KAJANG – Approximately 10,000 inmates who will be going to the Parole System Programme, Licensed Release of Prisoners Programme and Resident Reintegration Programme will be placed in industries to fill up vacancies left by foreign workers.
The programmes would also serve as an alternative to overcome the congestion in the prisons.
Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said that it is one of the government’s initiatives in caring for the prisoners who are eligible to serve their sentence through the community rehabilitation programme.
“Approximately 80 percent of them will be involved in the industry and we are confident that it would be able to fill the vacancies of the foreign workers,” he said during the launch of the 232nd Malaysian Prisons Day today.
Also present at the ceremony was the Commissioner General of Prisons Department, Datuk Nordin Muhamad and the Secretary-General of the Home Ministry, Datuk Seri Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz.
Hamzah added, through the programme, the government can save RM182 million per year in prison management cost.
Its ministry is very confident that the target can be reached based on the achievement of over 7,000 inmates undergoing the Community Rehabilitation programme in 2021.
“From the opportunity given by the community, 99.63 percent of them successfully mended their ways and did not repeat their mistakes or return to jail,” he said.
Elaborating further, Hamzah emphasized that his ministry will remain committed in ensure the safety and welfare of the people.
Meanwhile, the Prisons Department will also be increasing its District Parole Offices to 100 compared to the 52 they have currently.
“Congratulations to the Prisons Department on your efforts and initiatives to achieve the target of 2/3 inmates to undergo the rehabilitation programme in the community by 2030,” he said.
As of 21 March 2022, there were 70,570 prisoners nationwide when the actual capacity could only house approximately 63,000 inmates. Throughout the pandemic the number of inmates reached 65,000 individuals but it was successfully reduced to 56,068 through the rehabilitation programme.
Meanwhile, Hamzah said that KDN is committed to implement alternative prison sentence and had tabulated the Compulsory Attendance Order (CAO) (Amendment) Bill 2021 in December 2021. It is expected to be passed in the Parliament for the second and third readings.
According to Hamzah, the Order enables the court to hand out alternative punishment besides jail for the offenders, based on their offence. -MalaysiaGazette
