What makes some people refrain from reoffending?: Forum

I refer to Gopal Mahey’s commentary “I spent years in prison. Rehabilitation doesn’t end with counselling” (Sept 24).

The writer is right that rehabilitation does not end when counselling or prison programmes end. Employment, family relationships and community acceptance can influence whether positive changes are sustained after release for offenders.

However, there is another dimension that deserves greater attention: personal agency.

Singapore’s recidivism figures are informative. The two-year recidivism rate for the 2023 release cohort was 21.9 per cent, meaning 78.1 per cent did not recidivate within two years. For the 2020 release cohort, the five-year recidivism rate was 39.3 per cent, meaning 60.7 per cent did not recidivate within five years.

These figures tell us what happened, but not necessarily why. Recidivism is a criminal-justice outcome, not a direct measure of rehabilitation. A person who does not reoffend cannot automatically be assumed to have undergone “successful rehabilitation”, just as someone who reoffends cannot simply be said to have “failed rehabilitation”.

The distinction matters because conversations with people who have successfully desisted often reveal a strong sense of agency. They speak of deciding to change, taking responsibility for their actions, changing their priorities and making difficult choices in line with their values, even when confronted with circumstances and people that previously led them into trouble with the law.

This does not make social support unimportant or less important. Families, employers, prison officers, counsellors and community organisations can provide opportunities and conditions that help sustain change. But support does not itself produce desistance. The individual has to exercise agency amid difficult life conditions.

Nor is social support necessarily protective in every case. Some relationships or peer networks can reinforce offending behaviour, while some people manage to desist despite limited support.

Perhaps the more useful question is therefore not whether people leaving prison receive sufficient support, but what enables some people to sustain desistance over time. Understanding their decisions, motivations and sense of responsibility may be as important as understanding the social conditions around them.

Rehabilitation can provide the means and opportunities for change. But ultimately, desistance is something a person has to choose and live out, repeatedly, in everyday life. 

Alan Tan Eng Khim

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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