Malaysian Prison Department
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Malaysian Prison Department Jabatan Penjara Malaysia |
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Logo of the Malaysian Prison Department
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| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 19 March 1790 |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
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National agency (Operations jurisdiction) |
Malaysia |
| Size | 329,847 km (127,355 sq mi) |
| Population | 27,544,000 |
| Legal jurisdiction | National |
| Governing body | Government of Malaysia |
| General nature |
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| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia |
| Elected officer responsible | Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Minister of Home Affairs |
| Agency executive | Komisioner Jeneral Penjara Dato' Sri Hj. Zulkifli bin Omar, Prison Department Chief Director |
| Parent agency | Ministry of Home Affairs |
| Website | |
| www |
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The Malaysian Prison Department (Malay: Jabatan Penjara Malaysia) is a department controlled by the Malaysian Ministry of Internal Security responsible for jails where offenders sentenced by the courts are held. These jails also act as detention and recovery institutions.
The department is headquartered in the Malaysia Prison Complex (Kompleks Penjara Kajang) in Kajang, Selangor in the Klang Valley.
Prisons are different from other institutions or organisations found in a modern society. They are places where a group of trained personnel manages and looks after a group of people known as prisoners who are not there voluntarily and are instead forced inside and prevented from leaving by guards, walls and gates. A Prison Department cannot choose its clients and they have no power to release them. These prisoners have to live according to set of prescribed rules, and their movements are tightly controlled.
During the era of British rule and until the arrival of the Japanese in 1942, penal institutions were the responsibility of the individual states' governments with their respective regulations. In the Straits Settlements, a Superintendent based in Singapore, acted as the supervisor and inspected the institutions under his jurisdiction.
The Straits Settlements were the earliest to build their own prisons while the Federated Malay States did so only after the British set up a responsible department. The Taiping Prison, better known as the Taiping Gaol, the largest at the time, was built in 1879. Prisons were built with the main purpose of bringing suffering to the inmates in the hope that this would deter people from committing crimes.
In 1881, Sikh warders were brought in to assist Malay warders while vocational instructors from Hong Kong were used in an effort to introduce trades to the prisons. Among the earliest of these were rock breaking and carpentry. An attempt was made to categorise the inmates in 1882, then in 1889 European warders were appointed at some prisons.
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Wikipedia