Just Visiting

I'm a board game enthusiast, Mr. Monopoly will not beg to differ. In today's graceful development of computer games, i do at times play monopoly in the computer and that, my friend, was my numero uno substitute to reading statutes and reported cases in law school.

A lot of people can relate to my board game fetishism, i'm sure. [board games include: monopoly, scrabble, portable scrabble, chess, rubik's cube. hehe]

Monopoly rocks, as long as you dont roll doubles 3 times in a row and be sent to jail. If you have a get-out-of-jail card, then u'd be secretly wishing that you do end up in jail to stylishly irk the heck outta the other players. and by stylish i mean, to hold the jail card in between your index and middle finger [as if holding a cigarette] and handing it over to the banker with a tiny smirk on ur face. TOLDJA I'M A BOARD GAME ENTHUSIAST.

And then there's the "just visiting" moments where you miss a turn to frikin visit the jail, and That has caused you to once again miss passing through Park Place and Boardwalk that you are dying to get hold of and build houses and hotels on! GRRRR.

WHY DO PEOPLE VISIT THE JAIL ANYWAY??

I dont ask myself that question anymore. I now have answers to that question.

Having had the opportunity to visit the Sg. Buloh and Kajang prison and to interview the detainees therein for my legal aid training, I often get these questions addressed to me:

1. How can you talk to them without feeling any disgust towards them?
2. How do you manage to keep a straight face when faced with criminals of rape & buggery with animal?
3. Why do you want to meet and talk to them?

As legal practitioners, we often forget the cardinal rule applicable to these criminals. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The detainess I met, be it for robbery, rape, possessing dangerous weapons, drug traffiking or prostitution, are people who have not even been tried by the courts and far from being pronounce as guilty of the offence.

Thus, the presumption that they're innocent apply.

That is how I manage to keep a straight face and not feel disgusted when I talk to them. Besides, when they talk to me, they were in their most vulnerable position, with hands cuffed and with the most inferior feeling towards free people such as you and i.

I am their last hope when no one else would even look at them in the eyes, what more to listen to their stories. Yes, they have admitted to me that they committed the crimes they are charged for, but it will not hurt to listen to their stories, lend an ear and look at them like they should be looked at- a human being.

I'm not on their side, but I do not want to punish someone before they get their official punishment from the judges (or from a lawyer who drafts the judge's judgment, boo you).

I'm begging you to consider the maxim innocent until proven guilty. If you want to say someone is guilty, you must bring forward facts and evidences that will strengthen your allegations.

Otherwise, we will be guilty of depriving their liberty.

And that is a crime against human rights.

So if you put someone who is innocent in jail, you are no different from them, a criminal who commits a crime against human rights.

So just because you're on the other side of the fence, dont you for one second think you have never committed a crime.

It is ironic for someone who initiated the building of Sg. Buloh prison to end up serving his sentence in that prison.

With no proof and jumbled up contradicting facts, he was nevertheless forced to pay for what he did not commit.

So before you even begin to judge these prisoners, consider the real criminals who are still on the loose.

And then VOTE accordingly. Heheh.