From P Sundramoorthy
The current debate over house arrest has opened an important conversation about the future of Malaysia’s criminal justice system. The immediate issue concerns the legal basis, eligibility, safeguards and judicial oversight of house arrest.
But from a criminological perspective, the bigger question is whether Malaysia has a sufficiently integrated mechanism to continuously examine emerging challenges across policing, prosecution, courts, corrections, rehabilitation and crime prevention.
Malaysia does not currently have a dedicated statutory framework comprehensively governing house arrest. Recent reporting has highlighted questions concerning the legal basis, implementation, monitoring, restrictions and accountability surrounding such arrangements.
