Indefinite jail terms a possibility for sex offenders under proposed law

SINGAPORE: Singapore on Wednesday (Jan 10) put forth a new and harsher sentencing option targeting high-risk offenders who commit serious crimes like rape or culpable homicide.

Under the proposed regime, these offenders must serve a minimum jail term of five to 20 years, and will only be released from prison if the Minister for Home Affairs finds they no longer pose a threat to the public.

If found unsuitable to be released, they could be further detained for up to life.

Currently, such offenders must be automatically released after a certain point regardless of the threat they pose to others.

This regime seeks to better protect the public from criminals who are highly likely to re-offend after their release, said the Law and Home Affairs ministries, which jointly tabled the Criminal Procedure (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill in parliament on Wednesday.

The Criminal Procedure Code is Singapore’s key legislation that governs its justice process, including sentencing matters. It was last amended in 2018 to introduce video recording of interviews with suspects for certain offences such as rape.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam called the latest proposed amendments "very substantive" during a media briefing held on Monday.

The two ministries said in a press release that the country’s current sentencing options are “inadequate” in dealing with “such egregious offending”.

“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,” they added.

If the Bill is passed, the courts will be able to mete out a Sentence for Enhanced Public Protection – or SEPP – to such offenders.

Mr Shanmugam first revealed this approach in 2022 following a public consultation.

On Wednesday, the ministries also mooted another sentencing option, for recalcitrant offenders. The Sentence for Public Protection, or SPP, could replace the existing sentencing regimes of corrective training and preventive detention, which are more severe forms of imprisonment.

SENTENCE FOR ENHANCED PUBLIC PROTECTION

The SEPP will be limited to “extremely dangerous offenders" convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes, and who pose a substantial risk of causing serious physical or sexual harm to others, the ministries said.

These offences – to be prescribed in a new Schedule under the Criminal Procedure Code – include culpable homicide, attempted murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous means, aggravated molestation, rape, and sexual penetration of a minor.

The ministries added that safeguards will be put in place to ensure the sentence is fair.

An SEPP will comprise a minimum term of five to 20 years as determined by the courts, and could go up to life. The courts will generally consider risk assessment reports by the Institute of Mental Health and other experts before sentencing.

Only offenders who are aged 21 or above at the time of the offence can be given a SEPP.

These offenders may be released "on licence" after serving a minimum jail term – meaning that they would have to comply with certain conditions, such as e-tagging – and only if the Minister for Home Affairs assesses that they no longer pose a threat to the public. 

They will then be subjected to a review at least every two years and can be unconditionally discharged, bringing the sentence to an end.

However, if they are not found suitable to be released on licence, they can be detained for as long as required – up to life – for public safety. This will be reviewed yearly.

This differs from imprisonment, corrective training or preventive detention, where an offender must be released after serving their sentence.

The government has been looking at ways to better protect the public from such dangerous offenders, said the Law and Home Affairs ministries, while citing some cases, including serial sex offenders who preyed on children.

In September last year, a 31-year-old man was sentenced to 40 years’ jail and the maximum 24 strokes of the cane for raping and sexually assaulting six boys over an eight-year period.

The prosecution said it ranked “among the worst cases of paedophilic sexual abuse” to come before the courts, while a mental health report found that the man presented a “clear danger to young boys”.

In July 2020, a 47-year-old man was sentenced to 24 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane for sexually assaulting his girlfriend’s eight-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son, both of whom had low IQs. He forced them to simulate sexual intercourse with each other and filmed the acts.

He began committing these offences just two years after his release from prison for sexually abusing his four-year-old daughter. He was diagnosed as a paedophile with a high risk of sexual offending.

SENTENCE FOR PUBLIC PROTECTION

Meanwhile, the SPP is aimed at repeat offenders aged 21 or above at the time of the offence.

It differs from an SEPP in that the sentence will be a fixed term of between five and 20 years as determined by the courts.

The courts will consider a pre-sentencing suitability report prepared by the Singapore Prison Service before imposing an SPP.

An offender may be released on licence by the Minister for Home Affairs after serving two-thirds of their sentence. They must also be released after serving the full term of their sentence.

Only those who commit offences that attract at least two years' imprisonment can be sentenced to an SPP. These include robbery, molestation and voluntarily causing hurt.

In their press release, the ministries proposed for the SPP to be an amended version of the preventive detention regime.

They also proposed to repeal the corrective training regime, which currently applies to offenders aged 18 or above. These offenders receive a prison term of between five and 14 years and can also be released early, subject to supervision.

Preventive detention applies to offenders aged 30 or above who commit more serious crimes, and whom the courts assess need to be detained for a substantial period of between seven and 20 years.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, from 2015 to the third quarter of 2023, 141 offenders were sentenced to corrective training. In the same period, 127 offenders were sentenced to preventive detention.

The ministries said a review of both sentencing options, which are for recalcitrant offenders who commit serious offences that did not justify life imprisonment at the outset, was “necessary”.

This was because such offenders are sentenced to a fixed term but may still be a threat to the public and would have to be released after serving their time. Corrective training has also “become qualitatively similar” to imprisonment, given that rehabilitation programmes are increasingly available to all inmates, they added.

The SPP and SEPP proposals incorporate feedback from consultations with stakeholders, including criminal lawyers and the Attorney-General’s Chambers, as well as feedback from a public consultation held in 2021.

Other proposals in the Bill include giving the police and other law enforcement agencies greater powers to conduct searches without a warrant, as well as setting out a legislative framework on forensic medical examinations, which are crucial in certain cases like serious sexual crimes.

The Bill will be debated in parliament at a later sitting.