Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed has denied inviting PKR lawmaker N Surendran to stay in jail.

He said that what he said was misintepreted by the media.

"I just said maybe he should spend a day in jail, did I invite him?

"I didn't invite him. I just said maybe he should spend a day in jail and assess what is going on there," he said at a press conference after attending Home Ministry psychology security seminar in Putrajaya today.

"When you (media) made a mistake, is that my fault ?" he asked.

"I think for a lawyer, he doesn't understand law procedures. To go to jail you have to commit an offence," he said, adding that he cannot invite people to stay in jail.

He was asked to respond to Surendran, who said he has accepted his (Nur Jazlan's) invitation to experience conditions as an inmate in Kajang Prison.

Nur Jazlan, who is also Umno supreme council member, ticked off Surendran for trying to politicise the issue and seeking publicity.

"The issue is about whether our condition in the jail is adequate and according to international standards, which I think it is," he said.

However, he said jails cannot be too comfortable as it would defeat the purpose of teaching criminals a lesson, and may even encourage people to enter prison.

Nur Jazlan had reportedly supported the suggestion first made by former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Abdullah, in an interview with Bernama.

Mohd Noor, however, said his comment that there should be pests in prisons was only made in passing.

New evaluation system for officers

Nur Jazlan also launched the 'Security Profiling System' (SPiK), a psychometric evaluation designed to test the competency and integrity of officers who deal with security issues.

In his speech earlier, Nur Jazlan said the government wished to implement an empirical evaluation system to determine which officers to promote.

SPiK can also be used for recruitment, and is now administered to immigration and border officers, according to Nur Jazlan.

"The system was used on immigration officers at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)... I don't know (how) accurate the results were...

"But, 20 percent of the staff who underwent the test suffered from psychology issues while five percent have 'ringgit-chology' issue," he said, to laughter from the officers.

However, he did not elaborate on the term 'ringgit-chology'.

He added that it was better that officers be screened before they are stationed in positions that deal with sensitive and security issues.

He reminded the audience that the government arrested 25 immigration officers at KLIA a few months ago. The next week, 50 officers were absent from work, he claimed.

Nur Jazlan said 75 out of 220 officers, or 30 percent, at KLIA could be suspected of wrongdoing.

It was reported that the immigration officers were arrested for their alleged involvement in a human trafficking syndicate involving fake Malaysian passports.

The syndicate is said to have turned KLIA and KLIA2 into transit centres for Sri Lankan immigrants before they are sent to a third country.

The immigration officers had allegedly been sabotaging computer systems over the past six years.

Nur Jazlan said checks on their background revealed that one low-ranked personnel already owned a Toyota Vellfire, despite having only worked for three years.

“I am in my 50s, and I just got a Vellfire,” he said in jest.

He added that the group was able to get away with it because they worked together to thwart the system.

"They sit at the control area and neglect it. They are in cahoots and it is hard for the agency to probe when they work in groups," he said.