‘Dangerous offenders’ can be detained until deemed suitable for release under proposed new sentencing regime in Singapore

SINGAPORE, Jan 10 — Offenders convicted of serious violent or sexual offences may continue to be detained after serving their sentences and only released when they are deemed to no longer be a public risk, if a new sentencing regime proposed by the Law and Home Affairs Ministries is passed in Parliament.

This would differ from the existing imprisonment approach where the Courts sentence a criminal to jail for a specified term, after which the accused must be released.

The proposed sentencing regime, called the Sentence for Enhanced Public Protection (SEPP), was among a number of proposals under the Criminal Procedure (Miscellaneous Amendment) Bill tabled in Parliament today by the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

In a joint statement, the ministries said that there have been “egregious cases involving dangerous offenders”, including serial sex offenders who preyed on children and recalcitrant offenders who commit serious sexual or violent offences after being released from prison.

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“We want to ensure that such dangerous and high-risk offenders are not released back into the community until they no longer pose a threat to public safety,” said MHA and MinLaw, adding that current sentencing options are inadequate to deal with such offenders.

“For offences that do not attract life imprisonment, the available sentencing options all presently require an offender to be released automatically after a certain point, regardless of the threat they pose to others.”

The ministries explained that while corrective training (CT) and preventive detention (PD) can be used to deal with repeat offenders who commit serious crimes, these are for a set duration and for offenders whose offences did not justify life imprisonment at the outset.

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“However, they may still pose a threat to the public and would still have to be released at the end of those sentences,” added the ministries.

The ministries said a public consultation exercise was also conducted in 2021 on the introduction of sentences for public protection and the overall feedback was that the proposed changes were “beneficial to our criminal justice system”.

The Government first announced in April 2022 that it was considering such a proposal.

Legal experts who spoke to TODAY then had called for safeguards against excessive detention and cautioned the Parliament to “be scrupulous and exercise utmost caution“ in passing such a proposed law.

Other proposed changes under the amendment Bill tabled today include empowering the police to search a suspect without warrant in some cases and compelling an accused person — with “reasonably necessary force” for specific circumstances — to undergo a forensic medical examination, as well as other amendments to enhance transparency in the criminal court process.

Who the SEPP is aimed at

Currently there are two primary sentencing options to address repeat offenders who commit serious offences — the CT and PD regimes.

Under the Bill, a separate Sentence for Public Protection (SPP) regime is being proposed to replace the two existing options.

The SPP will apply to recalcitrant offenders considered dangerous, who are aged at least 21 years at the time of the offence and will entail a fixed jail sentence of five to 20 years which will be determined by the Court.

It does not offer an automatic remission, but such convicts may be released on license by the Minister for Home Affairs after serving two-thirds of the sentence.

Meanwhile, the proposed SEPP is aimed at dangerous offenders who have committed serious sexual or violent offences, such as culpable homicide, rape and sexual penetration of a minor, and pose a substantial risk of causing serious physical or sexual harm to others, said MinLaw and MHA.

They will not be automatically released after serving a minimum term of between five and 20 years determined by the Court, and may be detained until assessed to be suitable for release.

As part of the safeguards to ensure the sentence meted out is fair, the court will decide on the appropriateness of SEPP after considering risk assessment reports by the Institute of Mental Health and defence counsels.

Speaking to the media on the proposed amendments, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said that cases of a person reoffending after serving sentence for a sexual offence happens “quite often elsewhere”, though “lesser in Singapore”.

TODAY has asked the ministries on the number of such cases.

In a press release from both ministries, these cases were provided as examples of offenders who would have been deemed suitable for SEPP:

In 2022, a man was sentenced to 45 years’ imprisonment for sexually abusing eight children over a period of 16 years. The judge described the case as an “exceptionally sickening sexual abuse“, with the prosecution branding it “one of the worst cases of paedophilic sexual abuse that has come before the courts”.

In June 2020, a man was sentenced to the maximum 20 years’ PD after sexually assaulting his 12-year-old stepdaughter. He committed this offence within two years of his release from a previous conviction of raping his 11-year-old niece.

On the process of releasing convicts under SEPP, Shanmugam said: “There will be a proper assessment (such as at the end of the fifth year, tenth year), — is he mentally and psychologically fit to be released, or is he going to continue to be a menace to society?”

“If he continues to be a menace to society, he can be kept in.”

TODAY has asked MinLaw and MHA on the frequency of these reviews and who will conduct these reviews.

No bailor required for minor charges

The bill today also contained other amendments aimed at promoting greater efficiency and fairness in criminal proceedings.

For example, the courts will be empowered to allow accused persons facing “relatively minor charges” to be released on personal bond instead of bail.

To be temporarily released on bail, one or more persons known as surety or bailor must execute a bond for a sum of money to ensure the accused’s attendance in court.

A personal bond however is a sum of money posted by the accused personally, without a third-party acting as a surety.

“This (amendment) will enable more accused persons to be released before trial — currently, such persons will be remanded if they are offered bail but cannot find a bailor,” said MHA and MinLaw. — TODAY