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100-year-old jails to be replaced with modern buildings

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The prisons department says many of the buildings are now obsolete and do not serve their purpose.

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Free Malaysia Today
The Alor Setar prison is one of those that have been identified for replacement. (Facebook pic)

MELAKA:
The prisons department plans to replace prisons that are over 100 years old with modern buildings.

These are mainly those built in the 1800s in some states.

Its director of prisoner management, Ajidin Salleh, said the proposal involved the prisons in Alor Setar, Penang, Taiping, Batu Gajah and Seremban as the original structure of the buildings had become obsolete and were not serving their purpose.

“Some of these prisons are still using the ‘bucket system’ latrine in the detention rooms.

“We will propose that this matter be included in the next Malaysia Plan so that the old prisons can be replaced either with new buildings or new ones can be built at other sites,” he said after officiating at the 2021 SPM Excellence Awards ceremony for the Integrity and Henry Gurney Schools in Telok Mas, here.

Meanwhile, Ajidin said the prisons department also aimed to ensure that inmates of the Integrity Schools and Henry Gurney School have at least one certificate or diploma upon their release.

He said the department would also prepare a rehabilitation plan to ensure that each inmate could plan their future while under detention.

“We will see what their inclinations or interests are before they either follow a short-term certificate programme for the Malaysian Skills Certificate or a diploma and so on at the institutions of higher learning.

“Recently, we signed a collaboration with Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) which has sponsored 25 young offenders to take up the Entrepreneurship Diploma course, while we also have 50 inmates studying at the Asia College of Exercise Medicine (ACEM) for a diploma in the first cohort.”

He said the Integrity Schools throughout the country and the Henry Gurney School scored their best achievement in five years when they managed to achieve an average grade of 4.57. The national average grade is 4.80.

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