KUALA LUMPUR — Around 20,000 prison inmates will be eligible for employment next year under an agreement between the Home and Human Resources ministries to allow employers to hire offenders of less serious crimes.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said this would reduce prison overcapacity by 8% in prisons nationwide. Currently, there are 87,000 inmates in facilities which have capacity for only 74,000.
“There are criteria to follow. Inmates involved in serious crimes like murder and rape will not be considered.
“This initiative applies to those with lighter offences. In 2025, about 20,000 prospects will be eligible for employment,” Bernama reported him saying after a joint meeting between the Home Minister and the Human Resource Minister on foreign worker management, yesterday.
The joint decision by both ministries is aimed at expediting the prospects’ reintegration into society and reducing dependency on foreign workers, Saifuddin Nasution added.
The government under the present administration has been working towards a restorative justice system and to reduce the long-standing problem of congestion in prisons.
Part of this effort includes plans to table a bill to allow house arrest for certain types of prisoners. Amid controversy that it was aimed at enabling former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib to serve his sentence for corruption at home, Saifuddin Nasution said that it would be applied to prisoners under remand who are awaiting court hearings.
The government last year also scrapped the mandatory death penalty and natural life prison sentences, allowing those on death row to appeal and giving courts the discretion to decide on the death penalty. – November 20, 2024