Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS) has turned to New Zealand for advice on planning a faith-based unit for the Singapore corrections system.
PFS and the Singapore Prison Service plan to establish a 100-bed unit within the next 12 to 18 months representing all of the country’s major faiths - Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Buddhist.
Prison Fellowship New Zealand National Director Kim Workman says his Singapore counterparts will see first hand the faithbased unit (FBU) at Rimutaka Prison this month and discuss their initial ideas.
A Singaporean delegation comprising representatives from the Singapore Prison Service, Prison Fellowship International, Prison Fellowship Singapore, a high-profile Singaporean halfway house and a Singaporean Muslim counselling service which runs narcotic and addiction programmes are expected to come to New Zealand.
A representative of the Islamic Association of New Zealand may also attend and Rimutaka Prison staff and PFNZ members will provide context about the system in which the FBU operates.
Kim says PFS has been talking with the Singapore Prison Service and Corrections since September last year when ideas about an FBU were circulated at conferences he attended in Hong Kong and Shenzen City in China.
“We’ll talk to them about the Public Prisons Service as a whole, the chaplaincy service, the history of the FBU, our operating principles and methodology, and other items,” Kim says.
“We’ll also take a look at Prison Fellowship Singapore’s FBU proposal.”
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