Pre-sentencing therapy helps offenders with underlying issues to break cycle of reoffending

Being bullied throughout secondary school left Nick (not his real name) struggling with depression and anxiety. When he was unable to find a job in his 20s, he began to isolate himself at home.

He turned to pornography as an escape for his “absolute despair”, and subsequently discovered voyeuristic content, which led him to film an upskirt video. This soon escalated to a spree, with him filming such videos every two or three days “on autopilot”.

After he was arrested in 2024, he felt helpless and came close to reoffending. The 32-year-old was referred by his lawyer to a programme designed to provide psychological support for first-time offenders.

The Pathways to Accountability, Change and Transformation (Pact) programme was launched by social enterprise Centre for Psychotherapy (C4P) in January 2024 to fill a critical gap in the justice system – pre-sentencing intervention – said C4P senior counsellor and Pact founder Gopal Mahey.

This is defined as the period between when a person is charged and when he is sentenced, which can take anywhere from four weeks to one year.

“While legal representation is often prioritised, we saw a need for structured support to address the deeper psychological and behavioural factors that contribute to offending,” Mr Gopal said.

For instance, sexual offences among young people can stem from an early exposure to pornography, absence of guidance, emotional isolation and adverse childhood experiences, with offenders internalising distorted ideas from online content.

The idea behind the programme is upstream rehabilitation and early intervention to hopefully disrupt cycles of harm, reduce reoffending, and build long-term reintegration potential.

Mr Gopal said there is a “rupture” in the identity of an individual who commits an offence, and hence a need for the offender to rewrite his narrative. Psychological and social support catered to each offender helps them to break the cycle of reoffending and successfully reintegrate into society, he added.

Pact is tailored for those facing criminal charges, especially first-time or non-violent offences, as well as for young people and adults navigating addiction, mental health issues or identity struggles.

Offenders are referred to the programme by lawyers and the State Courts to rehabilitate them. Pre-sentencing psychotherapy is separate from mitigation, and pre-sentencing psychotherapy reports are not meant to influence the outcome of court proceedings or dictate sentencing, said Mr Gopal.

Pact includes individual and family therapy sessions, as well as a fortnightly support group. Its activities include letter-writing exercises to empathise with victims.

Pact has since supported 97 offenders, 41 of whom committed sexual crimes. Of the rest, 25 committed financial crimes, including theft; 19 committed violent crimes; 10 committed substance abuse or trafficking; and two committed traffic offences and public nuisance.

Over half of the participants were aged 19 to 29, and about a quarter were aged 30 to 39. Ten of the 97 were women.

Pre-sentence support for offenders is not widely available in Singapore, with only a handful of organisations offering this service.

The charity Prison Fellowship Singapore started offering pre-sentence support in 2020, and the service has helped 48 offenders and their families since then.

Under the service, care managers and social workers prepare first-time offenders for what to expect for their sentence and in prison, including when their families and the charity’s care managers can visit them.

Prison Fellowship Singapore also refers offenders or their families who need extra help – such as with the implications of incarceration on the family – to the psychologists it partners with.

Lawyer James Gomez of Edmond Pereira Law Corporation said he refers to Pact young people and those with addictions, or deeper psychological factors that contribute to offending.

Lawyer Kalaithasan Karuppaya of Regent Law refers clients to Pact for a “holistic” approach to resolve court matters, as some issues clients struggle with are out of the area of expertise of lawyers.

Mr Gomez said clinical counselling and psychotherapy reports put together by C4P on the offenders also help lawyers to bring up mitigating factors, such as childhood trauma, to the court, to seek a lighter sentence for their clients.

He added that he has seen young clients who were loan sharks coming out of the programme telling him about their aspirations to make money in a different way – by establishing their professional careers.

Mr Kalaithasan said he has seen clients he referred for pre-sentence support stay out of trouble with the law. “They become more disciplined. They appreciate the effort by other people to help them out. So far, I do not have repeat clients who come back with similar issues.”

Mr Gopal said he is working towards doubling Pact’s annual capacity from 70 to 140 participants. The programme is run by four staff and two interns. Down the line, he hopes to potentially integrate Pact as a national upstream rehabilitation option supporting young people and first-time adult offenders before sentencing.

Things are looking up for Nick, who is under forensic investigation for voyeurism and possession of offensive material. He is waiting to be formally charged.

Since his arrest, the self-employed marketer has spent a year in therapy, including counselling sessions with his parents, and support group sessions.

The sessions have helped him to shift the focus to his parents and what he wants to achieve for himself.

He said his father, whom he barely spoke to in years, now leaves him canned iced coffees in the fridge. He also travelled overseas with his family for the first time in a long while.

He has managed to find two good friends after “putting himself out there” and joining online groups, and is now motivated to help others who are bullied or struggling with mental illnesses.

“The small positive steps that I’ve taken after my arrest actually cumulated in something bigger. So now I’m at a point where better things are happening for me, and it’s like a positive loop,” he said.

Beyond pre-sentencing, Pact provides support to offenders in prison and up to 12 months post-release.

Another participant, Tim (not his real name), also turned to filming upskirt videos as an escape when stress from his work and conflicts with his wife made him feel “out of control”.

“Doing something that felt wrong, that feeling was very addictive,” he recalled.

Tim was jailed for three months in 2019 for voyeurism, and three weeks in 2024 for trespass on a female dormitory in a tertiary institution.

He held distorted thoughts around the girls he took upskirt videos of – that they wanted to show off by dressing “provocatively”, and that he was not touching or harming them when he filmed them.

Tim said having Pact’s support from January 2024, at the referral of his lawyer, helped him figure out why he felt the way he did.

“When I first came in, I actually remember thinking that Mr Gopal could have seen similar cases happen so many times that he is one step ahead of us.”

Tim, who is in his early 30s, has since returned to volunteer with Pact’s support group.

“Some people have been committing an offence because it has been something that they feel they have no choice but to keep doing. They don’t have something else to replace it.

“So without all this support, it’s very easy to reoffend. The only thing that is stopping them is fear.”

He said having others journey with him offered him a way out, reminding him that he was not alone.

It is a reminder, he said, to those who have served their sentences: “You still deserve to live a meaningful and fulfilling life that also helps to contribute positively to society.”

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

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