KUALA LUMPUR – A joint cabinet paper by the Home and Health ministries on reducing prison sentences and promoting rehabilitation, especially in drug abuse offences, will be presented to Parliament at its year-end session, said Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said.
The paper will present the results of studies on establishing a sentencing council to review all criminal sentences and ways to overhaul the Offenders Compulsory Attendance Act 1954, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) said.
The Legal Affairs Division (BHEUU) under the Prime Minister’s Department, which has been undertaking the research, is looking at how a sentencing council can provide guidelines to reduce jail times and instead promote rehabilitative and restorative sentences for offences under Malaysian criminal law.
It is also studying how an overhaul of the Offenders Compulsory Attendance Act 1954 can promote community-based rehabilitation instead of imprisonment for offenders sentenced to jail for three years or fewer.
This overhaul would be pertinent for first-time offenders, who include minor drug offenders, which make up 63% of prison inmates in Malaysia, the minister said.
‘Keep up with the times’
Azalina said promoting rehabilitation over prison sentences requires the law and enforcement agencies to “keep up with the times”.
“At this juncture, the discretion of the judiciary is especially important in addressing drug traffickers separately from drug abusers, and for the latter, a case-by-case treatment such as whether the individual is a first-time user.
“Judicial discretion is also vital in introducing rehabilitation options instead of sentences focusing solely on punishment,” she said in a statement.
The new approach towards rehabilitation and restoration is also in line with recognising drug dependency as a medical condition, she added.
The government wishes to revise the present approach to the problem of drug dependency…(which) calls for a ‘game-changer’ approach to align efforts by government and non-government agencies.
“We hope to also see the inclusion of medical intervention, treatment, and rehabilitation in addressing drug dependency.”
Azalina attended the first meeting of the cabinet committee on eradicating drugs for the year yesterday, which was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
End to prison overcrowding?
Azalina said the move towards rehabilitative and restorative approaches to dealing with drug-related offences will also help resolve overcrowding in prisons, which is a human rights priority for the unity government.
This is because the majority of prison inmates are drug-related offenders.
The cabinet committee meeting yesterday also noted the alarming statistics for Malaysia, which has 1.09 million drug users, according to the World Drug Report 2021 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC).
“Given that the UNODC World Drug Report 2021 showed a projected 11% increase in drug users in developing countries by 2030, it is imperative for immediate, holistic, and effective measures to be taken,” Azalina said. – The Vibes, July 11, 2023
