Lutheran Community Care Services (LCCS) 6th Restorative Practice Conference 2025 – Speech by Mr Edwin Tong, Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs

Good morning,

Bishop Anthony Loh, Chairman of the LCCS Board of Directors,

Mr Justin Mui, Executive Director of LCCS,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

1. Very warm welcome to all of you, I am very glad to be here to lend support to you in furtherance of restorative practices.

2. This morning, I would like to speak a little bit of why we see this as a very important aspect of the justice framework in Singapore. Many, particularly first timers to Singapore, might sometimes assume that our laws are rigid – you can't chew gum, can't do this, can't do that. Actually, there is a very strong rehabilitative and restorative ethos that underpins our justice framework. In our view, that is as important, if not, in a sense, from the accused and the offender’s perspective, more important than the hard aspect of the framework. I say that because when you look at the recidivism rates around the world, it is not coming down. In Singapore, we look at these rates as one indicator when we measure the efficacy of the system. We pay a lot of attention to it, because reintegration back into society, giving second chances and allowing the offender to have a sense of purpose when he or she is back in society is a really important element to the whole framework.

3. With those prefacing words, let me go into why I believe the work that is being done here, the volunteers and the many people who stand behind the work is important.

Progress of Restorative Practices in Singapore

4. In the recent decades around the world, restorative practices have gained global attention as an alternative to traditional models of punitive justice.

5. What is restorative practice?  Well, it includes healing over punishment, dialogue over silence, and community over isolation.

6. If you look around the world today, at conflicts from so many different regions around the world  in an increasingly divided world, Singapore’s ability to sustain a harmonious multiracial and multicultural society where we are able to find our own space and practise our religion, live our faith and pursue our heritage to the fullest extent is something that is meaningful and stands out.

7. Unity amidst diversity has been, and remains, a key pillar to Singapore’s success and stability. A big part of maintaining this unity stems from fundamental values that we have, and we share with one another as an Asian society – harmony, respect, interdependence. These same values are the foundational values of restorative practices.

8. It is therefore unsurprising that restorative practices have been integrated into our systems and institutions over the decades. Let me just walk you through a history.

9. In the late 1990s, the Government explored non-adversarial dispute resolution methods in Singapore, such as mediation. In fact, today, mediation is very much a key pillar of our justice system. In 2019, Singapore was the mover of the Singapore Convention on Mediation. In Singapore's context, this was our first such convention with a major buy-in from around the world. The Juvenile Court that we have in Singapore embraced restorative justice as its guiding philosophy for dealing with juvenile offenders.

10. In the early 2000s, restorative practices were piloted in schools as part of behavioural management. This pilot achieved very positive results, and schools saw a sharper reduction in disciplinary referrals and infractions.

11. One decade later, in the 2010s, community-based sentences, which have restorative elements, were introduced. Unlike traditional sentencing options which require the offender to be separated from the community, both physically and socially, community-based sentences focus on bringing the offender back into community and rehabilitating the offender in the same space in the community where the offence took place. I believe this is a valuable sentencing option for lower-risk offenders who commit less serious offences.

12. Now in the 2020s, restorative practices continue to be present in our systems and in our institutions. Our Family Justice Courts operates on principles of therapeutic justice, with an emphasis on counselling, and on mediation, as well as interest-based problem solving over fault-finding. These principles are very much aligned with the principles of restorative practices. Such elements have also in our law books been codified in the Family Justice Act 2014, strengthened by amendments introduced more recently in the Family Justice Reform Act 2023.

13. The Singapore Prison Service also integrates restorative practices in their offender rehabilitation and reintegration programmes. Crimes often have a relational element. Such offences and such crimes often hurt the offender’s family as well. In such instances, there is a need to repair the damaged familial bonds even while meting out justice.

14. The progress of restorative practices in Singapore shows that the Government, over time, deeply recognises the immense value of preserving relationships. When an offence has been committed, the weight of the law must come to bear on the offence and the offender, restore justice to the victim; and find a way in which we reflect the social values and the social mores that stand behind each of these offences. The idea is, after this has been concluded, how do we reintegrate and bring the offender back into the community?

Restorative Practices require a Whole-of-Society Approach

15. Over the last few decades as I have sketched out, we have been increasingly stepping up on introducing restorative practises into our framework.  However, there is room to do more. A big part of restorative practices is learning and growing from the experiences of others, which is what this conference seeks to do.

16. Today, one challenge we face, especially in a chronically online society, is radicalisation. Restorative Journeys, an Australian training and consultancy services provider, was contracted by the South Australian Government to design restorative processes to engage individuals at risk of radicalisation. This approach involves their families and their wider communities coming together, which helps to build inclusion and reduce isolation.

17. Policing has also changed drastically over the past few decades. There is an increased awareness of the importance of the quality of the interaction between law enforcement and the individual citizen, whether that individual citizen is the offender or the victim, there is a closer degree of interaction. For example, officers from the Serious Sexual Crime Branch of the Singapore Police Force undergo specialised training to investigate sexual crimes, adopting a highly victim-centric approach based on empathy and building trust. On the other end of the spectrum, an Appropriate Adult is activated in cases involving vulnerable suspects, such as youths under the age of 18 and persons with mental disabilities, persons who might not be able to speak or stand for themselves. We assign an Appropriate Adult for all those cases.

18. As you can see, the framework is not just victim-centred or victim-biased. It is victim-centric because we look at how we can deal with an offence from the perspective of the victim, but we very much pay attention to what we can do for the offender as well.

Community Partnerships

19. Restorative practices, however, cannot be done by the Government alone. It requires partnerships, and a sustained degree of building up thought-leadership within the community. For this, I am grateful for partners like LCCS, who have spearheaded many projects over the years to facilitate restorative processes between individuals and their respective communities.

20. Let me highlight two examples. First, over the quick breakfast, we were chatting about Project Restore. Project Restore was launched in 2018 and it is a partnership between LCCS and the State Courts. It aims to divert community disputes away from the criminal justice process. At an early stage, parties are referred to LCCS, where they can hear each other out in a neutral setting. This is an alternative that brings people together and helps to mend relationships, without descending into the invariably adversarial nature of courtroom proceedings.

21. In Singapore, we live in close proximity to one another. That proximity and closeness, is good and useful to build relations. However, when you do have an infraction, a conflict, noise or hoarding or hygiene, that takes on a dimension. We have come to the view that the earlier we are able to intervene upstream, the less likely it is that you will descend into something that is deeply intransigent and highly emotive; and gives us the best chance of being able to resolve it.

22. We have learnt from Project Restore – we have introduced recently in our legal framework a new community dispute management framework which allows us to intervene further upstream, require the parties to go for mandatory conciliation and mediation, and also having a suite of different measures across the spectrum to deal with such neighbourly disputes.

23. Another example is Project Rekindle, which was launched in 2022 as a partnership between LCCS and the Singapore Prison Service. As its name suggests, this project aims to reconnect inmates with their families during their period of incarceration. Restorative practices have a real impact on real people. It is important sometimes to tell these stories so that we can personify the impact that restorative practices have on individuals. So, let me take a few moments to share some stories.

24. Take Chin Yong for example, a 43-year-old inmate who is currently serving his sentence for drug-related offences. Chin Yong’s relationship with his family was strained almost inevitably due to his drug abuse and subsequent incarceration.

25. During his incarceration, Chin Yong was introduced to Empatherapy, a restorative practice initiative by the Singapore Prison Service, where inmates meet weekly to have conversations that focus on building relationships with each other.

26. From a participant, Chin Yong progressed to become an Empatherapy Peer Supporter in prison. His experiences with the initiative have helped him to work on and overcome personal issues that he had been struggling with, which in turn improved his relationships with fellow inmates and prison officers.

27. Restorative practices also repaired Chin Yong’s relationship with his own family, in particular his parents. It was not easy to introduce these concepts to them, as they had a more traditional outlook on relationships. It is a deeply Asian system in Singapore, where there is a traditional role for family, parents, child, children, and sometimes it takes a bit to overcome those traditional precepts. Regardless, he persevered and was eventually able to freely discuss topics that were previously considered too sensitive or perhaps taboo, to be able to mend old wounds. This was especially poignant for Chin Yong, whose father was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer while he was incarcerated and has since passed away.

28. After Chin Yong’s release, he hopes to be able to return to prison – not as an inmate, but as a social worker to find other ways to pay it forward.

29. These stories and the many more out there tell us that this is worth pursuing, this is worth doing. For every individual you are able to reach out to and restore, the impact that he or she can make downstream in paying it forward is exponential.

Conclusion

30. Indeed, incorporating restorative practices in our systems requires a whole-of society approach – not just Government alone, not just civil service, but from Government to grassroots to volunteers and everyone within the spectrum. The presence of everyone here today is really heartening and shows that we are headed in the right direction.

31. I look forward to our continued growth and partnership together in the future, to build a society where relationships, Government, community, and justice can collectively come together to form a stronger, more cohesive bond, and in turn, through these partnerships, we can build a harmonious and cohesive nation.

32. I wish all of you a very fruitful conference today.

33. Thank you very much.