The staggering number of foreign prisoners in the country has led the government to study the proposal of formulating new measures to curb the problem.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar said today that the number of foreign prisoners may soon overtake that of locals.

"These prisons are built for Malaysians but we never expected that the number of foreigners would grow faster than that of Malaysians," he told reporters during a visit to the Sungai Buloh prison.

According to the deputy minister, there were 15,751 foreign inmates being remanded at Sungai Buloh alone between 2001 and 2004. While the number of foreigners who served their sentences during the same period there stood at 6,527.

However, the statistics of foreign prisoners in the remaining 35 prisons nationwide could not be ascertained.

As at May 31, there were a total of 35,952 prisoners in all 36 prisons nationwide.

Finger-print record

In view of the alarming figures, Noh said the government may compile a finger-print record of foreigners who flout the law here in order to prevent them from re-entering the country in future.

"I think the time has come for us to study (the possibility of introducing new methods) and also act in unison with the other government agencies on deterring illegal immigrants from coming in and also to take action on those with proper permits (who have committed crimes)," he added.

The deputy minister also conceded that the police lacked the manpower to keep tabs on the overwhelming number of foreigners in the country.

The government has previously admitted that prisons here were overcrowded , accommodating 38.8 percent more inmates than its desired capacity.

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia's (Suhakam) Annual 2003 report released last May, also highlighted the problem of overcrowding and noted that local prisons suffered from a manpower shortage.

One solution to this problem, said the commission, was to reform the remand process, which currently allows the police to detain suspects for a maximum of 14-days.

Meanwhile, Noh, when quizzed on the high number of inmate deaths , claimed that most of them resulted from health complications.

"Most of them died from HIV/Aids. There was also an instance of one of our officers catching the disease from the inmates. Others died of other complications such as heart disease," he added.

The issue of inmate deaths, where 425 prisoners had died since 2002, was also raised in the Suhakam report.