Rehabilitate addicts, don’t punish them, says lawyer

 

Sangeet Kaur Deo says that with prisons running at 200% capacity, minor drug offenders need to be rehabilitated rather than thrown into jail.

PETALING JAYA: The country has to shift towards a more rehabilitative system from the current punitive one to better manage drug offenders, who make up the largest component in Malaysia’s overcrowded prisons.

Lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo, who is part of the all party parliamentary group for the reform of all places of detention (APPGM), said prisons were “running up to 200% over capacity” and that 60% of inmates were minor drug users.

Incarceration, she said, does not address the issue of drug use in the country.

“To address that, you would be looking into an entire policy reform and that must translate into legislation.

“Currently, our drug laws for possession, even for use, send you straight into prison and that is not the answer,” she said in an interview on Astro Awani discussing prison reform.

Asked if there were other mechanisms such as a parole system to deal with overcrowding prisons, Sangeet said the Prison Act 1995 provided for such an options.

Minor offenders, where the prison sentence comes up to a year, can be given early release and parole.

However, despite these processes being available, Sangeet felt there were “bottlenecks” and the prisons needed help.

“That would involve a network of government agencies stepping in to ensure reintegration into the community, which is an essential element in crime prevention.”

Sangeet went on to say that the pardons board system, which relates to the King’s discretion to grant a pardon, is “not very transparent”.

She explained that there was no fixed system or timing for the board to sit.

“So, you could end up waiting years and years for your pardon to be considered.

“That in itself is rather ineffective and there is no real system.” - FMT