenced prisoners. Statistics are as below -
CONVICTED PRISONERS (30 October 1999)
Penal Institution Death Row Natural Lives Life Sentences Sultan Governors' Pleasure Long Sentences. o.e. >6 months Kajang 61 18 65 1 3104 Kajang(Women) 3 - - - 291 Simpang Rengam - - 5 - 750 Sungai Buloh 22 7 1 1 591 Taiping 21 13 23 1 1414 Marang - - 3 - 722 Pulau Pinang 14 5 6 1 802 Johor bahru 3 - 1 - 892 Alor Setar 6 4 3 1 568 Penor - - - - 511 Seremban - - 12 - 900 Jelebu - - - - 523 Pengkalan Chepa 10 - 4 - 469 Sungai Petani - - 1 - 424 P/ Bebas Taipmg - - - - 431 Banda Hilir - - - - 55 Sarawak 13 - 5 8 576 Sabah 9 19 17 9 1363 TOTAL 162 66 147 22 14386 The other category that made its appearances in about the last decade or so are prisoners with aids (pwa). Apart from their security considerations prisoners are dealth with care in their daily routines and in their contact with others. Again, various rules and regulations are followed not only to allay apprehension within the staffs involved but also to minimise all discriminations that may arise. Special programmes, for example, HIV counselling, pre and post test counselling, medical confidentiality, general health and cleanliness has to be instituted to these category of prisoners as well as to the general penal population. These invariably requires staffs to be involved and trained and retrained periodically.
The significant rise of HIV prisoners in the various prisons is causing much concern to the prison authority. Over the last 8 years the number has increased four-fold. This is illustrated by the following statistics -
HIV Population in Prisons
Year Number of HIV Prisoners Total Prison Population Percentage 31.12.1991 31.12.1992 31.12.1993 31.12.1994 31.12.1995 31.12.1996 31.12.1997 31.12.1998 21. 8.1999 363 530 735 925 1014 1248 1228 1344 1451 24085 21612 22562 23928 24831 24750 25750 29150 27219 1.50 % 2.45 % 3.31 % 3.86 % 4.08 % 5.04 % 4.75 % 4.61 % 5.33 % With 1,451 HIV prisoners still having their sentences and 780 having been released, a total of 9311 prisoners with AIDS have passed through the penal system so far.
Equally alarming is the acute rise in the death rate among HIV prisoners. A perusal of the figures below reveals that the number of deaths has increased many folds.
Number of HIV Deaths in Prisons
Year No. of deaths 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 (up to 30.10 1999) TOTAL 2 6 9 17 12 30 46 79 84 285 In the next few years, it is projected that the number of deaths among HIV prisoners will increase sharply due to the fact that many of them are now in the advanced stage of infection.