Prison to focus on cutting risk of intergenerational offending: Josephine Teo

SINGAPORE – More support will be given to prison inmates and their families to cut the risk of intergenerational offending, after studies showed a high rate of criminality among children with drug-abusing parents.

Speaking on Sept 2 at the opening of the International Corrections and Prisons Association Annual Conference, Second Minister for Home Affairs Josephine Teo told participants that a 2019 study by the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) found that 22 per cent of children with drug-abusing parents had committed offences.

“A separate study by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) in 2020 found similar concerns,” she said.

“Children whose parents had offended criminally were three times as likely to have contact with the criminal justice system themselves in the future, as compared with other children.”

Mrs Teo was referring to a landmark study by MSF and the National Council of Social Service of close to 94,000 parents and about 183,000 of their children.

Researchers found that children with a father who was convicted of his offences were 2.7 times as likely to be convicted of an offence themselves. This rose to 3.7 times if their mother was the one convicted.

Mrs Teo told participants of the conference that Singapore’s approach to correction goes beyond incarceration.

It includes efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate former offenders into society, to reduce the risk of them going back to a life of crime.

“When corrections does these two roles well, society is safer and all of us are better off,” she said.

To prevent intergenerational offending, she said SPS will do more to build the economic, social and community capital of inmates, to uplift them and their families and children.

These include giving inmates access to skills training programmes.

Mrs Teo noted that in 2023, 4,000 inmates out of the 11,000 inmate population received skills training, in areas like precision engineering, media logistics and food services.

More than $2.7 million from the Skills Training Assistance to Restart Bursary (Star Bursary) has also been disbursed to close to 300 low-income prison inmates and former offenders who wish to pursue Nitec, Higher Nitec, diploma and degree courses.

Mrs Teo said the most important phase of rehabilitation is after the inmate returns to the community.

“Unsurprisingly, we find that when inmates are given more support and scaffolding when re-entering the community, they are more confident and reintegrate better,” she said, adding that the whole of society has to pitch in.

Job support is one critical area.

She noted that while the recidivism rate for those who were not employed continuously for at least six months was 19.2 per cent, it fell to 13.9 per cent if they had a job for at least six months, and 7 per cent if they are able to stay employed for 18 months.

In this regard, Mrs Teo said Yellow Ribbon Singapore (YRSG) partners trade associations and over 6,500 employers from various industries to facilitate job placement for former offenders after release.

YRSG is a department in the Ministry of Home Affairs. Mrs Teo said SPS also receives support from non-governmental organisations to help former offenders pursue their goals.

The Star Bursary is one such effort.

Beyond jobs, SPS has also implemented a number of initiatives that focus on inmates’ families, including giving them access to social and financial assistance and support.

“Our belief is that when the families are supported, they can in turn better support the inmate’s rehabilitation journey. The risk of intergenerational offending is therefore also reduced,” Mrs Teo added.

She said SPS also taps former offenders who have successfully reintegrated into society to mentor and support other former inmates.

“If we reduce offending, reoffending and intergenerational offending, society, and all of us, will be safer, all of us will live in a better society,” she added.

Figures released in February 2024 by SPS

showed that the two-year recidivism rate for the overall local inmate population for the 2021 release cohort stood at 22 per cent.

This rate was at its lowest in 30 years in 2021, when it was 20 per cent.

Speaking to the media, Senior Assistant Commissioner (SAC) of Prisons Foo Ee Lin said participants at the conference will have access to presentations by more than 200 speakers in areas like the latest advances in correctional practices and use of technology in prison management.

Held at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront hotel, the conference by the International Corrections and Prisons Association, a non-profit organisation based in Belgium, features plenary sessions, workshops and networking events for more than 800 correctional practitioners and community partners from over 70 jurisdictions. It ends on Sept 6.

SAC Foo, who is commander of Cluster A at Changi Prison Complex and one of the organisers of the conference, said the event is a good opportunity for SPS to share with its foreign counterparts the Singapore correctional model which guides its rehabilitation and operational approaches.

“Through this mutual knowledge exchange, it will certainly be helpful to strengthening our correctional practices, to help us improve on our offender management,” she added.