Criminal relapse in Singapore.
There are many reasons for crime in developing countries across the world; some of the more major reasons being a lack of a proper law enforcement, corrupted government and lack of job opportunities. However, in a developed country such as Singapore, which does not suffer from the reasons stated above, what then contributes to crime?
One of the major contributors to crime in any country are the released criminals themselves. It is a known fact that criminals have high chances of relapsing after release from prison1. One of the main factors contributing to relapse rates is the difficulty of released criminals in finding a permanent job after release from prison. In Singapore, the Yellow Ribbon Project was initiated with the aim of providing ‘Second Chances’ in society for released criminals. The Yellow Ribbon Project is run by the government statutory board, the Singapore Corporation Of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE). As a contract employee working for six months at SCORE, what was surprising was that the problem encountered in preventing relapse, was not so much the difficulty in getting companies to offer jobs to released criminals, but rather the difficulty in getting the released criminals to take up the jobs offered, namely unspecialized or low-skilled jobs (due to the fact that most criminals have a low level of education). Examples of such jobs are restaurant staff, plumbers/electricians, clerks, cleaners etc. This inability to get released criminals to take up jobs has led to many of them relapsing back to prison.
We then have to look at what is causing this? Perhaps people would say that it is the criminals who choose not to do so, due to their nature or character. However, the root of this problem and main reason for these released criminal’s actions was the stigma in society against these jobs and the comparatively low salary received in these jobs. The stigma is clear in Singapore as few middle-aged men would take up these jobs as permanent vocations and a large proportion of the jobs in these industries have been taken up by foreigners or students. They are seen as a lower-class of work and looked down upon. Also, the comparatively low salary earned at these jobs is obvious, perhaps as a result of the stigma and at the same time, contributing further to the stigma. A plumber in Australia earns up to $1500 a day due simply to the fact that nobody is doing the job2, whilst a plumber in Singapore would probably earn just $1000-1500 a month, which is also comparatively lower than more specialized jobs.
What SCORE has done in attempting to fix the problem is educating and vocationally training criminals during their prison term and specializing them in more desirable jobs such as multimedia design. However this has its limitations as it is costly, in addition to the difficulty of predicting the job market demand for these ‘desirable’ jobs. This has been shown to be ineffective in lowering the relapse rate.
Also, not only does this stigma have a major impact on the criminal relapse rate in Singapore, but it begs the question of equality. Each of these jobs play a role in society that is fundamental to its functioning, and it is only fair that these jobs receive a comparatively equal salary and social standing. Not only is it about equity and fairness, but having members of the population earning significantly less than others, leads to and worsens the issue of the rich-poor gap within the country.
We then have to look at why this stigma and comparatively low salaries come about, and address the root of that problem. I believe it is our knowledge-driven society where education and specialization seem to determine much of one’s social standing. The consequence of the government’s focus on knowledge-intensive jobs may have undermined these less-specialized jobs, and created the idea that they are less important and contributing in society. Not to say that focusing on knowledge-intensive jobs was wrong, but rather, I believe it has consequentially caused this stigma against less-specialized jobs, which in turn has led to various other problems, one of which is the unwillingness of criminals (who largely have low education levels) in taking up these jobs upon release, contributing to the high relapse rates and crime. Perhaps, the government could play a role in changing society’s perception of these jobs or enforcing a minimum wage on them.
1 Seah Chiang Nee. (July 30, 2006) A Softer Sentencing. Retrieved 7 September 2008. http://www.littlespeck.com/content/security/CTrendsSecurity-060730.htm
2 Maurice Dunlevy. (August 02, 2007) Plumbers demanding $1500 a day. In The Australian. Retrieved 7 September 2008. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22173884-2,00.html?from=public_rss
