In a move to cut down on overcrowding of prisoners, the government will be increasing the number of prisons in the country, said Deputy Home Affairs Minister Chor Chee Heung today.

"Under the Eighth Malaysia Plan (8MP), there will be six new prisons built. The government is taking steps to reduce overcrowding in prisons as we are quite aware that there are more than 29,000 prisoners nationwide," said Chor after attending an event entitled International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Kuala Lumpur.

He was responding to the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) statement last Monday that police lockups were overcrowded.

After a visit to the Dang Wangi police lockup in Kuala Lumpur, Suhakam commissioners Lee Lam Thye, Prof Hamdan Adnan and Mehrun Siraj were quoted by other reports that conditions in the lockups 'were acceptable'.

However, the Sun daily on June 21 quoted city Legal Aid Centre chairperson K Ragunath as disputing the Commission's finding, claiming that lockup conditions were in fact 'not acceptable'.

Prisons are under the ambit of the Prisons Department which is overseen by the Home Affairs Ministry.

"Prison facilities are stretched but we can still manage. We would like to inform the public not to get worried and that we know what to do," Chor said.

Emotional pressure

Meanwhile, National Narcotics Agency director Salleh Mat Som told reporters at the same function that of the five inmates who died in a drug rehabilitation centre in Sungai Ruan, Pahang, recently, three were suffering from myocarditis (inflammation and infection of the heart), one from broncho-pneumonia and the other from hepatitis (inflammation and infection of the liver).

A sixth inmate was reported today of having died of asthma.

"Their ailments could have been contracted through intravenous use of drugs or just through viruses in the air," Salleh said.

He said 27 more inmates with similar symptoms had already been sent to a nearby hospital.

When asked if the inmates could have been abusing drugs in the rehabilitation centre, he said 'no'.

As for the inmate riots which had occurred in several rehabilitation centres, he said that it was not a problem of 'rioting'.

"A lot of the inmates in these centres are hardcore drug addicts and more than 80 percent of them are under intense immense emotional pressure.

"When the commandants of these camps try to prohibit certain things, they get angry, they get help from their friends and matters escalate," Salleh said.

Support needed

Earlier, in his speech when officiating the event, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that there were many factors that contributed to the drug abuse problem.

"Such factors include political instability, rapid advancement of information technology and also migration of the populace," he said.

Abdullah added that in order to free youths from drugs, the role of others besides the government was important as well.

"Anti-drug programmes initiated by the government will not be effective or succeed if they do not have the support of parents, teachers, employers and voluntary organisations," he said.