I spent years in prison. Rehabilitation doesn’t end with counselling
Support from the community ecosystem must hold long after the sentence ends.
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Rehabilitation cannot be left to prisons and aftercare agencies. If we want fewer people returning to crime years after release, families, employers and communities have a significant role in making change sustainable.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Gopal Mahey
SINGAPORE – Singapore has good reason to take some confidence from its rehabilitation record. The latest Singapore Prison Service (SPS) statistics put the two-year overall recidivism rate at 21.9 per cent for the 2023 release cohort, one of the lowest internationally.
SPS defines this as the proportion of local inmates under its custody who are subsequently detained or sentenced to imprisonment or a day reporting order within two years of release into the community.