LETTERS: The Home Ministry's plan to introduce the Licensed Release of Prisoners (PBSL) through home detention for those serving jail time of four years and below is a welcome move to reduce overcrowding in prisons.
The move will see selected prisoners comprising individuals with chronic diseases, elderly and persons with disabilities and expectant mothers eligible for home detention.
And it would also help the government to reduce its financial burden concerning prison operations. It costs the government RM40 per day to look after each prisoner. There are around 52 prisons in the country.
A report quoted the Malaysian Prisons Department last year as describing prisons in the country as packed to overflowing. It said the number of inmates nationwide exceeded its current maximum capacity of 4,200 by 36 per cent.
I met some ex-inmates of the Seremban Prison, and they told me about the living conditions in their cells. There are about four to six inmates in a small cell with no beds. They have to sleep on the floor with some thin mattress and no pillows.
The cells are next to each other. A block has hundreds of inmates. The worst-case scenario is that they have to use a bucket for latrine functions. And they clean the buckets every day in the main bathroom every morning.
They have to be with the bucket in the same room. The stench would permeate the whole cell. It is unhygienic and unimaginable.
Meanwhile, in women's prison, there are expectant mothers serving their time. Babies born in prisons serve time together with their mothers. Prisons are the wrong place for a child to grow up in.
Therefore, the introduction of PBSL is a humane approach that would also help inmates on the programme regain their functions in society.
SAMUEL YESUIAH
Seremban, Negri Sembilan
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times