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Law and Order lessons from the MerLion

What Singapore is doing right - and what we can learn from that

I would like to thank Queenie Chia from the Singapore Police Headquarters at New Phoenix Park for her assistance in arranging a visit for me to the Singapore Police Heritage Centre and rescheduling it when I made a mistake about the time. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Mr Pang Sab, a retired Police Officer who gave me a personal guided tour of the Police Heritage Centre and also was very helpful in answering my endless stream of questions.

The Merlion - half lion, half mermaid - is the current mascot and symbol of Singapore, a successful and prosperous city state located at the bottom of the Malay peninsula, less than 150 km's north of the equator. With 4,240,000 (mid 2004 estimate) people crammed into just 685 square km, comprising three main ethnic groups, Chinese (76.8%), Malays (13.9%), Indians (7.9%), and Eurasians and smaller minority groups (1.4%), all with differing religious affiliations and quite different cultures - Singapore could potentially be a strife ridden and chaotic place, as it indeed once was.

However since the 1950's it has gradually become one of the safest, and most peaceful places on earth. This was not achieved overnight. All the same it is worth asking ourselves how this has been accomplished and what we can learn from them, as they have built a harmonious and functional multicultural society, and we are facing many of the the same challenges in our own increasingly multicultural society.

Sentencing and Parole

While there recently I took the opportunity to visit the Singapore Subsidiary Court (similar to one of our district courts) and watch Singapore justice in action. Unfortunately the Supreme Court was closed as it was being shifted to new premises. I witnessed a sentencing session where twenty offenders were dispatched in the space of less than an hour. And the sentences were tough - much tougher than would be the case here.

For instance;

• Shoplifting goods to the value of S$45 - three months
• Four assaults - 30 months each - to be served consecutively, not concurrently as would happen here, making a total of 90 months - that's over 7 and a half years. And, the offender was warned that if there was a next time, he would be receiving preventative detention.
• A sexual assault - ten years

A number of other offenders with shoplifting and other relatively minor charges, plus some with drugs charges were also sentenced. In all cases sentences varied from six weeks up (for a first offender)

The local papers have court pages which were also revealing. A man with previous convictions for armed robbery and housebreaking who vandalised a welfare home in which he had been placed, doing $4000 damage, was sentenced to 42 months in jail - and eight strokes of the cane. Another repeat offender who stole numerous ATM cards and withdrew $25,000 from them was sentenced to eight years. It would be interesting to see how some NZ offenders would fare there - they certainly would not ever get the opportunity to rack up 50-100 offences and then go on to kill someone as Stephen Williams did for example.

I also sat in upon another court session dealing with mostly traffic matters - these seemed to be treated somewhat more leniently, but even so, once an offender had been given a couple of chances to pay fines, no further quarter was given. Another thing I could not help but notice about the court on arrival - there were none of the intimidating lowlifes hanging around that are often found lounging around outside NZ courts. And there was no graffiti inside or outside the court.

There is also an expectation that at least long trousers and a dress shirt will be worn in court by everybody - this on a day when it was 32 degrees with 99% humidity. It was a hassle in one respect (I had to go back to my hotel and change), but also a refreshing change from the NZ justice system too, where it is common to see offenders that have not bothered to take any care about their appearance and sometimes even wearing gang patches.

Now the really interesting aspect to this is that in Singapore there is NO parole. The concept is unheard of, at least to the man in the street with no specialist interest in such matters. Instead, there is supervision at the end of a sentence, which can last for two, three or four or more years, depending on the nature of the original offence and the performance of the offender. Supervision will include such things as curfews, restrictions on movement, restrictions on social interaction etc. It is taken seriously, and is not something to be trifled with.

You can view the Penal Code here. This is a beautifully clear and concise piece of legislation and is not actually that hard to read. Interesting features include the punishment for rape - not less than 8 years, not more than 20 - plus at least 12 strokes of the cane. Certainly this and other features of this penal code would not go down well in NZ, and there are sections of it which would need to go or be heavily altered for it to be successfully introduced in NZ. See the later section on "Adapting Singaporean practices for NZ"

Working with the community

Another extremely desirable feature is that the police and justice systems are reactive to public opinion - much more than appears to be the case here. Those in charge of the courts judiciary and police have generally come up from the ranks, and there appears to be an ingrained culture of listening to what the public wants and acting upon it. The police force in particular work in closely with the community, operating amongst and as part of the community rather than from outside it.

In order to increase their effectiveness, from 1983 they adopted a Japanese practice using Neighbourhood Police Posts, similar to the Kobans on just about every street corner in Japan. These were found to be so successful the idea was taken further from 1996 by upgrading some of these to Neighbourhood Police Centres, like local mini-police stations, with the full range of communications and facilities as in larger stations here. Between the Neighbourhood Police Posts and the Neighbourhood Police Centres there are more than 90 points of police contact throughout Singapore.

Many Singapore police also operate on foot or on bicycle rather than out of cars as is done here. Everything is decentralised where it makes sense to do so. Interestingly, it is expected of every local policeman that he will visit every household in his patch at least once a year, and get to know the people living there. Of course this is not quite so much of a challenge when your patch may only be three or four apartment blocks, but nonetheless this personal contact reaps real rewards.

As a result ofthis close integration with the community, is that the community becomes the eyes and ears of the police, reporting supicious local activity etc. As a result, 50% of common crimes are solved with or as a result of public help, much higher than the figure in New Zealand. And in 2004, an incredible 38% of arrests were made with public assistance. For this to work, the police must have the trust of the community and vice versa, which doesn't always appear to be the case in New Zealand unfortunately. This is not the fault of the average NZ policeman on the beat, but more due to some of the policy decisions taken by those far higher up the chain.

Of course the Singapore police do have one huge advantage - there are a lot more of them - 50,000 in total, with another 150,000 volunteer reservists than can be called in if necessary. The fact that Singapore is far more compact is also relevant. Nonetheless, what they have done could certainly adapted for use in NZ cities and in many of our smaller towns.

Background

It is interesting that they have so readily adopted Japanese policing practices, in view of the Japanese occupation of Singapore from 1942 to 1945. The Japanese were harsh masters, and they operated a reign of terror. The people of Singapore celebrated the Japanese defeat and surrender in 1945 with great fervour. Yet, it was also noted that crime was vastly reduced during this period, on account of the harsh punishments imposed by the Japanese administration - something that was taken into consideration when Singapore set up its own policing and judicial systems upon gaining self-government in 1959 and complete independence in 1965. The deterrent effect of tough sentencing has been made use of ever since, to evident effect.

Singapore was under British rule until 1959, apart from the occupation by the Japanese from 1942-45. As a result the justice system there mostly sprung from the British system as ours did, although they have been much more willing to adapt it to their local circumstances where necessary. Their legal system also differs from ours and other Western nations, in that they do have the power the detain someone without trial. This was originally put into place under British rule and has been renewed every five years hence.

However this is very rarely actually used in practice - just the threat of it has been enough to bring problem offenders such as gang leaders into line. A number of safeguards are also in place to ensure that it is very sparingly used - see "Built in Safeguards" on this page. Interestingly gangs are not a problem in Singapore now. Singapore has in the past clamped down stringently on any type of gang activity, as they had problems with triads and "secret societies" and similar groups taking people hostage and sometimes killing them up until the 60's. As a result they do not have the gang problems we have continued to experience here in NZ over the last 30 years.

Rehabilitation

The success of the Singaporean way of justice is not all due to tough punishment and stringent enforcement. Considerable effort has been put into rehabilitation as well. However the emphasis is different to that in New Zealand in that the rehabilitative effort is directed almost exclusively towards first/second offenders, and the efforts are thorough and comprehensive. They include job training, drug addiction treatment, counselling etc etc, and can carry on for years. In our view this is a far more rational allocation of rehabilitative resources than expending them on offenders with a track record of 50-100 or more offences.

Once an offender in Singapore reappears before the courts for a third time, they are considered a "serial offender" and the sentencing becomes much heavier. In effect they are practising something similar to "three strikes" although it is not labelled as such. They have made the rational assumption that if someone reoffends after two extensive efforts at rehabilitating and reintegrating them into society have been made, then further such efforts are likely to be a waste of time.

Adapting Singaporean practices for NZ

Singaporean justice does include some practices that may not necessarily fit with New Zealand's culture and way of thinking. For instance they do use the death penalty, for such crimes as murder where there are aggravating features, and for large scale drug dealing and importing. They also use flogging, which would be politically challenging to attempt here to say the least! Examples include the case of an American teenager, one Micheal Fay, who was flogged after committing numerous acts of vandalism some years ago, causing a furore.

There are other sections of their penal code which would not fit our local culture, for instance parts of that labelled "outraging decency". Any attempt to introduce their penal code as it stands without adapting those sections to fit local expectations would merely result in a huge public backlash against the entire legislation because of those sections, with the result that introducing an already politically challenging set of changes would become impossible.

Singaporeans themselves understand this well, interestingly they raised this issue before I did, noting that their practices would need to be adapted to local conditions - indeed one of the features of Singaporean justice is that it is adaptive - they alter penalties and enforcement emphasis to deal with any type of crime that becomes a problem, and also back off when something is no longer an issue. We would be unwise to attempt to simply "cut and paste" the Singaporean system of justice and law and order onto ours, and they would be the first to say so. However, there is a great deal we can learn from them, and many things that they are getting right which we are not.

The payoff would be real. Their murder rate last year was less than a third of ours. And their rate of rape must be only a tiny fraction - there were only 103 rapes in 2004, in a population of over four million. Their overall crime rate was 813 offences per 100,000 head of population - and remember this includes non-violent offences. We have much to learn from them.

This article is by Peter Jenkins (the webmaster here). If you wish to use it in your own work, go right ahead, help yourself. Some acknowledgement of the source i.e. Sensible Sentencing Trust would be appreciated.