Put adult offenders under probation

THE probation department within the Home Ministry should encourage rehabilitation of offenders which would indirectly reduce overcrowding in prisons.

Less than a decade ago, Malaysia’s criminal justice system took a step forward in the treatment and rehabilitation of convicted offenders by placing them under parole. Parole is the early conditional release of selected convicted offenders from a prison.

In this nation, parole is granted by the parole board based within the prison’s department. Thus, based on established predetermined criteria, selected eligible offenders are put on parole before their maximum prison sentence is served.

The irony is that in this nation, we established a parole department without first establishing a probation department for adult offenders.

In most nations, both of these departments are established concurrently.

In situations where both departments are not developed concurrently, a probation department is typically set up prior to the setting up of a parole department.

In Malaysia, the concept of probation does exist; however the primary focus is on juvenile offenders and problematic children who are supervised and monitored by social welfare officers.

Probation proceeds on the theory that the best way to pursue this goal is to orient the criminal sanction towards community setting. An offender is more likely to learn how to live successfully in the general community if he or she is dealt with in that community, rather than shipped off to a prison.

Cutting them off from society is not the way to integrate a first-time non-serious offender into society. This is of course not to say that probation should be used in all cases, or that it will produce better results.

There are many goals of sentencing, some of which may require the imposition of a sentence to imprisonment in a given case.

There are offenders for whom forced removal from the environment that may have contributed to their crime can be the best beginning to a constructive and productive life. Probation is an affirmative correctional tool, a tool that is used not because it offers maximum benefit to the offenders, but because it offers maximum benefit to the public that is supposed to be served by the sentencing of criminals.

Research findings by most experts worldwide clearly illustrate that incarcerating an offender, especially in an overcrowded prison, almost guarantees that he or she will emerge a more dangerous person or to an essentially unsupervised probation. Such a state of affairs represents weakness in the criminal justice system. Policy makers must pay more attention by providing adequate correctional choices to those agencies which operate within the criminal justice structure.

Prior to the offender being sentenced and placed on probation, a pre-sentence report is prepared by a probation officer.

The pre-sentence investigation (PSI) report will be the source of information on which courts base their sentence and it is one of the major contributions of probation to the administration and management of criminal justice.

The primary purpose of the PSI is to provide the sentencing court with timely, relevant and accurate data of the offender on which to base a justified and rational sentencing decision.

Furthermore, the PSI also assists prisons in their classification of inmates, institutional programming and release planning.

Probation and parole officers can use it in their supervision efforts. The PSI may also serve as a source of information for scientific research and related policy decision-making.

Based on current needs to treat and rehabilitate first-time non-serious offenders and to reduce overcrowding in prisons, our criminal justice system has no choice but to be more effective.

There is a great need and justification to establish a probation department within our criminal justice system.

The proposed probation department must be adequately funded and staffed by qualified probation officers.

Most of all, the proposed probation department must be independent from the prisons department.

Within such a context, probation can lead to significant improvement in the preventive effects of the criminal law at much lower cost than the typical prison sentence.

This has been proven in other nations where it has been given a chance to work.

We should not treat lightly an approach to crime control strategy that offers the hope of better results and success stories at less cost and in reducing recidivism. ASSOC PROF P. SUNDRAMOORTHY Universiti Sains Malaysia