THE RIGHT TO HEALTH IN PRISON:
RESULTS OF A NATIONWIDE SURVEY AND REPORT
Mental Health (Q: 2569)
3.34 Table 9 below shows that 69 per cent of male prisoners (3,130) stated they
were healthy in terms of their mental health while 9 per cent (424 male
prisoners) stated that they were unhealthy. 72 per cent of female prisoners
(533) reported being mentally healthy.
Table 9: Mental Health based on Gender
Men
Women
Total
Healthy mental
level
Satisfactory
mental level
Unhealthy
mental level
Total
196 (3.6% of the
total 5479)
No response
Source: Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, 2014
3.35 According to the type of imprisonment, 60 per cent of prisoners on remand
(568 prisoners) stated that they were mentally healthy while 17 per cent
(158 prisoners) stated that they were unhealthy. Conversely, 72 per cent
(3023) of sentenced prisoners answered that they were mentally healthy
while 8 per cent (334) felt unhealthy in terms of their mental health (Table
10).
Table 10: Mental Health based on Type of Imprisonment
Remand
Convicted
Total
Healthy mental
level
Satisfactory
mental level
Unhealthy
mental level
Total
305 (5.6% of the
total 5479)
No response
69
Source: Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, 2014
In question 25, respondents were asked about their mental health. Answer choices were either healthy, satisfactory or
unhealthy.
44