Releasing statistics on racial composition of prison inmate population could deepen stereotypes, says Shanmugam

SINGAPORE: Releasing statistics on the racial composition of the prison inmate population and criminal offenders could "deepen" stereotypes, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on Monday (Jul 4).

Speaking in Parliament, Mr Shanmugam said that the Government has been “careful” about publicly disclosing such data.

Mr Shanmugam was responding to a question from Member of Parliament Christopher de Souza (PAP-Holland-Bukit Timah), who had asked why data on the racial composition of the prison inmate population and criminal offenders are not publicly released.

“The fact is that minorities are disproportionately represented in the prison inmate population and in crime statistics,” said Mr Shanmugam.

“The Government has been careful about publicly releasing such data with a racial breakdown, because it might deepen racial stereotypes. I say ‘deepen’ specifically, because it is not as if these stereotypes don’t exist. They exist. And our concern is releasing the data would deepen those stereotypes.

"So if (the) Government were to release data on racial composition of our prison inmate population and criminal offenders on a regular basis, we really risk hardening the stereotypes.”

Over time, this could undermine efforts in building “harmonious relations” among all the races and make it harder to achieve racial harmony, Mr Shanmugam added.

Mr Shanmugam noted that the Government has consulted many different groups and community leaders to seek their views on whether race-based statistics for the prison inmate population and criminal offenders should be released publicly.

“The unanimous view was that it will not benefit our communities and Singapore’s society, and it would encourage stereotypes and harm community relations,” he said.

“Overall, the community leaders were clear. They said that we should not simply look at racial breakdown, as it would not take into account other contributing factors which could have led to a person committing a crime. It would also detract from the improvements made by the respective communities and we take these views quite seriously.”

Mr Shanmugam explained that any decision by the Government has to be guided by what is in the public interest, including assessing what information should be made public. 

“We don’t take an ideological position on these matters. So, in certain respects, releasing data can adversely impact the community and society and this particular question relates to one such example,” he said.

CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS

The Government does release some race-based statistics, said Mr Shanmugam.

It has done so in the population census, which includes key indicators broken down by ethnicity, he pointed out.

“Through the M3 network, an initiative by Minister Masagos (Zulkifli), we have also released specific statistics on the Malay community, like the number of Malay graduates from institutes of higher learning, number of Malay professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) and the recidivism rate of the Malay inmate population,” he added.

The Government also releases race-based statistics on drug and inhalant abuse through the Central Narcotics Bureau’s (CNB) annual reports, he noted.

“Why do we, for example, release those statistics? We do so to effectively mobilise the communities into action,” said Mr Shanmugam. “By working with the community, we are then able to come up with interventions that are better suited for different communities.”

While releasing data on drug and inhalant abuse could lead to stereotyping, Mr Shanmugam noted that this is where “judgment” comes in. 

“Our assessment is that in these cases, the upside of spurring the communities to take action outweighs the negative of potentially deepening the stereotypes,” he said. “We consider the implications on each community, and proceed based on judgment and assessment.”

Mr Shanmugam gave examples of the Dadah Itu Haram campaign and the Malay-Muslim Organisations Rehabilitation Network of how the Government has worked with the Malay community as well as CNB and Singapore Prison Service to combat drug abuse and prevent reoffending. 

These efforts have seen “positive results”, he added.

And the Government will maintain the current status quo, Mr Shanmugam said.

“We will continue our current approach of disclosing such information on a selective basis, where doing so would be useful and positive for the community and society.”