provided by certain prisons. For instance, literacy classes were available for prisoners to
learn basic literacy skills and language, but only a few who took initiative and effort and
requested the authorities to make the necessary arrangements had the opportunities to
complete disrupted secondary education according to the national curriculum or higher
studies.
Religious and spiritual education is viewed as the primary tool of rehabilitation and is the
main programme which prisons attempted to organise, although this was primary facilitated
for followers of Buddhism. Other methods, such group counselling and drug rehabilitation,
are not conducted uniformly across all prisons, but are conducted on a small scale in
institutions where the administration collaborated with external entities. Vocational
training programmes offered in prison include masonry, brick-making, cultivation and
welding. These programmes point to the need to diversify skills so that prisoners are not
limited to seeking low-paying occupations upon release and thus have a limited potential to
restart their life and become economically self-sufficient. Aside from that, existing
rehabilitation programmes are also underfunded and therefore inmates were observed
working with old fashioned tools, broken equipment and without skilled instructors to guide
them. These factors also discouraged prisoners from fully engaging in and committing to the
programmes. This limits the potential positive impact of prison rehabilitation programmes
on prisoners, and their ability to curb released prisoners from resorting to further crime.
Of all those who are part of the criminal justice system, the Commission found that
Rehabilitation Officers and prison officers strongly believed in the capacity of prisoners to
reform and understood the potential benefits of effective rehabilitation programmes in
prison. However, their vision is hindered by systemic barriers. The lack of funding and
resources, particularly the lack of Rehabilitation and Counselling officers, is seen as the
primary impediment to effective rehabilitation in prison, compounded by the reluctance of
external organizations to collaborate with prisons. This highlights the need for an attitudinal
change so that the government and society view prisons as correctional facilities where
prisoners can be rehabilitated, rather than punitive institutions, with commensurate
increase in investment, both financial and human resources, in rehabilitation programmes.
Rehabilitation Officers themselves stated that they require more training on effective
methods of correctional policy. Currently, there is minimal follow up and evaluation carried
out to measure the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes in prison and ways in which
they can be improved. The primary reason for this is that the cadre for Rehabilitation Officers
is not adequate to perform the many functions of the Rehabilitation Division.
These shortcomings were echoed by prisoners who stated they do not feel they are spending
the time in prison productively as rehabilitation opportunities are not targeted towards
ensuring prisoners are disinclined to reoffend upon release, thus putting at risk the core
purpose of incarceration – the prevention of crime.
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