The Pulau Senang settlement grew out of an idea to build a ‘moderate prison’. The experiment won praise, but reports of brutality later surfaced. It ended in a deadly riot in July 1963.
SINGAPORE: It was a prison-without-walls experiment on a Singaporean island that won global attention and inspired hope that secret society members could be rehabilitated through work.
C V Devan Nair, one of the leaders of the anti-colonial movement at the time, was a proponent of the Pulau Senang experiment. Having spent two stints as a political prisoner in the 1950s, he “developed an interest in prison rehabilitation”, said his son Janadas Devan.After his second release in June 1959, Devan Nair persuaded the then government to set up a commission on prisons, said Janadas. One of the ideas for prison reform was the creation of a “moderate prison”.
As superintendent, he was given a free hand to pick which detainees to take to the jungle-covered island. He arrived in May 1960 with 51 of them. The progress of construction was “so amazing” that the United Nations took notice, and a film was also made, said Tan. Criminologists and policymakers round the world sat up.
In an article in The Straits Times in September 1962, Devan Nair wrote about the “living proof of the value of free and creative labour in pleasant surroundings as the means of rehabilitation of hardened offenders”. “Then the reports of the brutality came in,” he said. “Dutton would wake them up and march them into the sea when the tide was low enough to pick up the big boulders … and carry to a certain place where there was a project going on.“He’d be there supervising the work, shouting away, cursing. … I guess he was the typical example of a slave-driver. You either do or you get punished.”Former prison officer Jimmy Chew confirmed some of the detainees’ dissatisfaction.
Prisoners on the island hoped to be released if they behaved well, but when some of them saw others released after shorter periods, it led to questions as to what was going on, cited NUS political scientist Bilveer Singh.One person who spoke out against the Pulau Senang experiment was former Chief Minister David Marshall, though he “didn’t challenge everything”, said Singh. “He thought re-education was good. However, he still believed that were being treated very badly.
As a member of the Singapore Legislative Assembly at the time, Marshall tried to raise his concerns there, “but it seemed that no one paid attention”, Brunero added. “First, you lose the number of months that you spent on the island. And secondly, Changi wasn’t a very attractive place to be.”After that, detainees from the different gangs banded together and talked about killing Dutton. One of the detainees, Chong Sek Ling, was an informer, and he warned Dutton.
In November 1963, 59 detainees went on trial for rioting and murder. A special dock had to be built for the accused, and they wore numbers so the jurors could remember who was being examined, said NUS’ Tan.
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