I REFER to your report “Teens should be put in rehabilitation facilities” (NST, May 22). Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen has expressed her concern that 3,000 children under the age of 18 are imprisoned together with hardcore criminals in our prisons.

I wonder whether anyone in her ministry is aware that the prison authorities do not mix juveniles with adult prisoners, although they may be in the same prison.

A provision in the Prison Act 1995 stipulates that young prisoners shall, so far as local conditions permit, be kept apart from adult detainees and prisoners. The rule also applies to the segregation of the sexes, convicted and unconvicted prisoners and normal prisoners.

There is therefore no way the juveniles can mix with adult prisoners, which could result in them following in the footsteps of the hardcore prisoners.

I also think that it is unfair for the minister to put the blame solely on inexperienced judges and magistrates for the present state of affairs.

Instead, she should blame her own ministry, the police, prisons and courts for not co-ordinating with each other to bring justice to these juveniles who are languishing in prisons.

The Prisons Department has a young persons prison in Sungai Petani, Kedah, that can accommodate between 300 and 400 young prisoners, and Henry Gurney schools in Malacca (Telok Mas), Sabah and Sarawak, and one for girls in Perak (Batu Gajah).

These schools are not fully utilised because probation officers do not recommend in their reports that the juveniles be sent to these schools instead of to prisons.

Anyway, I am glad that the minister is making it a priority to expedite the process of getting these juveniles out of prisons.

NOR SHAHID MOHD NOR, Petaling Jaya

Source: NST – May 26, 2008