Mr Speaker, I am declaring my interest as a lawyer in private practice and I have been a defence counsel in criminal cases.
Sir, the bill advances some timely updates to our criminal laws. I am supportive of the Bill’s intentions, especially the changes which allow us to keep pace with the ever-evolving nature of crimes.
The Bill addresses important lacunae in the law that have emerged as a result of technological advances, some of which may have extra-territorial implications. For instance, I support the provisions to explicitly penalise the production of computer-generated obscene images, to strengthen penalties for obscene objects involving minors below the age of 18, and to expand the scope of sexual grooming offences to cover meetings outside Singapore.
The Bill also affords public servants better protections from harassment. As an MP overseeing the running of a town council, I fully understand the need for these amendments. I have seen how our hardworking town council staff have been unfairly targeted, with their names and identities spread around by some unhappy resident. The Bill provides our public servants with the necessary assurance that they can safely and securely discharge their duties without the threat of public harassment.
I support how the Bill increases prison terms for causing or allowing the fatal abuse of vulnerable victims. This includes children and domestic workers who are often defenceless and cannot fight back. We are sending the right message by increasing the sentences — which can go up to 30 years or life imprisonment — to ensure the vulnerable are protected.
Mr Speaker, the Bill also revises our penal policy with respect to caning. On one hand, caning has been introduced for certain categories of scam- and fraud-related offences. On the other hand, caning has been removed or made discretionary for other offences, such as specific vandalism offences.
I mention the Vandalism Act in particular because there were some disquiet, both in public and in Parliament, when caning was first mooted as a penalty. For instance, the Vandalism Act has been described by legal academic Jothie Rajah as “a significant departure from penal practices” in prescribing “a violent punishment for a property offence” when it was introduced in 1966.
It is worth noting that the then law minister E. W. Barker recognised the unique nature of Singapore’s caning policy on vandalism. He said, and I quote, “At the outset, it must be conceded that present-day penological trends are against the infliction of caning as a punishment and that legal opinion is in general against the imposition of corporal punishment in cases not involving violence or brutality.” End quote.
In that same debate, then-PAP backbencher Mr Tang See Chim, also warned, and here I am quoting him, that the “severity of punishment may not, in fact, necessarily be a deterrent. The way to deter any crime, I submit, is to impress on the wrong-doer the certainty of his being found out if he commits one.” End quote.
Sir, we seem to have come full circle from 1966. Now, we are about to cease mandatory caning as a punishment for vandalism. At the same time, however, we are introducing corporal punishment for a new class of offences related to fraud and scams.
It goes without saying that we need to protect Singaporeans from scammers. Their modus operandi grows ever more sophisticated and multifarious, and it can seem as though we are trying to fight a hydra. And of course, we would want to use all the weapons we have at our disposal to confront this hydra-headed challenge.
As we consider caning as a punishment against scammers, I do believe the points raised in the debate on the Vandalism Act in 1966 can still be relevant. In particular, they were concerned about whether caning is an appropriate deterrence against crime.
I do not wish to understate the severity of the monetary losses as a result of scams. It can run up to life-changing amounts, or even the entirety of an elderly person’s retirement funds. Many of us in this House, myself included, will have encountered scam victims seeking assistance at our Meet-the-People Sessions. The scale of their losses can be heartbreaking.
The question still remains: how should we fight the hydra of these scam networks? Would caning be effective? And is it appropriate?
As many of us are aware, scams are now increasingly being perpetrated by organised crime networks. These groups often operate transnationally. It is quite likely that the ringleaders would be cocooned safely somewhere, far from Singapore, in countries that may not have extradition treaties with us. Meanwhile, the lower-level operatives are the ones on the frontlines and liable to be caught. Would caning the latter group of individuals cause a dent on their criminal operations?
Furthermore, would introducing the prospect of being caned substantially change the calculus for the ringleaders? From the perspective of disrupting these scam operations, it may actually make more of a difference if we further strengthen cross-border law enforcement cooperation and extradition arrangements. I acknowledge that this is being done by the Government. My point, however, is that we can better deter the ringleaders by increasing the likelihood of them being caught, rather than the prospect of more severe punishment.
Another possibility is to offer leniency to lower-level operatives who assist the authorities in dismantling these crime networks. Many of these lower-level operatives, including the mules, may be unwilling participants who have been themselves tricked into working for these criminal networks.
On another note, I want to ask whether there is a possibility of the Government imposing sanctions against criminal organisations involved in scamming Singaporeans, similar to what has been done in other jurisdictions like the United States. Can financial sanctions or asset confiscation be viable options to pursue, with the view of perhaps using the recovered funds to finance a Scam Victim Restitution Fund of sorts? I am aware that the operational details of something like a Victim Restitution Fund would have to be worked out carefully. However, unlike caning, this offers a more tangible benefit to the victims.
Mr Speaker, I want to emphasise again that I am not speaking out of some misplaced sympathy for the potential scammers who might be caned. I fervently believe that scam victims deserve justice for the psychological and material losses they have to endure. I can also understand the appeal of bringing the full force of the law onto these scammers who have left so much misery and pain in their wake. But, Sir, the law is not a blunt instrument, but something to be used with precision.
It is worth reiterating that this is not a question of whether scammers should be harshly punished. Of course, they should be. However, the pertinent question is whether the marginal deterrent value of a longer prison sentence matches or even exceeds the marginal deterrent value of imposing caning as a penalty.
Mr Speaker, I do not doubt that the Government sincerely wants to do the right thing for Singaporeans. I hope that my reservations about caning for scam-related offences are also seen in the right way. That is, as a constructive intervention to ask whether caning is truly the most effective means of protecting Singaporeans from the scourge of scams.
