Kota Kinabalu: City Hall and the Prisons Department have extended their collaboration which allows prisoners under the Compulsory Attendance Order (CAO) to undertake community service in the city.
The one-year collaboration was inked Tuesday between Mayor Datuk Noorliza Awang Alip and Prisons Deputy Commissioner-General Datuk Ibrisam Abdul Rahman.
This is the second such collaboration between City Hall and the Department, the first being in 2017.
“We are excited to implement it because our ‘Love KK’ campaign also emphasises community involvement as the most critical factor in determining the success of such programmes, not to mention transforming the landscape of prisoner rehabilitation today,” said Noorliza.
“In this context, community support will assist in realising the offender’s goal to change without facing pressure when confronted with the surrounding community.
“As stated in City Hall’s Healthy KK component, this might boost social health. Perhaps the CAO can contribute and undertake volunteer work in the ‘Love KK’ network as a result of this collaboration,” she said.
She asserted that the persistence of City Hall’s ‘Love KK’ efforts, which focus on improving the quality of people’s lives under the liveable and healthy component, has become a platform for the formation of human capital and the wellbeing of the people, which is the core of Sabah Maju Jaya.
“To form and develop an inclusive community in a quality and liveable city environment while benefiting the targeted community and social group, we must look further into the future and recognise that every person, including CAO offenders and former prisoners, has an important role to play.
“This concept of empowered rehabilitation has the potential to accelerate the rehabilitation of offenders in the society, allowing them to fully recover while remaining unaffected by their prior lives.
“I hope this collaboration will be able to support the Prisons Department with its rehabilitation reform programme and continue to flourish with City Hall to provide the best service delivery quality to the people of this city.
“We at City Hall are always ready to accept challenges and take responsibility to improve service quality, and we seek to bear responsibility more efficiently and in accordance with the law,” she said.
The CAO is an option outside the prison walls imposed by the court on offenders who commit certain offences, and these offenders are compelled to perform compulsory community service.
“This approach should be strengthened in tandem with the present shift in the legal system from ‘Retributive Justice’ to ‘Rehabilitation Justice’ in order to give more offenders a second chance,” Noorliza said.
She said continuous rehabilitation programme strives to apply positive principles and generate people who are valuable to the community and the country, as well as to prevent criminal conduct.
“With the CAO, offenders can also maintain their everyday lives without jeopardising their and their families’ welfare while undergoing the CAO programme,” she said.
She believes it can help reduce prison overcrowding and hasten the process of reintegration into society.
“In City Hall, we also adopt the CAO initiative for those who have committed hygiene offences,” she said.
She said City Hall enforcement teams will issue summonses on the spot in accordance with the Anti-Litter By-Law 1984, which was revised in 2005 and began to be enforced in 2015 as a result of City Hall’s collaboration with the court at the time due to the litter problem in Kg Sembulan.
“If convicted in court of this summons on the spot, three forms of punishment are granted, namely CAO, fine or prison.
“If convicted, the offender may be fined not more than RM10,000, imprisoned for not more than three years, or sentenced to a CAO by performing community service for four hours each day for a period of not more than three months,” she said.
Non-citizens are usually given a fine or sentenced to serve time in jail.
From 2016 to 2020, City Hall recorded 456 offenders sentenced to CAO.
On August 1, 2016, offenders of the CAO under the Anti-litter Bylaw were penalised on the spot at Kg Sembulan.
Cleaning, charity work, interventions, talks, sports and recreation are among the activities carried out under the CAO programme.
Meanwhile, as part of the collaboration, City Hall will allow community service work in places such as Bandaran and Sinsuran, as well as provide brooms and dustbins for community service work for offenders in the CAO programme.
In addition, the CAO programme is implemented at Kg Sembulan (for offenders under summons-on-the-spot), Sri Pritchard’s Home for the Elderly, cemeteries, and the beaches.
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