Practice guides, training for counsellors on issues of porn among 20 recommendations to enhance prevention of youth offending

Increasing the capability of professionals to manage concerns of pornography, enhancing Preventive Drug Education (PDE) in schools and improving access to resources for inmates’ families provided by self-help groups. 

These are just three of 20 new recommendations to help enhance the prevention of offending and re-offending among youths. 

The recommendations were announced at the biennial Conversations on Youth (COY) symposium on Wednesday (Sep 27) by the National Committee on Prevention, Rehabilitation and Recidivism (NCPR).

This year’s symposium, themed Youths Matter Amidst Change, saw the attendance of over 600 school leaders, teachers in charge of student discipline, social and youth workers, law enforcement officers and representatives from government agencies.

According to statistics from the Singapore Police Force, 2,023 youths were arrested last year. Shop theft, cheating and related offences, and sexual offence (penetration) were the top three offences. 

The recommendations, surfaced by various NCPR project teams, were to address three key areas – “breaking the cycle of intergenerational offending”, “preventing substance abuse among youths”, and “preventing youth sexual offending”.

Chief Psychologist at the Ministry of Home Affairs Dr Majeed Khader was the project team co-lead looking at recommendations to prevent youth sexual offending.

Dr Majeed’s team believes in the importance of “empowering youths through early preventive education on factors contributing to sexual crimes” and to “emphasise ways to attain healthy sexual development, practice self-safety and self-protective skills to prevent offending and victimisation”.

The recommendations to achieve that include increasing the capability of professionals to manage concerns of pornography pertinent to youths, and increasing understanding on personal safety and respect for boundaries among youths.

The former will see the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), with support from the Ministry of Education (MOE) and MSF, develop practice guides and conduct training for practitioners on the issue of pornography. The latter will be done through school assembly talks on personal safety and respect for boundaries by SPF, with support from MOE. 

The team also identified the need to “promote and strengthen service provision at multiple touchpoints to prevent sexual offending and re-offending”. 

To do so, they recommend increasing the capabilities of professionals managing youths showing at-risk sexual behaviours and increasing awareness and knowledge of community agencies in the rehabilitation of youth sexual offenders. 

They also call for strengthening capabilities and enhancing service provision of suitable community agencies to support the rehabilitation and reintegration of youth sexual offenders in the community, and sharing of best practices among government agencies.

Finally, Dr Majeed’s team highlighted the need to “provide stronger support for specific populations”.

They recommend strengthening support for victims of youth sexual offences, reviewing the Community Forensic Service to enhance support for offenders with intellectual disabilities, and streamlining data sharing processes to better support persons with Intellectual Disabilities/Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the criminal justice system.

The focus area on substance abuse was presented by Deputy Director at the Central Narcotics Bureau Sng Chern Hong.

Mr Sng and his team identified the need to “leverage more government platforms” and “empower ground-up voices to amplify public education efforts on the harms and illegality of drugs and vaping”.

They recommend reviewing the engagement approach for raising awareness among youths on harms and illegality of vaping, enhancing Preventive Drug Education (PDE) in schools and institutionalise PDE programmes, and launching a series of events in conjunction with the annual DrugFreeSG Campaign. 

The team also addressed the need to “shore up social protective factors for youths who are likely to be more exposed to negative influences and risk factors”. It was recommended to  sensitise professionals and parents to issues relating to substance abuse, and equip citizens with skills to identify substance abuse among youths.

CNB and the Health Promotion Board have worked together to create learning programmes for social service agencies and Singapore Police Force (SPF)’s Citizens on Patrol.

Director of the Singapore Prison Service’s Rehabilitation and Reintegration Division, Caroline Lim – who is the project team’s co-lead – presented the recommendations for the focus area of intergenerational offending.

The team highlighted the need to “expand existing support touchpoints and improve the coordination among them to bring about more comprehensive coverage and timely support for inmates’ families”. 

To achieve this, they recommend mainstreaming the Singapore Prison Service (SPS)-Family Service Centre (FSC) collaboration to include all newly-admitted inmates with young children, increasing access to resources for inmates’ families provided by Self-Help Groups, and providing opportunity for inmates and families to build and restore stable marital relationships to support future reintegration.

They also highlighted the importance of “leveraging volunteers and befrienders to support inmates’ families on a more sustained basis”. The recommendations to support this include expanding the volunteer base of the Yellow Ribbon Community Project, and launching a family befriending initiative for selected first-time inmates and their families with young children.

Finally, Ms Lim shared the need to dovetail initiatives with existing systems so that a more coordinated and client-centric approach can be taken in serving the needs of inmates and their families. 

The team recommends onboarding IT system enablers to improve operational efficiency. NCPR shared that the Singapore Prison Services is working with the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) to engage key community partners to onboard suitable IT system enablers, such as MSF’s Case Connect system, which was developed to enable inter-agency case referrals and coordination. 

The NCPR has submitted its recommendations and the Government has accepted all of them. According to the NCPR, it is currently working closely with various agencies to implement the recommendations.

Co-chairperson of the NCPR, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Ministry of Social and Family Development and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth Eric Chua also shared in his opening address that several initiatives and plans are underway, to provide more support to the youth-at-risk.

According to him, there will be a new anti-drug campaign in 2024 to raise awareness on the severe impact of drugs on abusers and their loved ones. Community partners will also support the various campaign activities.

The Singapore Prison Service will also have a new collaboration with the Strengthening Families Programme @ Family Service Centre (FAM@FSC). A referral process will be established for inmates with marital issues to receive counselling services from FAM@FSC. This stems from the belief that “building and restoring stable marriages” will help youths receive necessary care and guidance from both parents.

The Early Identification and Intervention Resource Package for Youths with at-risk Sexual Behaviours will also be developed. SPS Eric shared that this will help professionals in the early identification of inappropriate behaviours. 

Professionals will also be guided on how they can intervene, with tiered responses to manage these youths with at-risk sexual behaviours. The target is for half of all school and community counsellors to be trained by end-2024 in using this resource package, and the remaining to be trained by end-2025.

SPS Eric then reiterated that addressing youth offending and delinquency issues requires a “whole-of-society approach”. Individuals, families and the community need to be involved so that youths can be “supported holistically”.