KLANG - About 20,000 offenders of certain categories will likely qualify for consideration under the new house arrest bill, after undergoing a complete vetting process, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said.
The bill will consider first offenders who did not commit major crimes, pregnant women, senior citizens and people with disabilities, he added.
"Like I said, the (estimated) number that will qualify for consideration is 20,000 offenders, who are first offenders.
"It also applies to offenders of minor crimes, for instance a single mother who is poverty stricken and resorts to stealing milk for her child and is sentenced to jail,” he said after officiating the Kota Raja PKR branch annual general meeting here yesterday.
He stressed that there was no need to dredge up polemics about who qualifies for consideration as offenders will have to pass through several layers of vetting, including having a good discipline record while in prison.
Saifuddin was reported to have said that the new house arrest bill will be tabled in Parliament next year and that the Cabinet has approved the implementation of the bill in principle, while Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had said that the government would table a new Act to enable inmates to carry out their prison sentence for certain offenses at home as an alternative during the tabling of the Madani Budget 2025 on Friday.
Saifuddin also noted that the government had previously implemented three initiatives, parole, compulsory attendance order and licensed release under the Prisons Regulations 2000 and found that the recidivism rate was low.
"Through these three methods, for every 700 offenders we release, only one re-offends. Recidivism is one (individual) only,” he said, and informed that the proposal to draft the bill was done following a serious congestion issue at 43 prisons throughout the country, which resulted in unconducive conditions.
"The percentage of prison congestion has now exceeded 11 per cent, meaning there are 82,000 inmates compared to the set capacity of 74,000.
"Therefore, we need to do something to overcome this as inmates are categorised into two, those convicted and those in remand,” Saifuddin said.
He also pointed out that similar laws have been implemented in dozens of countries including the United States, Germany and Australia.
Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA) executive committee member Dobby Chew had previously questioned the implementation of the house arrest bill, alleging that it would benefit certain parties. - BERNAMA