The island city state of Singapore has managed to achieve one of the best and highest standards of living in the world. It had certain advantages at its moment of independence from Britain in 1962 – a solid rule of law, the harbour, the network connections with Chinese on the mainland, entrêpot trade and the diligence of the people have all been influential. Yet it was far from certain that the city would be successful back in the 1960s – after all, other freed colonies have slithered into poverty. Still, a combination of Lee Kuan Yew’s management, the imposition of the so-called ‘Asian Values’ and a slight curtailment of personal liberty and freedom of expression have done the trick.
Sacrifices have been exacted, it is certainly true to say. However, the social settlement put into place by Lee Kuan Yew and his successors (he himself remains as ‘mentor’ to the government) provides both duties and responsibilities by the people and the government. One aspect of the responsibility of the government to its people that exists is the duty to provide jobs for the Singaporean people able to work but unable to find a job. Recently, the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE) has launched the Yellow Ribbon project, which was inspired by the well-known pop song of the 1970s which encouraged people to tie a yellow ribbon around a suitable tree in order to show solidarity with prisoners or those detained in war. Singapore has around 11,000 ex-offenders, who may or may not have been imprisoned for serious offences but nearly all of whom find difficulties in obtaining a good job upon their release and for the rest of their careers. Singapore is a successful economy and new jobs are being created but employers nevertheless have a choice of candidates and can, in addition, more and more easily hire workers from overseas if they wish. The ethnic composition of Singapore, with its numerous Chinese, Malays and Indians as the main components, has more or less lived together in harmony but, just as in neighbouring Malaysia, inter-racial harmony has been ensured to some extent by legislation. One aspect of this is that people are in effect free to specify the race or ethnicity of their employees. Without fair and unbiased grounds for recruitment specified by law, therefore, it is not surprising that employers are reluctant to employ ex-offenders. Imprisonment and shame have been deeply inter-related concepts in the history of Chinese society. It is not proving easy for the ex-offenders to find the key to the ‘second prison’ of non-acceptance by society but the government is now making an effort to break down those walls.
