SINGAPORE – Breaking the cycle of inter-generational offending, preventing substance abuse and preventing sexual offending are three areas where support for young people is needed the most.

To this end, the National Committee on Prevention, Rehabilitation and Recidivism (NCPR) released 20 recommendations on Wednesday at the biennial Conversations on Youth symposium.

In a speech at the event held at One Farrer Hotel, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Eric Chua said the average number of youth offenders was around 2,500 a year, and the number of arrests of youth offenders in 2022 – slightly more than 2,000 – was the lowest in the last five years.

Despite improvements in these numbers, it remains important to understand the underlying environmental factors in youth offending, Mr Chua said. According to the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the top three offences committed by youth in the past five years were shop theft, cheating and sexual penetration.

“The world that our youth are grappling with today is a complex and dynamic one... Youth today are digital natives – this can be both a boon and a bane,” Mr Chua said.

“On the one hand, youth today enjoy the benefits of a highly connected digital world... On the other hand, the perils of a hyper-connected world loom large.

“Online excesses, sexually explicit materials, misinformation, easy access to illicit devices via instant messaging platforms. Now, how well can our youth hold up and navigate these evolving challenges? Do many of them end up as youth offending statistics?”

Themed “Youths Matter Amidst Change”, the 2023 symposium was attended by more than 600 school leaders, teachers in charge of student discipline, social workers, law enforcement officers and representatives from government agencies.

The co-chairmen of NCPR – Mr Chua and Associate Professor Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, Minister of State for Home Affairs and National Development – participated in a panel discussion on supporting at-risk youth and young offenders.

NCPR said the recommendations to curb youth sexual offending were in response to the rising number of young people who committed outrage of modesty and rape offences from 2018 to 2021.

“We are also seeing several high-profile cases of sexual offending by (young people) such as voyeurism cases in tertiary institutions,” the committee added.

An early identification and intervention resource package will be developed to train school and community counsellors on supporting young people with issues arising from consuming sexually explicit materials.

The police will give assembly talks on personal safety and respect for boundaries in secondary schools, junior colleges and institutes of higher learning. Students will be educated on sexual violence, inaccurate depictions of consent in pornography and distorted thought processes guiding sexual behaviours.

Mr Chua said the aim is to train half of all school and community counsellors by the end of 2024, and the other half by the end of 2025.

Highlighting the importance of working with at-risk youngsters to prevent crimes, Mr Chua gave the example of a boy who was placed on probation for outrage of modesty when he was 17.

He said the boy’s initial curiosity about pornography when he was 13 turned into a habitual coping mechanism for stress. His lack of guidance subsequently led him to act on his thoughts and commit sexual offences.

In the panel discussion, Mr Chua said some young sexual offenders he met came from good schools and family backgrounds.

But they used pornography as a coping mechanism and increased their consumption over time to reach a high as they grew increasingly numb to the content.

On inter-generational offending, Mr Chua said local research has found that children exposed to parental criminality are three times more likely to engage in criminality than other children.

To address this, the Singapore Prison Service, or SPS, has been working with family service centres since late 2020 to identify selected inmates with young children to be supported by social workers from the start of their incarceration.

This will be extended to all newly admitted inmates with young children by end-2023, in a move which will benefit about 1,200 inmates’ families every year.

SPS will also refer inmates facing marital issues for counselling with the Strengthening Families Programme @ Family Service Centre, or FAM@FSC.

Efforts to educate young people on the harms of drugs and vaping will be ramped up to prevent substance abuse.

Mr Chua noted that young people now have more permissive attitudes towards drugs, with some asking, for instance, why Singapore cannot legalise cannabis.

He likened drugs to fire, recalling how he was taught in primary school that “fire is a good servant, but a bad master”, and stressed how drug abuse can destroy families and lives.

The Health Promotion Board, together with the Central Narcotics Bureau, is working with the Ministry of Social and Family Development to get social service agencies to equip parents with the knowledge and skills to protect young people from substance abuse.

A new anti-drug campaign will be launched in 2024, Mr Chua added.

He noted a rising trend of vaping among young people here. He said research has found that teenagers who have never smoked cigarettes but who use e-cigarettes are at least twice as likely to smoke cigarettes later in life.

There is also the risk that young people would experiment with drugs and other substances after trying vaping, he said.

The recommendations submitted to the Government by NCPR have been accepted, and are being implemented by various agencies.