An Explainer
The first-world modern city-state Singapore still inflicts a form of corporal punishment that dates back to the Middle Ages.
The Legal Side of Things: When
>30 offences that are committed in Singapore can attract a sentence of corporal punishment, also known as judicial caning. For about a dozen of them — including rape, robbery and overstaying in Singapore without a valid permit past a certain period of time — such punishment is mandatory.
After sentencing, the court directs the time and place of the caning, and the offender does not have to be (and, in practice, is never) informed.
Caning can also be imposed on prisoners who commit offences within the prison facility as an administrative act of punishment. This does not require a judge to determine if caning is a suitable punishment, or to decide the number of strokes.
The Legal Side of Things: Who
Those assigned female at birth (“women”) and those assigned male at birth (“men”) over 50 are exempt from judicial caning, and are sentenced with up to 12 months imprisonment instead.
In other words, caning is a gendered exercise, and women are exempt from this punishment.
Juveniles are not exempt from this practice, which means boys aged below 16 may also be caned. The age of criminal responsibility in Singapore is pegged at 10 years old.
Under the Law: How
The rattan cane used is about 1.5 m long, and not more than 1.27 cm in diameter by law. For juveniles, a light rattan is used. The rattan is soaked in water overnight to ensure it does not splinter.
A caning session sees a maximum of 24 strokes in one sitting, and no instalments of strokes are allowed. If the offender has been sentenced more than 24 strokes, he will be given imprisonment terms in lieu of the strokes.
A medical officer must certify their fitness to be caned before beginning the session, which must be stopped when the medical officer deems the offender unfit to be caned. In such cases, the offender will get up to 12 months of imprisonment in lieu of the remaining strokes.
Lived Experiences: Before the Caning
Not knowing when they might be taken to be caned, those sentenced with caning live with anxiety and deep feelings of shame. One ex-offender shares, “Each and every day you sleep, you worry. I waited three months before I kena the caning. For three months, you’re just waiting.”
Prisoners are not usually told when they will be caned, and tend to only find out on the morning itself. Our research has shown that caning is usually carried out after they have been incarcerated for at least a month.
Lived Experiences: The Caning
Prisoners scheduled for caning will leave their cells and wait outside a designated room. “We queue up like idiot lah, like want to go voting lah, like queuing babi babi go slaughterhouse.” The one with the most strokes goes first, and the one after him waits in the same room. A window lets the others waiting see what happens inside.
When it is their turn, their prison uniform is taken off and they put on a protective covering which exposes their buttocks. They are tied to an A-shaped trestle at their wrists, in a bent-over position.
The caning officer is physically fit and strong, colloquially known as a “commando”. They stretch their arms and swing their canes before caning; some prisoners believe as an intimidation tactic. They keep time and count the strokes administered, so that the process does not go faster nor slower than intended. Each “commando” administers a maximum of 6 strokes, with more at the ready for those with more than 6 strokes. “They make sure there is enough strength so they have different people.”
The rest waiting for their turn can hear the smack of the canes. Despite the pain, it’s rarely accompanied with the excruciating cries and moans of the men before him. “No matter how pain you cannot shout. That is the rule among the inmates.”
Where the cane lands on the buttocks, the skin and flesh tear. “One stroke already blood come out.” “When the first stroke come, you feel lah. Every stroke you feel lah.” The “commandos” are so “well-trained that none of the strokes will criss-cross, it will look like kueh lapis.”
One prisoner heard laughter after he was given 6 strokes. “And then they started laughing. I was like ‘what the fuck!’ I don’t know if it’s their own joke that they’re laughing at or they are laughing at me. But it’s not the fucking place to be laughing. Right? We are not treated as humans anymore, right? We are treated as another object.”
Lived Experiences: After the Caning
One of TJC’s interviewees said: “Do you know that after you are caned, there’s a panel of people watching you, three people or so, do you know that after you get caned, it is mandatory for you to look at them, and say ‘thank you’? Sick or not, bro? If you never say, you cannot leave the room.” (In response to a parliamentary question, the government said that there was “no such requirement”, but TJC has heard independent accounts from more than one prisoner about this.)
After the caning session, they are given medication for their wounds. “You have to sleep on your chest and cannot sleep on your back. It takes about one month to recover. You don’t get medicine every day. They just give you the medicine one time, unless got pus lah. Everything they want you to feel pain. You cannot shower, damn pain lah. […] If the shorts get stuck to the wound, you need to let the trousers soak under the shower, the water will let it go. If you don’t do like that, and just pull the shorts, it is damn pain you know.”
References and Reading
- “Caning in Singapore: Judicial, School & Parental Corporal Punishment.” Singapore Legal Advice. https://singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/caning-singapore-judicial-school-parental-corporal-punishment/. Accessed 28 August 2023.
- Transformative Justice Collective. “You Don’t See The Sky: Life Behind Bars in Singapore.” 2022.
- “Types of sentences.” SG Courts. Government of Singapore. https://www.judiciary.gov.sg/criminal/types-sentences. Accessed 28 August 2023.
- Criminal Procedure Code 2010. Division 2. Ss 325-332.
- Penal Code 1871. Chapter 4. Ss 82.
- Han, Kirsten. “A London DJ’s punishment sheds light on Singapore’s caning shame.” The Guardian. 15 January 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/15/outcry-london-dj-caning-singapore-ye-ming-yuen. Accessed 28 August 2023.
- Farrel, C. “Singapore: Judicial and Prison Corporal Punishment” Corpun. https://www.corpun.com/rules2.htm#singapore. Accessed 2 Oct 2023.
- Lay, Belmont. “Changi Prison inmate describes getting 21 strokes of cane in 10 mins: ‘From 1 to 10 is very pain already’.” Mothership. 8 September 2022. https://mothership.sg/2022/09/caning-jail-singapore-experience/. Accessed 28 August 2023.
- “Inside Maximum Security.” CNA. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/watch/inside-maximum-security. 16 January 2022. [url] Accessed 28 August 2023.
- Ministry of Home Affairs. “Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Cases of Canings Administered by the Singapore Prison Service without Judicial Sentencing over the Past 10 Years, by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law”. https://www.mha.gov.sg/mediaroom/parliamentary/written-reply-to-pq-on-cases-of-canings-administered-by-the-singapore-prison-service-without-judicial-sentencing-over-the-past-10-years/. Accessed 29 September 2023
Transformative Justice Collective 