———
I’m so far from working closely with incarcerated people here that I spend one afternoon engaged with mock prisoners on TV. They’re actors in ads, like the ball-and-chain ad I’d seen in Thailand, created by a group called the Yellow Ribbon Project. A decade-old, PR-driven venture devoted to assisting the formerly incarcerated, they boast a scholarship fund of more than $2 million, a job bank with more than 3,800 employers, and more than one thousand community partners. They campaign to promote the acceptance of the formerly incarcerated in mainstream culture by putting out ads and billboards and holding regular promotional events, mostly during September, which is Yellow Ribbon Month. Over the years the YRP has staged concerts, film screenings, and fashion shows, published poetry books and music albums, hosted prison art exhibits, developed a cell phone app, and distributed millions of yellow ribbons for people to wear on their lapels, signifying support for the formerly incarcerated.
“We weren’t trying to join the ribbon bandwagon—pink ribbons and red ribbons and such,” Jin, YRP’s marketing manager, tells me. The name was born when the CEO of SCORE was in a karaoke lounge about a decade ago, ruminating about a name for this new project. An old Tony Orlando song came booming over the speakers.
I’m really still in prison and my love, she holds the key
A simple yellow ribbon’s what I need to set me free
And I wrote and told her please
Whoa, tie a yellow ribbon round the ole oak tree
It’s been three long years, do you still want me?
The song is about veterans coming home from war, and the parallel seemed perfect: returning veterans and returning prisoners, both of whom have survived trauma and thus need extra help to restart their lives as civilians.
“We have a new campaign every September,” Jin says.
“Why not year round?” I ask.
“Money. We’re not Coca-Cola, you know? But when the ads stop running, we feed stories to the press.” One opportune thing about government-controlled media, I think to myself.
He cues up several ads on the projector. In most, men are identifiable as formerly incarcerated because they sport tattoos. Physical manifestation of a criminal past, tattoos are popular in prisons and gangs here, and thus represent Singapore’s supreme scarlet letter. Jin shows me an earnest, three-part infomercial depicting the life of a returning prisoner through different perspectives, including the eyes of a proud prison officer, a devoted prison volunteer, and a gratified employer. Watching the ball-and-chain ad again, I get lost in the actor’s intensely wistful eyes. I must’ve peered into versions of those eyes dozens of times now, behind bars around the world.
“He’s already served his time. But will you still be passing judgment?” asks one of the YRP’s print ads, across a photo of a man leaving the prison yard. “To stay out of prison, all he needs is a break” is printed below a forlorn-looking man awaiting a job interview.
“We need this campaign in America,” I blurt out, excited. I’m reminded of the ultra-hip “Truth” campaign, which markets against smoking and tobacco companies by way of flash mobs and funky, youth-oriented ads. I tell Jin about it, and also about America’s Ban the Box campaign, which promotes limiting employers’ exposure to criminal background information until later in the hiring process. Thanks in part to this campaign, Ban the Box legislation has been passed in more than fifty cities and counties, and several big chains, like Walmart and Target, have eliminated criminal history questions from their application forms.
“Although in America, by the way,” I tell Jin, unable to stop myself from slipping into professor mode, “progressive people don’t use terms like ‘ex-convict’ or ‘inmate’ or ‘offender.’ It’s offensive to label someone by their worst act.”
He looks at me blankly.
“Language is so powerful, part of this same process of changing people’s perceptions,” I go on. “I use ‘prisoner’ in my research only rarely. I hate that term, too, but at least it refers to a place, not a condition or state of character.”
“So what do you call ex-convicts?” Jin asks.
“We say ‘formerly incarcerated.’ ”
Jin bursts into laughter.
“ ‘Formerly incarcerated’? If you say that in Singapore, people will not understand you. ‘Formerly incarcerated.’ They will think you are saying ‘formerly in castle.’ ”
He’s still laughing as he cues up another ad.
———
“Furniture,” says the taxi driver, after I announce my destination in the morning. “Nice furniture. Lots of them.”
“No, halfway house,” I repeat. “Helping Hand Halfway House.”
“Yes, furniture,” he repeats, nodding. “Furniture. From prisoners.”
I didn’t know this. What I do know is that my visit today is to one of Singapore’s twenty halfway houses, born in 1987 as a Christian organization for ex-addicts but now open to all faiths and types of formerly incarcerated people. It’s a Volunteer Welfare Organization under the Ministry of Community, Youth, and Sports, with Public Character status, which means it’s a for-profit social enterprise, a marriage of capitalism and charity. And it’s home to up to one hundred men, some serving out the last six months of their sentence, some having just left prison, and some simply walk-ins.
“Men there move house, also,” my driver goes on. “Last time I move house I use them. I see the skin”—he pinches his forearm—“tattoos. First when I see them, I see tattoo and big size, and they talk rough, and I feel scared. But they do good job. And I say, it is good, they are working. Used to be prisoners but now good work.”
We reach our destination, some fifteen minutes from the city center, with ease. I’ve yet to encounter anything beyond minor traffic on Singaporean roads.
“Open to Public—Please Don’t Mind Our Tattoos,” reads the massive plastic sign draped over a three-tiered apartment complex. “Everything 50% Off (Some 70% Off).” The sweet smell of mahogany wafts through the air. In the back portion of a vast parking lot, men in maroon T-shirts are shrink-wrapping lovely Indonesian chests, majestic grandfather clocks, and benches hewed from driftwood. Behind them is a room filled with sparkling vases and egg-shaped lamps tiled in shimmering shells. The CEO, an engineer by training, explains that the goods are imported from Indonesia and prepped for sale by the residents. The place operates on four million Singaporean dollars a year, half provided by the government and half generated by the furniture and moving businesses.
“I myself was on heroin, back in the seventies,” Richard, the program manager, says flatly, guiding me up the concrete stairwell for a tour. “Came to a halfway house for treatment, but couldn’t stay off drugs. I went to prison. I came back here. Now I work here.”
“How did you beat the addiction?” I ask. Richard spins around to face me.
“You know what kept me off drugs? Jesus. Nothing else.” I balk silently. What sort of rehab plan is that?
Spare, neat, drab dorm rooms look much like those at Seralang Park, the work-release center. An old fan battles the dense humidity. Eight petite bunk beds sport Mickey Mouse sheets; there’s a Garfield rug on the floor and a Yellow Ribbon Project towel draped from the bottom bunk.
The infantilizing decor reminds me of the prerelease center. It speaks to a certain paternalistic, preschool approach to reentry. A well-meaning approach, but one that also insults and belittles—as if all it takes to solve someone’s gang or drug problems are inspirational quotes on the wall and some you-can-do-it zeal.
“It’s nice,” I mumble. Indeed it is clean and seemingly safe, more than I can say about many of the postrelease housing options where my New York students land. At John Jay College my colleagues did a study on them in 2013, exposing the growing market of “three-quarter houses”: privately operated, for-profit, unregulated residences—small buildings that rent bunks, really. The report uncovered widespread building code violations, perilous overcrowding, and scandalously illegal pr
actices like unlawful evictions and ties to shady programs billing Medicaid.
“Rooms are OK,” replies Richard, with a shrug. He explains that men here must work and participate in life skills classes, dinners, and drug rehab; religious services are encouraged but optional. And many do as Richard did, staying on longer and getting a job here. Eighty percent of the staff is formerly incarcerated.
Richard points toward the aluminum louvers on the windows.
“We added those after neighbors complained. The men would stand in their rooms with no shirt, with tattoos out, and people would see them through the window. One man went to government and complained, saying tattooed prisoners are taking over the neighborhood. So now, after five p.m. men must wear shirts outside.”
The whoosh of traffic from the highway just outside the door drowns out all noise.
“What sort of neighborhood is this?” I ask.
“Just, well, normal people. We call it Heartland. Some rich houses now, but we’re no Marina Bay, no Beverly Hills, as you say. We just try to keep low profile.”
“In America we use the phrase ‘NIMBY’: not in my backyard. Everyone wants prisons, halfway houses, homeless shelters—just not in their precious neighborhoods.”
“It’s not easy,” the CEO interjects, sighing. “No one wants to fund this sort of thing. Orphans, old folks, yes.” He holds his hands toward the floor. “Prisoners and ex-prisoners, we’re here, at the bottom. Asian culture says it’s a waste of money to rehabilitate ex-offenders. ‘Why don’t you help yourselves?’ people say. ‘You shouldn’t count on others to help you.’ ” It reminds me of the conservative approach to crime in America, deeply offensive because it eschews social structures in favor of that naive “pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootsraps” myth.
After the tour, inside an air-conditioned conference room, four men in maroon T-shirts are paraded in to speak with me. The CEO suggests I interview them in private—“they’ll be more free to speak without all of us here,” he says. My SCORE government escort, though, has other ideas. He stays put.
The four men, all convicted of drug charges, scan the room with heavy unease. Kimsing, I learn, has been home for three weeks, and he wears the same forlorn, anxious look as the actor in the Yellow Ribbon ads. Son Keong, home for just over two months, wears it, too, and both seem mildly shell-shocked, giving me one-word answers and clearly hoping this official interview will end quickly.
The other two men, former residents turned staff members, are more comfortable chatting. Shan spent six years inside and has been working at Helping Hand for two years. Gary, who’s been in and out of prison six times, has been sober for nineteen years now. He’s missing a row of front teeth, and the few hairs remaining on his head resemble rows of gray needles. I pose a question I often ask students: What’s your dream job?
“Dream job?” Son Keong repeats, perplexed. “I’m old. There’s nothing left for me, no dream job. Just drug-free life. That is the dream.”
“Be my own boss. In anything,” is Kimsing’s curt response.
Shan nods. “Never thought about it. Dream job? I guess, be my own boss … I don’t know,” he says quietly.
And Gary? “Policeman. Or run for office.” He breaks into a deep-throated chuckle. “But never. I can’t get those jobs with a prison record.”
“What would be your political platform?” I press him. He stares me down.
“Singapore, our problem is not crime,” he declares. “Our problem is drugs. In your country, you have a drug problem, you go for rehab. But here, we don’t have rehab. We have halfway house. So we come here or we go to prison.”
My government escort shuffles nervously in his seat.
“I’m not a criminal,” Gary continues. “I do harm to myself, so they put me away. Prison is not a solution.”
“Does it help at all?” I ask.
“No. And then we come home and they won’t hire us. Only for labor jobs. Kitchens, labor.”
“Do you find this fair?” I turn to Shan.
“Well, this is the law. I did heroin. I broke the law.” Shan folds his hands on the table.
“It’s the law, yes, but is it fair?”
“It’s just—the law. I carry stigma. I go back, I get seven to thirteen years. I won’t go back.”
The government escort leans toward me.
“Why don’t you ask them why they were drawn to gangs and drugs?” he says firmly.
“Bad company,” answers Shan. “I had negative peer influence when I was young and joined gang.” Kimsing and Son Keong nod in agreement, murmuring something about peer pressure and the wrong crowd. It sounds lifted from an afterschool-special script.
Finally, Gary can’t contain himself. “Why did I do drugs?” he blurts, exasperated. “Drugs are fantastic! Have you tried it? You feel fantastic!”
I wait for my government escort to stop him, but Gary rants on, a stream of truth-telling.
“I say, legalize drugs! Why not? Because in Singapore it’s a joke. There’s no treatment in prison. Punishment, yes, but treatment, no. ‘Just say no,’ they say. A joke! Thailand, Malaysia, they have proper rehab centers. America, rehab. Here: prison and halfway house. Nothing helped me but finally wanting to change. But by then, too late. My life wasted.”
His torrent is a breath of fresh air. The drug laws here dwarf even Thailand’s in their severity. They have their roots in the nineteenth century, when containing the “deviant” behavior of Chinese immigrants, especially their lucrative opium trade, was a colonial priority. Today, drug consumption carries a mandatory one-year sentence for a first offense. There’s a presumption of trafficking for relatively small amounts, like thirty grams of cannabis, and for those carrying keys to premises containing drugs. Officers can arrest someone for simply being in the company of a user, search “suspicious” premises and individuals without warrants, and demand on-the-spot urinalysis. In 2012 the law was mitigated and the death penalty is no longer mandatory for drug traffickers who are mere couriers, who cooperate with the police, or who are considered to have mental disabilities.
But in light of Gary’s words, the law here appears even more acutely unjust. How can one punish when treatment is barely available? Drug rehab can certainly be a shoddy and unaffordable process even in the States, but at least options exist; evidence-based behavioral treatments have been shown to work, especially when combined with pharmaceutical approaches—methods like cognitive-behavioral therapy, which helps addicts recognize addiction triggers, and contingency management, providing incentives and rewards to patients who stay clean. In Singapore, on the other hand, what minimal rehab options there are might as well be direct pipelines to prison. Should addicts seek help from a doctor, that doctor is legally obliged to submit their details to the Central Narcotics Bureau. Once this happens, they’re targets, closely monitored and subject to random testing for years after rehab. What user would seek help under such circumstances?
Exasperated, Gary takes his leave, along with the three other men. But as I’m collecting my notes, alone in the conference room, Shan returns. He looks around apprehensively, then speaks softly to me.
“Cluster B, you know, is worse than the old building,” he tells me. “No air, no light—we come out pale because we are never outside, for maybe five, ten years.”
I ask him if he’s been caned.
“Many times.”
“Which is more traumatic, prison or caning?” I press him. Shan doesn’t falter.
“Prison. Prison is worse than caning. The pain of prison, the terrible punishment that goes on and on. And then, the stigma. Stigma. It never goes away. I am going to be married soon, I am staying clean and starting a new life. But still, the stigma.” He shakes his head and repeats the haunting mantra. The stigma.
With every iteration of the word, I hear my students and formerly incarcerated friends. Years after they serve time, anyone can still find their names in an online “inmate lookup” system. If they’re sex offenders, it’
s far worse; the stigma makes life all but unlivable. When Shan speaks I hear Mike, one of my students with a sex offense. He stayed in prison a year past his conditional release date because he was not eligible to live almost anywhere, on account of sex-offense housing regulations. Even some of the least attractive halfway houses bar people with his brand of crime. Mike’s struggle, in particular, underscores what’s so evil about this stigma: it reveals our flagrant lack of faith in the one-size-fits-all justice system we’ve erected. Because if we truly believed that people were corrected in a so-called correctional institution, we would not have to keep them on such a viciously tight leash once they exit it.
As Richard walks me out of Helping Hand, the sweet smell of peanut sauce drowns out the scent of furniture. Lunch is being served in the outdoor cafeteria.
“This place does good work,” he affirms as we say goodbye. “We try.”
Good halfway houses do try and can do good work. They offer strong wraparound services: intensive, individualized assistance in all arenas, from counseling and family planning to job training. They provide fair labor conditions, safe housing, supportive staff, and relevant programming. Unfortunately, on American shores this hardly exists across the board, which is why one 2013 study showed that formerly incarcerated individuals at halfway houses have higher recidivism rates than those living elsewhere. A scathing New Yorker magazine article the following year exposed horrific labor conditions, sexual abuse, and rampant drug use at postrelease homes around the country. These homes have no incentive to reduce recidivism because they’re for-profit, and they mandate substance abuse programs that often interfere with tenants’ education and employment, all because landlords reportedly get kickbacks from such programs. I once had a student lose several job opportunities upon coming home because he had to attend drug treatment at his halfway house, lest he be evicted—even though he’s never had a drug problem.
Incarceration Nations Page 24