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Managing Prisons and Rehabilitation

MHA works closely with the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) and the Yellow Ribbon Singapore (YRSG) on the management of prisons, and the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.

Together with our community partners, we are committed to rehabilitating offenders and reintegrating them as responsible and contributing members of society.

 

What We Do


We work towards giving offenders a second chance in life through:

Safe and Secure Custody - SPS ensures the safe and secure custody of offenders under their care.

Rehabilitation - We adopt a throughcare approach in the rehabilitation of offenders. That is, we address the risks and needs of offenders while they are in prison and follow through with them in the community after their release. Offenders are equipped with relevant knowledge and employable skills through various programmes such as psychology-based correctional programmes, education, family programmes, work programmes, skills training and religious services.

Reintegration - We help offenders reintegrate into the community upon their release. SPS places suitable offenders on community-based programmes that allow them to serve the remainder of their sentence in the community under supervision. Yellow Ribbon Singapore also provides job coaching, placement services and job retention support.

Legislation

For the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, the legislative framework includes the following:

 

Initiatives


Singapore Prison Service

SPS has embarked on a new journey of transformation through the Corrections 2025 masterplan, which is aligned to the overall Home Team Transformation 2025 framework. SPS' Corrections 2025 masterplan encompasses three key strategies:


Harnessing technology will improve prison operations and enable staff to perform their duties more effectively. Key initiatives include using facial recognition technology to automate muster checks and providing shared tablets to inmates to allow them to access a suite of rehabilitative applications.


Expanding community corrections will help offenders reintegrate successfully. Initiatives include programmes to strengthen the involvement of the family unit and the community in the supervisees’ reintegration.

 
Besides being a place of incarceration, the prison will also be a place of transformation. Inmates are encouraged to take greater ownership of their own rehabilitation journey. For example, SPS' My Action Plan (MAP) tool lets offenders to chart and track their own rehabilitation needs and progress, with guidance from officers. SPS has also expanded its academic tracks to include polytechnic diploma courses, on top of GCE level curriculum.



Yellow Ribbon Singapore

To help offenders reintegrate into the workforce, Yellow Ribbon Singapore adopts a seamless approach to prepare offenders for employment. The approach covers:


Yellow Ribbon Singapore proactively reaches out to potential employers and works with them to employ suitable offenders. It also engage employers to offer offenders attractive, market-relevant job opportunities that are resilient to economic downturns.


Yellow Ribbon Singapore administers nationally-accredited skills training to offenders to enhance their employability. The training offered is aligned with the SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) Skills Framework, targeting 3 levels: employability skills, industry knowledge and skills, and occupational skills.

 
Yellow Ribbon Singapore matches offenders with jobs based on the job fit between their needs and employers' job requirements. It helps them to stay on the job by assigning a job coach to each ex-offender at work for up to 12 months after their release.

 

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