Peek into mock prison cell and hear from ex-offenders at Geylang Serai
While serving the first few years of his sentence for gang-related offences in Changi Prison as a teenager in the early 2000s, Mr Andyn Kadir felt resigned to a life of crime and violence.
But after he was transferred to the former prison school at Kaki Bukit Centre, Mr Andyn, now 40, continued his studies, took religious classes and eventually passed his N-level examinations while serving his sentence.
About a year after his release in December 2005, he landed a full-time job in the fitness industry.
Today, the fitness professional gives talks to inmates and takes former offenders on trekking expeditions to raise funds for Mawar Community Services (MCS), a non-profit that he has been volunteering with since 2016.
Mr Andyn and other former offenders will now get to share their experiences of life behind bars as well as life after prison with even more people, with the opening on Feb 1 of MCS’ new home in Geylang Serai.
They will conduct tours and deliver talks to school and corporate groups at the new MCS Hub at 69A Onan Road, which features a mock four-man prison cell to give visitors an insight into prison life, and a preventive drug education exhibition.
Ustaz Mohamed Basir Mohamed Shariff, programme director of MCS, said the organisation hopes to show the community, especially young people, how difficult prison life is through the replica of the bare prison cell.
“We want to tell the young people what drugs and being in a gang can do to you, physically, biologically (and) emotionally, and how it will destroy relationships. We hope to put across the message (that they should) not waste (their lives) in the cell,” said Ustaz Mohamed Basir, a former offender who was in and out of prison for 30 years.
MCS, formerly known as the Muslim Counselling Service, was renamed in 2024 to expand its services – including counselling, motivational talks, and trekking and humanitarian expeditions – to former offenders of all races and religions.
The registered society, which was established in 1978 and supports over 100 former offenders yearly to reduce the rate of reoffending, was previously based in an office unit in Changi Road.
At the launch of the MCS Hub on Feb 1, Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said that organisations in the community like MCS have played a big part in rehabilitating inmates and former offenders.
“Prisons provide the framework, (and) organisations like MCS come in and provide the secret sauce,” he said.
The results of this partnership between the Singapore Prison Service and community organisations have been good, said Mr Shanmugam, who added that the recidivism rate had come down from around 36 per cent to 37 per cent for the 2011 release cohort to about 20 per cent for the 2021 cohort.
The MCS Hub will allow the organisation to increase the frequency of its programmes and offer new ones, said MCS chairman Shaukath Ali at the hub’s launch.
For example, a new computer classroom will enable MCS to hold robotics and programming classes for the children of former offenders in collaboration with ground-up initiative Byte.sg.
The hub also has a community kitchen, a small auditorium, a counselling room and a reflection room.
Dr Abdul Qader Al-aidaroos, chief executive of MTFA Darul Ihsan Orphanages, said many of its roughly 60 residents aged five to 21 have at least one parent who has been incarcerated, and they typically only meet them through teleconferencing.
He plans to take the young residents to the mock prison cell at the MCS Hub to show them what life in prison actually looks like, in the hope that it “will encourage them to make wise decisions in life, and to appreciate the blessings that they currently have”.
Those interested in attending the MCS Hub’s tours and sharing sessions by former offenders – which will begin in May – can register their interest at tinyurl.com/prisonlj or e-mail basir@mawar.sg
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now