CHALLENGES IN PAROLE SUPERVISION: SOME EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA

The supervisory role of parole officers in the community is vital in guiding and monitoring the parolees to comply with the Parole Order and be a law abiding citizens in the community. Indirectly, they are responsible in protecting the welfare and safety of the community. However, in undertaking these obligations, the community parole officers are facing numerous legal and operational impediments. There is a paucity of research on the mechanism of surveillance of the parolees released on parole and the challenges facing the parole officers in community surveillance. Within this context, this paper aims at highlighting the abovementioned challenges facing the parole officers in their surveillance duties. This paper adopts a qualitative methodology, of which the primary data is obtained from four case studies of the regional prisons in Malaysia from where the parolees were released. Such data is triangulated with those obtained from the Parole Board and the parolees. The secondary data is the Prison Act 1995 and library-based sources and Internet sources. The authors contend that surveillance of the parolees is rather demanding on the parole officers as they are facing various challenges such as in developing the surveillance case plan to monitor the parolees. Also, their heavy workloads often hamper their abilities to perform their dual roles in the surveillance and rehabilitation of the parolees in the community. (c) 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK