Nurul Izzah urges prison reform, says poor are disproportionately penalised
PARLIAMENT | The correlation between poverty and crime must be recognised and tackled in the 12th Malaysia Plan, PKR's Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar told Parliament today.
Citing a Universiti Malaya study entitled “Poverty and delinquency: A qualitative study on selected juvenile offenders in Malaysia”, she said that there was a clear relationship between the commission of offences by juveniles and a background of poverty.
PARLIAMENT | The correlation between poverty and crime must be recognised and tackled in the 12th Malaysia Plan, PKR's Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar told Parliament today.
Citing a Universiti Malaya study entitled “Poverty and delinquency: A qualitative study on selected juvenile offenders in Malaysia”, she said that there was a clear relationship between the commission of offences by juveniles and a background of poverty.
"Many cannot afford to hire a lawyer and in the end are more likely to be convicted of more serious offences than they should just because of their lower socio-economic status," she said.
Echoing a phrase used by DAP's Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo yesterday, Nurul Izzah said the Malaysian criminal justice system penalised the poor.
"The prison system in Malaysia today truly needs to be overhauled.
"It has the capacity to accommodate only 52,000 detainees but yet the total detained in prisons is more than 80,000.
"This problem is related to many cases where detainees who are from low-income groups are thrown into jail for minor crimes such as stealing Milo and tins of sardines.
Nurul Izzah said that an understanding of Malaysia's social dynamic was necessary if it was recognised that the salaries of many Malaysians were too low with only around 15 percent being eligible to pay taxes, not including those who do not work permanently.
"We do not want a system of social injustice where the poor (suffer heavy penalties) while the elite are able to carry out massive economic damage yet are able to escape legal sanctions because of power and rank held," she said.
She called on Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin to implement the prison reform action plan proposed by the Malaysian Prisons Department which was themed “Rehabilitation investment. ”
"Each person detained has a family outside and we need to give full support to the target of the Prisons Department so that 75 percent of prisoners who committed minor offences are released from prison and undergo rehabilitation programmes instead," she said.
