The Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE) has been
spearheading programmes to help ex-inmates and drug addicts re-enter society
since 1976. Besides providing vocational and industrial training for inmates,
SCORE organises work industries in the various Penal Institutions and Drug
Rehabilitation Centres. This includes a bakery, laundry, furniture-making,
electrical and electronic assembly, employing about 3000 inmates. SCORE also
provides job placement for released inmates, and collaborates with Halfway
Houses in their efforts to rehabilitate drug abusers. It also works with
inmates' families, government authorities, employers and the community to help
inmates along the road to recovery.
With its mission to rehabilitate and help reintegrate ex-offenders back to
society as responsible and contributing members of society, SCORE shares a
common objective with the Singapore Prison Service in maximising offenders’
reintegration potential. To facilitate the realisation of this shared goal,
SCORE and Prisons also seek to engage inmates as part of the value-chain by
training them to work on several joint projects. This would allow inmates to
pick up work skills during incarceration, and ease their re-entry to the job
market upon release.
The Selarang Park Drug Rehabilitation Centre (SPD) linkway project, which begun
in September 2002 is one of the collaborative projects between SCORE and
Prisons, aimed at including inmates as part of the value-chain. This pilot
project determined the feasibility of using inmates as part of the workforce for
infrastructural and maintenance works within the prison institutions, and to
provide practical experience to SCORE to act as Prison’s managing agent for all
such work that utilizes inmate labour.
A total of 40 inmates were trained for the project. These inmates worked side by
side experienced contractors and engineers. Thereafter, supervision was
conducted by SCORE staff and the contractor’s foreman.
The linkway was successfully completed after 5½
months of hard work. A certificate presentation ceremony was held on
22 February 2003, to
recognize the efforts of inmates who had worked in the SPD Linkway project. In
his speech as Guest of Honour, SCORE’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Jason
Wong congratulated the inmates for completing the project. Invited family
members were urged to continue encouraging their incarcerated loved ones so that
they could reintegrate successfully to the family and society upon discharge.
Caption:
Inmates from SPD working on the Linkway with professional contractors.