Singapore Prison Service
| Perkhidmatan Penjara Singapura 新加坡监狱署 |
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Logo of the Singapore Prison Service
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| Agency overview | |
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| Formed | 1946 |
| Jurisdiction | Government of Singapore |
| Headquarters | 407 Upper Changi Road North, Singapore 507658 |
| Minister responsible | |
| Agency executives |
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| Parent agency | Ministry of Home Affairs |
| Website | http://www.sps.gov.sg |
The Singapore Prison Service (Malay: Perkhidmatan Penjara Singapura; Chinese: 新加坡监狱署) is a government agency of the Government of Singapore under the hierarchy of the Ministry of Home Affairs. It runs 14 prisons and drug rehabilitation centres in Singapore. Its responsibilities encompass the safe custody, rehabilitation and aftercare of offenders, and preventive education.
On 18 April 1825, the first batch of penal convicts arrived in Singapore and were housed in temporary huts along Bras Basah Canal and the philosophy of deterrence through punitive measures rather than rehabilitation was adopted. In 1847, a civil jail was built at Pearl’s Hill but overcrowding remained a perennial problem and a continued punitive approach in prison management led to a high rate of recidivism.
Changi Prison, a maximum security prison, was built and operationalised in 1936 as a training ground for the reform and rehabilitation of its inmates. The Singapore Prison Service was institutionalised as a Department in 1946 and G E WW Bayly became its first Commissioner. On 1 November 1973, Quek Shi Lei was appointed Director of Prisons.
The Ministry of Home Affairs set up a Prisons Re-Organisation Committee to review the system of rehabilitation, industrial training and work discipline. A new system of classification was then adopted in which inmates were grouped into sixteen classes under three broad categories.
On 1 January 1988, Tee Tua Ba took over as Director of Prisons, while Quek Shi Lei acted as an advisor to Singapore Prison Service and became CEO, Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE).
When Tee Tua Ba was posted to the Singapore Police Force (SPF) as Commissioner of Police on 1 July 1992, Poh Geok Ek took over the Directorship of Singapore Prison Service until 1 November 1998.
Another milestone in Singapore Prison Service’s history was the official opening of Tanah Merah Prison and Changi Women’s Prison/Drug Rehabilitation Centre on 23 April 1994 by then Minister for Home Affairs, Wong Kan Seng.
In 1998, Chua Chin Kiat took over as Director of Singapore Prison Service from Poh Geok Ek when the latter retired. Under Chua’s directorship, the Singapore Prison Service organised a visioning exercise in January 1999 to collectively craft a shared vision and conduct a review of its mission to better accommodate the changing needs and expectations of its stakeholders and the public.
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