Letters | Why Malaysia’s gang-rape suspects still deserve an education

The popular view in Malaysia that four teenage rape suspects should be barred from sitting their final exams in a secure location far from the scene of their alleged crime is troubling. Although damning video evidence makes long incarceration probable, a pre-trial suspension of their education works against long-term social interests. There are ideological and utilitarian reasons for taking this view.

Ideologically, one might ask whether the human right to education is on a par with that to healthcare, for example. Many jurisdictions concur that prisoners should not be denied cancer therapy. Civic duty enjoins us to rail against injustice, to seek reform – but such efforts are in vain outside a culture that respects due process.

The book on human rights is still just a book and can be amended as it has been before, but in hoping that our attempts to improve a place are not overturned senselessly by some future rabble, we bind ourselves to careful deliberation and meanwhile follow the rule of established law.

From a utilitarian perspective, short-termists tend to forget most prisoners are eventually released. Outside of films, few prisoners emerge with law degrees, ready to contribute. Incarceration aimed solely at punishment tends rather to harden than soften criminal dispositions and engenders recidivism. In Scandinavia, restorative justice instead aims to facilitate both healing for victims and future social roles for perpetrators. It’s not so much that felons deserve free books as that we all deserve those things for them, for our own and others’ sake.