KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 — When Human Rights Watch raised concerns about unsanitary conditions in Asian prisons and how overcrowding made them vulnerable to the highly contagious Covid-19, it left the Malaysian authorities with a dilemma.
The rights group urged Asian authorities to immediately release not only prisoners of conscience, detained without charge, but also those held for minor and nonviolent offences.
Civil rights lawyers took the call as a sign for swift action, pointing to the abundance of testimonies from inmates about the abhorrent conditions within prison walls, where hygiene is often neglected and cells overly packed.
Such conditions make prison especially susceptible to an outbreak, more so for the older prison population.
In Malaysia, however, no public official has yet responded to the concern, but such a view has resonated with former government security and health experts.
Retired inspector-general of police Tan Sri Musa Hasan, for one, felt the authorities could grant minor offenders with good behaviour early release and put them on probation, as a way to reduce overcrowding and enforce social distancing in prisons.
“Maybe those who are allowed to undergo probation for good behaviour only for minor offenders,” Musa told Malay Mail in a text reply.
“When a person is placed under probation we need probation officers to always check on them.
“If they flout the terms in the probation their probation could be revoked and charge in court for breaching it.”
Still, Musa said such a move is not necessary if prison authorities have taken the steps to implement social distancing and keep the cells clean.
“If the prisons have taken steps as advised by the Ministry of Health to implement social distancing and ensure good hygiene of the inmates then it’s not necessary to follow the United Nations advisory.
Neighbouring Indonesia is the first Southeast Asian country to have followed the advisory. On April 2, Jakarta announced that it would release some 18,000 inmates in a rushed bid to stop coronavirus from rampaging through its notoriously overcrowded prison system.
It is expected to release 5,000 more soon, the Jakarta Post reported two days ago, as fear mounted that the deadly coronavirus would soon breach the prison walls.
Indonesia’s prison system has just 522 institutions for some 270,000 inmates and suffers from regular jailbreaks and criticism for its often deplorable conditions, Channel News Asia reported.
The prison authorities in Malaysia have also had their fair share of criticism.
Last year, the reform-minded Pakatan Harapan administration sought to table new laws to reform the prison system, after its de facto law minister Datuk Liew Vui Kong said overpopulated prisons were clear signs of policy failure, and that the authorities were jailing too many people, over half of them for minor offences like drug possession.
Malaysian prisons can only accommodate a maximum of 45,000 prisoners but currently hold prisoners over 66,000 inmates, Liew told Parliament in March, 2019.
Datuk Dr Amar-Singh HSS, a senior consultant paediatrician who has been vocal about the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, suggested that young and female offenders be prioritised for release, but with certain conditions.
“Minor offenders and not hard core criminals,” he said.
“They must have a place to go to and not be found wandering around. All children in detention should also be sent home to their families unless remanded for serious crimes like murder.”
But the elderly prison population, a majority of whom are serving life sentences, make for the most vulnerable group. Yet releasing them would pose deep ethical questions, and also political risk if the move is met with public panic.
And it’s a dilemma that has lingered over policymakers’ minds. Dr Amar said there is danger that the overcrowded prisons and limited facilities could be a hotbed for the coronavirus and trigger a new wave of outbreak should one or two inmates get infected.
But one option could be to transfer older inmates to lower risk facilities.
“The whole issue is compounded by our outdated penal system,” he said.
“Our prisons are not well built or healthy for prisoners. They are congested and small. No one can rehabilitate there easily unlike the better nations.
“One option, if we have the security staff to man it, is move the older ones to lower risk facilities (separate rooms, more space) but still ‘imprisoned’.”
