Correctional agencies face a variety of systemic challenges that require fresh, innovative solutions. Sometimes perceived as a school of crime or a centre of harm, the prison environment is fraught with intricate power dynamics. These dynamics extend beyond the culture of ‘us’ vs ‘them’ between incarcerated individuals and staff, encompassing other variables such as gang culture, antisocial attitudes, behaviours, and relationships.
Persons with lived experience, including those who have spent time in prison or who have been victims of crime, offer unique insights what is effective and ineffective within the criminal justice system. The Empatherapy and Peer Supporter Academy are initiatives grounded in Restorative Practices and have been collaboratively designed by individuals with lived experiences, correctional officers, correctional rehabilitation specialists, and psychologists.
This presentation discusses the impact of meaningfully including individuals with lived experiences at the heart of rehabilitation initiatives, from designing and planning to implementing the projects that result in transformative effects within the correctional agency. It also highlights the myriads of benefits that individuals with lived experience bring to the criminal justice system, the barriers they face, and strategies to support their progress.
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Yong An Chua
Senior Correctional Unit Officer, Singapore Prison Service, Singapore
Rehabilitation Officer 1 (RO1) Chua Yong An is a Senior Correctional Unit Officer in Institution B1 Correctional Unit 1 (B1 CU1). He joined Singapore Prison Service in 2015 and started off his career in Admiralty West Prison as a Correctional Unit Officer. Throughout his career, RO1 Yong An took on different appointments in various locations that encompassed a wide range of responsibilities, including operational and security management of the institution, working with inmates to support their rehabilitation and working with various stakeholders to formulate rehabilitation programs.
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Andrew Joseph Ng
Trainer, Lutheran Community Care Services (LCCS) and Industrial and Services Co-operative Society Limited (ISCOS)
Andrew Joseph Ng is currently involved in the rehabilitation efforts undertaken by community partners such as Lutheran Community Care Services, Industrial & Services Co-Operative Society and Awful Grace. Having co-developed Empatherapy, a collaborative peer support programme for people with incarcerated experiences during his own incarceration, he is committed to building effective rehabilitative programmes and enhancing current services that will help reduce recidivism and strengthen desistance. His fundamental belief is that it takes a collaborative effort to provide a throughcare framework that will support a person whilst in prison to the time of his reintegration into society.
Trained in Clinical Pastoral Care and Choice Theory, Andrew has pursued Choice Theory to basic week faculty level and integrates relevant components in his work with rehabilitation. He has spent substantial years in the healthcare sector journeying with oncology patients and those in palliative care, assisting them to make meaning and purpose of their lives. Broadening his interests into Restorative Practice, he reaches out to counterparts, people with incarcerated experiences and their loved ones in building healthy relationships and communities of support. His passions lie in equipping, empowering and enabling others to be the better versions of themselves.
