Alex Josey - Cold blooded murders

For security reasons it was not possible to let all the detainees out at the same time during the day. Half were let out into the exercise yard in the morning and half in the afternoon. Consequently all detainees were held in cells for 18 hours each day under unhygienic conditions largely owing to inadequate water supplies. Release to the yards for the remaining six hours of the day offered very little improvement because of lack of constructive occupation and diversions. “The men we saw in the yards either squatting or aimlessly wandering around, appeared to be without hope or dignity and those that we had an opportunity of speaking to appeared if not intensely introspective and morbidly bound up with their own condition, to be filled with resentment at their detention, the conditions of which they could see were deteriorating daily as numbers increased.”

For 18 hours a day in the cells, the men depended upon what they could mentally offer each other, and ‘from their previous experiences and activities prior to detention the nature of this mutual counsel can easily be imagined. We observed that their sole reading matter was usually the more dubious type of illustrated comic literature.’ In the yards the men walked about or talked in groups.

Not surprisingly, the Ad Hoc Committee came to the conclusion that ‘this arrangement of segregation on a gang basis, with such opportunities for intercourse daily strengthens rather than diminishes the former gang affiliates and loyalties and provides an opportunity for the leaders to exercise their domination and organise junior members’. The committee expressed their surprise that proper facilities for recreation were not provided.

The committee condemned ‘in the strongest possible terms’ the existing conditions under which Criminal Law Detainees were held. Absolutely no efforts were made to rehabilitate them. Nevertheless, the committee did not blame the prison administration. “With inadequate funds and having a major problem already in dealing with the inflated convicted prison population, these officers have attempted to deal with the problem in accordance with the means at their disposal. That it has produced conditions that would be condemned in any society calling itself civilised, is a reflection not so much upon them as upon the society that by failure to recognise the problem, and by having possibly other priorities, has permitted these conditions to arise.” So long as they were held in those conditions the committee could not visualise any time in the future when they might be safely released. In those circumstances, they could be expected to become more anti-social, not less.

The committee considered important four principles: 1. No detainee should be regarded as irredeemable. 2. The aim of detention, although primarily protective of society should be finally to set free detained persons as loyal and law-abiding members of the community, capable of and wanting to earn an honest and productive livelihood and who, above all, will not consider that resort to violence provides an alternative means of livelihood. This implies total moral, and to a certain extent, political re-education. 3. The principal therapeutic measures by which these rehabilitative aims will be secured are discipline and hard work operating in a realistic situation approximating as nearly to normal ways of living as possible. This implies that any proposed scheme should offer possible incentives for progress and disincentives for those who do not respond. For success a carefully devised scheme of dilution will be necessary for those detainees who are reluctant to respond to discipline and work. 4. The scheme should be primarily educative, teaching detainees the normally acceptable standards of conduct. There must be a clear realisation on the part of the detainees of the mode of operation of the scheme, a clear concept of its implications for himself, his personal progress within the scheme, and a sure knowledge that he can by his own efforts obtain his release, and that having achieved his release he will find a secure place in normal society. Briefly the present attitude of hopelessness must be replaced by attitudes of hope based in a sure self-knowledge and an appreciation of the normally respected values of society.

In accordance with these principles, the committee proposed a ‘progressive rehabilitative scheme’ of four stages.

In the first stage, all detainees would go to Changi prison to be detained under the most rigorous conditions. Accommodation and diet should be spartan and simple. Here they would be sorted out and classified according to physique, intelligence, aptitude for work, responsiveness to discipline, strength of affiliation to secret societies. Detainees would have to volunteer for the scheme, but they should be encouraged to volunteer if necessary by ‘reducing the amenities at present enjoyed at Changi Prison’. Added the committee: “It is certainly essential to indicate to detainees who are reluctant to participate in their rehabilitation that their sojourn in Changi Prison might be prolonged.”

In the second stage, detainees would be sent to Pulau Senang where they ‘will learn as a community to be independent and self-supporting in the same way as normal communities are learning in the process that all members of a community are mutually dependent, and most important of all they will learn that they themselves are members of a wider community with correspondingly wider responsibilities and wider loyalties than they now possess. We have no illusions that this is a difficult lesson to teach. It is for this reason that we recommend that at first no facilities apart from the barest protection from the elements and adequate food supplies and clothing be provided. We consider it essential that all detainees so transferred should be personally responsible for the construction of their more permanent shelter and progressively responsible for the provision of their food, and any other amenities they may enjoy. As a corollary we recommend that they should be positively encouraged to secure for themselves as a community as many of the more pleasant amenities of life as they are able by their own efforts’.

The committee did not think, however, that the scheme would be successful in winning these men from their past and present allegiances, and their own assessment of society, merely by encouraging them to secure their material needs. That was but the first step. All men besides their physical needs had their intellectual and spiritual needs ‘however dimly they themselves may perceive this’. There should, therefore, also be an educational programme, which should include socio-political re-education. ‘Considerable attention’ should also be paid to recreational facilities which in themselves were educational.

The committee recommended the necessity to develop a ‘house system encouraging healthy competition in games’ (a proposal which some experienced police officers with knowledge of the deadly games rival secret societies were inclined to play-with knives and daggers, chairs, sticks, bars of iron etc-viewed with some misgiving). The committee urged that the men be mixed as completely as possible regardless of their secret society affiliations. In the Reformative Training Centre, systematic mixing had been practised, the committee noted, and members of rival gangs had learned to live together amicably.

As for the spiritual education of detainees, the committee was rather diffident about making recommendations, but they did suggest that detainees should be encouraged to re-establish any religious associations they may have had. But detainees should, the committee insisted, be free not to be approached by religionists. “We believe that an approach to moral attitudes of living can only be secured if the men cease to regard themselves as different, and completely divorced from society.” They recommended that groups of entertainers should visit the settlement, and radio should be available to the detainees. In this way, the committee hoped that it would be possible for the men to develop to some extent a proper interest in the outside world. Books, magazines and newspapers should, therefore, be available to them.