Training and Strategies for Handling Prison Inmates with Intellectual Disability

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Home Affairs what are the specific support programmes available for prison inmates with intellectual disability during their incarceration, especially when they have difficulties being separated from their caregivers.

Sir, training is provided to prison officers to manage and support inmates with special needs. New officers undergo training as part of the Prison Officer Course to develop understanding of their needs. The training also familiarises the officers with the support structures available for such inmates within the prison system. But we have to be realistic. Prison officers cannot be and are not trained to the level of qualified counsellors. Special needs will have to be dealt with by accessing specialist expertise.

Since 2022, the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) has also worked with the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore to provide training for officers in areas like communication and behavioural management. For inmates with intellectual disabilities, SPS modifies the content and delivery of rehabilitation services and programmes.

For example, correctional rehabilitation specialists and psychologists who conduct the psychological-based correctional programmes would deliver the content to such inmates using bite-sized information, supplementary visual aids and simplified language, or they would slow down the sessions to make it easier for the inmates to understand the content.

For those who are assessed to have adjustment issues, such as difficulties with being separated from their caregivers, SPS officers will engage them more frequently in order to better understand their needs and support them.

For inmates with more complex needs, SPS adopts a multidisciplinary team (MDT) approach. MDT comprises professionals and specialists like psychiatrists, prison psychologists, prison correctional rehabilitation specialists and prison officers. MDT decides on the behavioural management plans for inmates with mental and intellectual disabilities.

Inmates can report abuse through various channels, such as to the prison officers on duty at their Correctional Unit or during their regular engagements with their respective Correctional Unit Officers. Inmates may also raise requests or complaints with the Superintendent of their Institutions or with the Visiting Justices during their regular visits. In addition, inmates' cells are equipped with distress intercoms which inmates can activate if they require immediate assistance.

At the same time, SPS officers are trained to spot signs of inmate abuse when conducting their regular patrols and body searches. Any inmate who commits offences against other inmates would be subjected to investigation and, if found guilty, punished.

I thank the Minister of State for his answers. Just one supplementary question.

I would like to ask whether SPS has a separate regime or protocol on a day-to-day basis where officers actually keep watch over the prisoners with such disabilities due to the likelihood that these prisoners may not be so upfront in voicing out any complaints of mistreatment or maladjustment. So, on a day-to-day basis, watching out for these, which is separate and distinct from the way that the officers would watch over the other prisoners.

Sir, I would like to assure the Member that we not only look at inmates with intellectual disability, we have this holistic approach which we call the Risk-Need-Responsivity approach, whereby we look at the different profile of the inmates. If there are certain needs that need to be provided or we be mindful of, we will certainly do so.

On a day-to-day basis, you will realise that even though our ex-offenders have made mistakes in their life, there is a lot of element of care within the Correctional Unit. I feel very touched sometimes when I visit the prison. Fellow inmates, they share with me, they care for one another and they look out for one another. What they want is to go through a holistic process or throughcare process of rehabilitation and reintegration for each and every one of them, including those with intellectual disability.