Pioneer officers help set up new DRCs

Operation Ferret, a nationwide exercise in 1977 to contain Singapore's heroin epidemic, remains etched in the minds of pioneer prison officers of the Singapore Prison Service (SPS).

Under the operation launched by the Central Narcotics Bureau on April 1 that year, anyone suspected of having consumed a controlled drug would be taken to a police station and subjected to a urine test.

If he tested positive, he would be sent to a drug rehabilitation centre (DRC) for six months without needing to go to court. Within seven months of the operation, 5,100 addicts had been put into DRCs.

There was a rush to set up centres to house new inmates, a burden which fell on pioneer SPS officers.

Mr Elendrus Hj Osman, who worked with SPS for over 30 years, said there were days during Operation Ferret where over a hundred inmates would be brought in but there was no space to house them.

To ease the overcrowding problem, old houses and schools were turned into prison quarters and inmates were roped in to help with the renovations.

Said Mr Osman: "In the 70s and 80s it wasn't easy (to get contractors) so we had to do some of it 'in-house'. They were trained. They may be secret society members but they were contractors and did all sorts of jobs."