Reduce number of prisoners, not build more prisons — Liew

KOTA KINABALU: The country should focus more on reducing the number of prisoners rather than building more prisons, said de facto Law Minister Datuk Liew Vui Keong.

Elaborating on the Federal Government’s call to abolish the death penalty, Liew said that one of the ‘key performance indicators (KPIs)’ for the nation right now should be to stop the number of prisoners from further increasing.

“We have a total of 66, 222 inmates in all of our prisons, nationwide, and 46, 000 of them - equivalent to 56 per cent - are all drug-related offenders.

“A total of 1, 281 out of the 66, 222 prisoners are on death row – waiting to be executed at this very moment. However, since the Federal Government has decided to abolish the death penalty, I have issued a moratorium to halt these executions, whilst waiting for the government to pass the bill.

“Is it our KPI to build more prisons to accommodate these 66, 222 prisoners? According to the Prisons Department, the number is increasing by 10 per cent, each year.

“I think it is wrong and a misconception to think that we should build more prisons to accommodate prisoners. Our KPI should be to reduce the number of prisoners so that we wouldn’t have to build more prisons,” said Liew during his speech at the closing of a forum by the Council for Restorative Justice Sabah (CRJS) on Friday.

Liew pointed out that 932 out of the 1,281 death row inmates were convicted drug traffickers.

The remaining 300 or so comprised convicted murderers, convicted kidnappers and those convicted of carrying firearms, he pointed out.

“Out of the 300, 19 of them are from here, convicted of intrusion in Lahad Datu a few years back,” he said.