The first halfway house run by the government complementing the recently introduced Mandatory After Care Scheme for high-risk ex-inmates will be launched by 2018.
The halfway house will run alongside eight other halfway houses with the Singapore Prison Service and will attend to ex-inmates with more complex issues.
Speaking to Channel NewsAsia, chief executive officer of The Helping Hand Chia Shih Sheung said that there are limited bed space available from the existing halfway houses and with regards to skills, the staff may not be trained anough to manage proper rehabilitation for the ex-inmates.
Under the Mandatory After Care Scheme, ex-inmates will be on rehabilitation for up to two years upon release. At the halfway houses, they will be supervised and assisted with community integration.
The new halfway house will be built where the Selarang Park Community Supervision Centre is and the first batch of ex-inmates is expected to be placed under it by mid-2016.
In the meantime, more counsellors will be recruited to handle the high-risk group of ex-offenders, who will be residing at a refurbished disused prison facility at Cosford Road.
Source: Channel NewsAsia
Photo: AFP
