PUTRAJAYA will gazette training centres into temporary prisons to overcome the overcrowding of prisons, said Jonathan Yasin.

“We will place offenders for remand, minor offences and minimum security in training camps that will be gazetted as temporary prisons under Section 8 of the Prison Act.

“These temporary prisons will function as admission prisons,” the Deputy Home Minister told Dewan Rakyat today.

As of October 19, there were 66,791 prisoners in 39 prisons throughout the country.

“But our prison capacity is only 46,420. This is an overflow of 43.9%,” said Jonathan.

The Ranau MP was responding to Dr Hatta Ali’s (Lumu PH) question on reform measures for the prison system following Covid-19 clusters in the penitentiary.

“As of November 2, 1,156 prisoners tested positive for Covid-19 while 83 officers and their family members tested positive.”

He said that the prison system has begun testing all offenders before transferring them to the prisons.

“This was reaffirmed by the National Security Council on October 15.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan said the Home Ministry is working to let two-thirds of those who qualify to do their rehabilitation outside of the prisons through parole, smart internship and industrial integration.

The prison clusters do not include the illegal immigrant detention centres that reported 776 cases in June. – November 3, 2020.