SPS-YRSG Corporate Advance 2025 – Speech by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information and Second Minister for Home Affairs

My Parliamentary colleague, Associate Professor Faishal Ibrahim

Commissioner of Prisons, Shie Yong Lee,

Chief Executive of Yellow Ribbon Singapore (YRSG), Sunny Lee

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. Good morning. Thank you for making time to join us. In fact, having watched a rousing and comprehensive video, I almost feel that the speech is not quite necessary. But please bear with me, because there are a number of things that is taking place within our corrections ecosystem that are worthy of reaffirmation.

Introduction

2. First, we should note some of the very good results that have been achieved jointly with our partners.

3. Between Singapore Prison Service (SPS) and YRSG, we've been able to keep the two-year recidivism rate low. For the 2022 release cohort, it is 21.3%, one of the lowest in the world. It's very hard to find this kind of recidivism rates anywhere in the world.

4. The five-year recidivism rate, which is a new threshold that was introduced just a few years ago – because we said we have to try and do better and look at what happens after two years of our release; let's try and see what happens after five years – that rate continues to decline.  If you look at the 2015 release cohort,  the five-year recidivism 41.7%, and if you look at the 2019 release cohort, the five-year recidivism was 36.6%. So, well done and thank you to everyone who has helped make this happen.

5. The significant progress is the result of our collective efforts. We are very grateful to the staff of SPS and YRSG, but also to our community partners, volunteers, and the employers.

Theme of Corporate Advance 2025

6. Last year, SPS and YRSG launched Corrections 2030, and a lot of the initiatives were covered in the video. It is an important and decisive shift in our approach to corrections – to go beyond securing the inmate and providing basic rehabilitation support, to an all-hands-on-deck effort to uplift inmates and their families.

7. Today, I will speak more on two aspects of the work, which is also the theme of Corporate Advance 2025 – “Forward Corrections: Innovate and Collaborate”.

8. First, we will expand and enhance partnerships to strengthen family and community support for inmates and ex-offenders.

9. Second, we will make even better use of technology to perform our operations more efficiently, and achieve better rehabilitation outcomes.

Partnerships, Particularly With Families and Community

10. We put priority on working with the families, because they are an important source of motivation for the inmates to persist on their journey of change. We want inmates to remain in contact with their family throughout their incarceration.

11. SPS is therefore working with community partners on two key initiatives:

12. First, SPS will be setting up two new Satellite Visit Centres at New Hope Community Services and Kaki Bukit Community Club by the end of 2025. This will bring the total number of partner-operated Satellite Visit Centres to eight, complementing the existing five Prison Link Centres that are run by the SPS itself. These two new additions will provide greater convenience for family members to stay in touch with their loved ones in prison via televisits.

13. The other initiative is the Autonomous Televisit System, jointly developed by SPS and HTX (Home Team Science & Technology Agency). These are essentially self-service pods which do not have to be managed by staff. Visitors can enter a cubicle-like facility and register for the televisit on their own. The system will perform identity checks before allowing the televisit to proceed.

14. SPS will be conducting a trial of the self-service pod at the premises of New Life Stories.  If viable, more pods will be installed at the premises of community partners across Singapore. The benefit goes beyond making family interactions more accessible and convenient. It also increases the touchpoints between the families and the community partners that SPS works with. When they go for the televisits, the families can at the same time, avail themselves to the support programmes offered by our partners.

15. So, I want to thank all of our partners, for embarking on this meaningful collaboration with SPS.

16. SPS is also working on strengthening the quality and depth of family interactions.

17. It will be piloting the Family Engagement Programme in selected prison institutions. The programme emphasises the importance of inmates playing a positive role in their family even during incarceration, to strengthen familial ties and motivate them towards change. The inmates will get to participate in joint family sessions, and practise what they have learnt from the rehabilitation programmes they have attended, as they discuss family matters and reintegration plans.

18. In addition, SPS will encourage inmates who have completed the Family Engagement Programme to pay it forward, by acting as peer supporters to co-lead support groups alongside community partners.

19. One good example is Lezan, whose journey of desistance had been helped by strong family ties and community support. Lezan had been incarcerated nine times since 1987, serving a total of 35 years for drug-related activities. You can imagine that there will be so many episodes in family life that Lezan was not able to participate in – he did not know what went on in the family; he was unable to contribute to decision making; he was unable to keep up with all the happenings that will eventually impact how he reintegrates with the family and society. Throughout his multiple incarcerations, his loved ones however, remained steadfast in their support for him and visited him regularly.

20. Community partners supported his transition back into society. Selarang Halfway House, Pertapis Halfway House, and the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association assisted him to secure suitable accommodation, and gave him career guidance. They never gave up on him even though he reoffended several times. They persisted, believing that slowly but surely, they were helping Lezan to change his mindset and break away from the cycle of crime. Lezan said that their support had been instrumental in his reintegration journey.

21. Paying it forward, Lezan is now helping others as Head of Programmes at Goal Aspirations, a recovery support group. Goal Aspirations partners organisations such as FITRAH and Agents of Change, which is an anti-drug advocacy group, to provide dry rations monthly to needy households.

22. Lezan also serves as para counsellor and befriender at Jamiyah Halfway House, sharing his experience to inspire others toward change.

23. Lezan’s story is a powerful testament of how second chances, together with family and community support, can transform lives.

24. Lezan is here with us today. Lezan, please stand and take a bow for being such an inspiration to all of us. Congratulations to you as well as your family.

25. SPS is also committed to enhancing its partners’ capabilities, by empowering them with the knowledge and skillsets to better support inmates and ex-offenders, because this work cannot be done by SPS and YRSG alone.

26. We always say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to integrate an ex-inmate into society.

27. Earlier this year, SPS launched an enhanced training and development framework for our partners. The enhancements include providing different training pathways for volunteers and partners, to enable a more tailored approach in meeting their lifelong learning needs.

28. To better support new volunteers, SPS will work with the Social Service Institute to introduce a suite of foundational e-learning modules and classroom courses. Under this partnership that has been established, we will make available more than 3,400 training spaces for new volunteers over the next three years.

29. In a later segment of today’s Corporate Advance, we will celebrate the new halfway house service model, also known as HSM+. The new model will benefit eleven halfway house partners and the supervisees emplaced on community-based programmes at the houses.

30. Two new partners, Yellow Ribbon Industries and HCSA Community Services, were onboarded in 2025 onto HSM+. They provide secular step-down support for supervisees emplaced at Selarang Halfway House and HCSA Highpoint Halfway House respectively.

31. The new service model will improve aftercare support for supervisees in a few ways.

32. There will be an increased frequency of engagements and a longer duration of support for the supervisees. This will make it easier for supervisees to seek assistance from the Halfway House staff even after they are discharged.

33. Halfway house staff can look forward to more training and upskilling opportunities. They will be able to undergo relevant training courses aimed at enabling them to work more effectively with different profiles of supervisees, including the elderly.

Improve Employability of Inmates

34. Employment is a key enabler for successful reintegration and long-term desistance. YRSG will continue to lead efforts on this front.

35. Aside from equipping inmates with nationally accredited skills aligned with Singapore’s Skills Framework, YRSG’s other focus is on supporting the career aspirations of inmates and ex-offenders.

36. Through the “Career Circles” programme introduced in 2023, YRSG helps inmates better understand career-related issues, such as challenges commonly faced at work, and how to address them.

37. Imagine for many of us at the workplace, we already feel pressure and stress in keeping up with all the changes. Imagine what it must be like when an inmate that has had to step away from work and then coping with all the adjustments needed to get back into the fold of family, and at the same time get back into the fold of the workplace.

38. YRSG, therefore, has enhanced this programme that we have introduced as “Career Circles”, and we did so in February. The programme is now conducted earlier in the inmate’s incarceration. In some sense, at a point in their time with us, that is not so far down the road,  near to where they have to really return to society, but actually earlier so that they don't lose the memory; don’t lose the sense of what's already happening in the workplace. This allows inmates to chart their career goals earlier on, and have more in-depth conversations to improve their employment prospects after release. In other words, set the goals early so that they have time to accomplish those goals.

39. YRSG also provides support for employers, and this is so important. The reason is because even if your heart is willing, there are many challenges in working with individuals who have gone through a traumatic experience. But how do we enable them to succeed in these deployments?

40. In 2022, YRSG introduced the “Project Beyond Hiring” programme, to engage, train and build a network of workplace supervisors.

41. In 2024, YRSG worked with a training academy to develop a customised course on “Fostering Inclusion at the Workplace” for employers of ex-offenders. YRSG has received positive feedback about the programme and will conduct more runs of the course this year.

Leverage Technology to Improve Operational Efficiency and Rehabilitation Outcomes

42. Let me turn now to another important topic, which is how we can better use technology to fulfil the purposes of rehabilitation.

43. Using technology is another key strategy for Corrections 2030.

44. Technology will improve SPS’s operational efficiency, and free up officers’ time to do more meaningful work, such as in purposeful engagement with inmates and working on their rehabilitative needs.

45. On the healthcare front, SPS will work with its partners, SingHealth and Changi General Hospital, to adopt technology in various ways. This is especially important given that the inmate population is also ageing. We expect this to lead to greater demand for healthcare, including specialist medical care.

46. To reduce external movements to hospitals which are actually very resource intensive, SPS will expand tele-consultations to a wider range of specialist medical care. This will allow SPS to deliver medical services to our inmates more efficiently, without compromising the quality of care.

47. In addition, SPS is collaborating with HTX to trial the use of smart sensors in SPS’s medical wards and medical observation cells, to remotely monitor inmates’ life signs.

48. Currently, inmates housed in medical wards are monitored through physical patrols by prison officers and rounds by medical professionals.

49. Smart sensors, mounted on the walls of medical wards and selected prison cells, can remotely monitor the vital signs of inmates, such as breathing rate, and detect events such as falls and abnormal heart rates.

50. The Life Signs Monitoring System will complement the physical patrols and medical rounds. Operating together, they will enhance SPS’s ability to respond quickly to emergencies and render medical interventions more promptly.

51. I was also happy to hear that SPS and YRSG staff have developed over 200 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bots to automate routine administrative tasks. Well done. I know you're not trained in RPA, but the fact that you are able to do so speaks to your willingness to experiment and the culture that encourages continuous improvement. Well, I suppose the motivation is that it has saved you over 8,000 man-hours every year. So, kudos to the SPS and YRSG officers. Well done!

Conclusion

52. Let me conclude. As we move forward, let us reaffirm our commitment to continue collaborating in the rehabilitation of ex-offenders.

53. Together, we can better unlock their potential, rebuild their lives, and create a safer Singapore, and truly bring to life a vision of second chances.

54. I wish all of you a very fruitful Corporate Advance 2025.

55. Thank you.