THE Home Ministry should have acted earlier to prevent the outbreak of Covid-19 infections in prisons and detention centres, said Nur Jazlan Mohamed.

The former deputy home minister said the issue of overcrowded prisons and detention centres, which have become conducive for the spread of the coronavirus, was well managed in the past under the Barisan Nasional government.

“Malaysia’s success under the BN government before 2018 had driven the demand for legal and illegal foreign workers.

“The problem of overcrowded detention centres and prisons was prioritised and managed well then, and health issues were always the main priority to stop the spread of diseases in these centres,” Nur Jazlan told The Malaysian Insight.  

Senior minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said yesterday nine prisons and correctional centres in the north and Selangor will be placed under the enhanced movement-control order (EMCO).

These are the Perlis correctional centre, Sg Petani prison, Taiping prison, Kamunting correctional centre and Tapah prison, while in Selangor, they are the Sg Buloh remand prison, Kajang prison, Kajang women’s prison and Puncak Alam correctional centre.

These are apart from the five active prison clusters in Sabah, Penang and Kedah. They are the Benteng Lahad Datu, Kepayan, Remand, Seberang Perai and Tembok clusters.

The Tembok cluster in Kedah has the highest number of infections at 1,586 cases followed by the Benteng Lahad Datu cluster (1,085). Kepayan, another prison cluster in Sabah, reported 582 cases while the Remand and Seberang Perai clusters in Penang registered 407 and 95 cases respectively.

Similar outbreaks were previously detected in immigration detention centres in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur and Semenyih and Sepang in Selangor.

Nur Jazlan, who was deputy home minister from 2015 to 2018, puts the blame squarely on the present administration.

“The home minister (Hamzah Zainuddin) should have spent less time politicking and more time doing his job as the executive in charge, and taken preventive measures earlier in the year to secure these risky properties,” he said.

“The authorities should have carried out regular testing of inmates and staff at these centres and effective contact tracing to prevent the disease from spreading in these facilities and communities.

“This is the problem with an unstable government and the appointment of incapable ministers.”

The Tawau and Kepayan prisons, Remand and Seberang Perai in Penang as well as the Pokok Sena  and Alor Star, Kedah, and the respective staff quarters have been placed under EMCO earlier.

Transfers of staff during the pandemic should have also been stopped to prevent the infection from spreading outside the prisons and detention centres, said Nur Jazlan.

Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said recently the cramped condition in prisons and detention centres is one of the possible reasons for the spike in infections.

He added that inmates could have also been infected when they were taken for court hearings and other purposes.

“When they returned to the prison, it was not only the inmates but the escorts as well who were at risk of infections,” Noor Hisham said.

There is also the possibility that the infections were spread from outside, whether through staff or visitors.

According to current standard operating procedure, new detainees are tested and isolated for 14 days.

They will only be housed with existing inmates once they test negative for Covid-19 for the second time at the end of the isolation period.

Noor Hisham said in addition to looking into ways to address the issue of space constraint, the Health Ministry is also working with the authorities, such as the Prisons and the Immigration Departments, to fine tune the SOP. – October 23, 2020.