how is caning done in singapore prisons?

Answer 1

Adult caning is never or almost never imposed on its own, but is in addition to a prison sentence. Sometimes a male and a female both commit the same offence and are equally culpable. The female may get a prison sentence but the male will have to suffer a caning in addition to the jail term.

Many thousands of men have received this punishment. Some figures for Singapore:


1987: 602 caned (including 115 foreigners)
1988: 616 caned (119 foreigners)
1992: 1,422 caned
1993 (latest figures available): 3,244 caned, or over 60 per week.
This seems a quite remarkable figure for a jurisdiction whose total population is less than 4 million, but the information was for several years repeated annually in the US State Department Human Rights Report, so presumably it is correct or the Singapore authorities would surely have challenged it. However, the 2004 State Department Report simply notes that statistics are not available.

The "60 a week" figure is backed up by a former employee at Changi Jail, who in 1995 said "They are flogging more and more these days. Before they were doing maybe 60 on Tuesdays and Fridays, now they're doing a hundred" ("Eye of a Tiger", The Guardian, 20 May 1995). And he was evidently talking about Changi prison alone. "I remember one day seeing maybe 60 naked men in Changi waiting to get caned", he added. However, it is possible that this figure includes prison discipline cases as well as court-ordered canings.

According to a Reuters report, an official of the Home Affairs Ministry has stated only that on average about 1,000 people a year were sentenced to caning over the ten years to 1994 (Baltimore Sun, 14 April 1994). This must mean that the great majority of court cases are not covered in the local press, or at least not in the English-language papers, which currently report around three or four caning sentences a week, on average.

It seems the annual figure now must be much higher than that. Channel News Asia reported that 11,790 arrests were made in Singapore for immigration offences in 2004 ("Nearly 11,800 immigration offenders arrested in 2004", 17 February 2005). This offence carries a mandatory sentence of at least three strokes of the cane.

An analysis of newspaper reports of caning sentences imposed in Singapore for the period 1997-2000 gives some broad information on this topic, although again it must be stressed that only a fraction of the sentences imposed are reported in the media.

During this period about 360 sentences inflicting a total of approximately 3,200 strokes were reported.

Of those sentenced:

30 were in their teens (8%)
156 in their 20s (43%)
108 in their 30s (30%)
66 in their 40s (18%).
Applying these ratios to a possible annual figure of about 3,500 men, we can estimate the following numbers caned each year:

16 to 19 year olds: 280
Men in their 20s: 1,505
Men in their 30s: 1,050
Men in their 40s: 630
It seems likely that the most frequently imposed caning sentences in recent years have been for immigration offences. Some reports in March 1998 disclose dozens of men being sentenced at each court session. The same kind of thing has happened more recently in Malaysia. As one example among many, see "Cane and deportation for 168 illegals", Daily Express, Sabah, 16 January 2004.

The usual sentence in such cases is 3 or 4 strokes in Singapore and Brunei, but often only one stroke in Malaysia.

In December 2004 it was reported that 18,607 illegal immigrants had been whipped in Malaysia in two years. Only five of these men had received six strokes. 15,214 of them received only one stroke. 11,473 of those caned were Indonesians ("More Than 18,000 Illegal Immigrants Whipped", Bernama News Agency, 8 December 2004).

These matters aside, 16% of the Singapore sentences studied imposed 6 strokes, 12% imposed 12 strokes, and 10% imposed 24 strokes, the remainder covering the whole range of odd and even numbers from 1 to 20 strokes.

HOW MANY STROKES ARE GIVEN

The Singapore Criminal Procedure Code lays down that 24 strokes is the maximum that can be ordered at any one trial. The strokes must all be inflicted on the same occasion, and not in instalments.

The same figure of 24 is also the maximum in Malaysia and Brunei. However, it has been reported that in Malaysia the 24-stroke maximum is per infliction and per warrant, not per trial: "if a prisoner is charged under several warrants, he has to serve the combined number of strokes. He can take at the most 24 strokes each time. When the wounds are healed, he has to endure the painful experience all over again" ("The hand that wields the cane", Sunday Star, Kuala Lumpur, 20 February 2005). A case was reported in August 2004 in which a rapist was sentenced to 50 strokes in total.

In 1991, Quek Kee Chong, 26, sued the Singapore Government for "grievous injuries to his buttocks" following a 48-stroke caning at Changi jail in April 1988. In a clear breach of the Code, the court had awarded him 12 strokes on each of four armed robbery charges ("Convicted man sues Govt over number of strokes he received", Straits Times, 6 June 1991). It seems quite inexplicable that the senior prison officers present, who must surely be aware of the relevant law, allowed this to happen. One also has to wonder why the doctor in attendance did not intervene. The man later received financial compensation from the government for this error.

Mr Quek's family members said he had later been hospitalised at the Changi Prison Hospital.

They were surprised how he withstood the 48 strokes, which, according to informed prison sources, is "quite remarkable for a sturdy man to take".

THE DIMENSIONS OF THE CANE

The Singapore Prison cane is made of rattan. Unlike bamboo, this is very flexible when wet. In some pictures the soaked rattan appears to be so bendy that it may be understandable that some observers are said to have mistakenly thought the implements were actually leather whips.

The size and dimensions of the cane are prescribed by regulation.


For adult men it is 1.2 metres long and 1.3cm thick (Prison Regulations 132(2)). The Malaysian cane is said to be very slightly smaller, at 1.09m long and 1.25cm in diameter.

It is thus about as long as a broom handle and as thick as a man's little finger.

A smaller cane, the "light rattan", is used for boys under 16, in both Singapore and Malaysia. In Malaysia, it was recently revealed that a smaller cane, "about half the size of the standard rotan", is also used for non-violent "white-collar" offenders, those convicted of criminal breach of trust (embezzlement and the like) ("The hand that wields the cane", Sunday Star, Kuala Lumpur, 20 February 2005).

In Brunei, the law provides that in the case of a youthful offender, whipping should be inflicted "in the way of school discipline" with a light rotan. This might perhaps be taken to mean that the boy keeps his trousers on.

Malaysia, but not Singapore, also has separate Islamic religious courts administering Sharia (Syariah) law, applicable only to Moslems. This operates in parallel with the mainstream judicial system. Its provisions vary in detail from one state to another and do not primarily concern criminal matters but, when they do, canings are occasionally ordered for such sins as adultery or drinking alcohol. (In practice this sort of thing appears to happen only in the conservative rural northern states, where Islam is much stronger than in KL or the other heavily westernised urban centres on the west coast.) These are carried out in prisons by the same officers who administer the ordinary judicial canings. But, here again, it is the smaller rotan that is used, the aim being a symbolic act of shame rather than serious physical pain.

APPARATUS USED

The prisoner is strapped to a large wooden trestle. This is clearly closely based on, if not identical with, the British dual-purpose prison flogging frame, originally designed for both floggings with the cat on the upper back (offender standing upright) and punishments applied to the posterior (offender bending over).

The Singapore trestle seen in a recent government anti-crime video, "Prison Me No Way", is specially made and painted blue. It is like two H's joined at the top and extended at the base to about three feet. There is a timber base, comprising four pieces of timber joined to form a rectangle, on which the prisoner stands in his bare feet.

View stills from the video

On his side of the trestle there are two horizontal bars. The upper crossbar is slightly padded and adjustable, so that in position it is at the level of his waist. The padding is like a sheepskin or piece of foam wrapped around a piece of timber.

The lower crossbar has bolted to it two short lengths of chain, each of four links to which are attached, by D-rings, restraining ankle cuffs. These are of black leather, with chrome fittings; they are about two inches wide with smaller tightening straps.

On the opposite side of the trestle there is a stabilising crossbar, higher up, and another crossbar placed slightly lower than the adjustable one on the prisoner's side. Attached to this crossbar are wrist cuffs, similar to the ankle cuffs. When the prisoner's wrists are attached to these cuffs his hands are able to hold on to this crossbar.

The Singapore Director of Prisons said:

"[...] it is essential that the leather be strong [...] the prisoner struggles violently after each of the first three strokes [...] "

In some reports the cuffs are stated to be of rubber. Possibly, different equipment is used in different institutions.

It can be seen from several pictures of "dummy demonstration" canings that very similar equipment is used in Brunei.

In Malaysia, on the other hand, the frame (pictured right) is a triangle rather than a trestle, coming to a point at the top instead of having parallel sides. The convict does not bend over but must stand upright. A specially designed protective shield is placed round the torso, leaving only the buttocks exposed. It is not known when or why this different approach was adopted in Malaysia.

THE MEDICAL EXAMINATION

It is a requirement that the prisoner be medically fit to be caned.

The Singapore Criminal Procedure Code, Section 231(1) provides:

"The punishment of caning shall not be inflicted unless a medical officer is present and certifies that the offender is in a fit state of health to undergo such punishment".

The doctor has the power to stop the punishment at any time, and his duties include medical treatment on completion of the punishment.

Similar precautions are taken in Malaysia and presumably also in Brunei.

High blood pressure or heart problems are said to be grounds for exemption. Yet according to an Associated Press report in 1994, when Singapore was reportedly caning up to 3,000 men per year, only about six people per year, on average, were excused on medical grounds ("Caning a Legacy of Singapore's Past", Houston Post, 6 May 1994). It seems unlikely that so few as six out of 3,000 would be suffering from high blood pressure. Rather more plausible is a January 2003 report which stated that, out of 19 prisoners being whipped on a particular day at a jail in Sarawak, three were found medically unfit.

CANING SESSIONS IN PRISON

Canings are inflicted so frequently that there are regular sessions at which groups of men are dealt with together. The men are made to squat in a line outside the caning room to await their turn.

According to a former Singapore prison employee interviewed in 1994, these sessions are normally held every Tuesday and Friday at Changi, the famous top-security jail. But there are also other jails, notably Queenstown Remand Prison, where the American teenager Michael Fay was caned in May 1994 for vandalism.

Prisoners are not told in advance when their caning is to take place.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Singapore Caning

Answer 4

Aiya, in reality, there's a A-frame structure made of wood, then the victim "bends" down on the frame, with the back facing up, the chest facing down, legs apart, legs and hands strapped up.

then the caner will choose a cane from the caning rack, having thick to thickest cane there, give a figure of eight swing, and hit !!!!!!! ouch!!!!!! then a doctor will see the victim if can go for one more stroke or not, if he has been sentenced for more ....

then at the last stroke, the caner will cane slightly off as to "mark" the end of this sentence.

if the guy commits again to another sentences of canning, then the caner will cane him slight above or below his previous canning sessions.

how i know? from friendsssss whom got more than 1 canning sessions and a few with 24 strokes of canning showing on his buttocks permantly.

so what ever u guys do, dont commit offences!!!!

Answer 5

probably the same as at my school ,with steel tipped bamboo rods,
but the masters could only give six.
in Singapore prisons there probably isn't a limit

Answer 6

Naturally with a cane on the back

Answer 7

go n see ur self in changi prision are u singaporean if u r then don't know then u must be silly

Answer 8

hit multiple times on your bare back.

Answer 9

with unnecessary force.