NCB Takes Over Rumah Al-Islah
By Lyna Mohamad

Bandar Seri Begawan - The Department of Prisons has formally handed over the reigns of the Rumah Al-Islah to the Narcotics Control Bureau in a ceremony held yesterday.

Speaking to the media, Acting Director of NCB, Hj Abd Aziz OKMB Hj Othman said that the transition will be executed in stages. He added that the stages would run most probably in a year or less during which several prison officers will stay to assist the bureau to coordinate all the programmes and management of the centre.

During the initial phase, senior rank officers will be assisting and cooperating with NCB's Hj Roslan Hj Suhaili who has been appointed as the Commandant of Al-Islah, until he settles down and is able to run the administrative side on his own.

While uniformed prisons personnel, who are under the control of the Prisons Act, are unsure with their length of stay at the centre, as the situation is still under observation, civilian staff such as religious teachers, counsellors, cooks and others will stay definitely as part of the bureau's workforce.

Hj Abd Aziz disclosed that new agenda will be instilled into the bureau's programmes in addition to the existing ones which cover skills, physical training, spiritual and religious, counselling and several others.

"One of the new programmes that the bureau will be inserting in, hopefully in the weeks to come, is a programme called Therapeutic Community (TC), a programme that has proven its effectiveness in countries around the globe that apply this programme as one of their drug rehab programmes," he said.

The programme, which originated from Daytop, a well-established drug rehab centre in the United States, on the surface will help to change the behaviour and the psychology of a drug addict.

TC model has been studied extensively and research shows that relapse into drug use and recidivism to crime are significantly lower if the drug offender continues treatment after returning to the community.

He added that visits by the bureau senior officers to countries that apply this method such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and several other countries including neighbouring Sabah, have shown an achievement of success through the practice of TC.

NCB sees this as one of the new effective ways to reduce relapse cases in particular and the bureau, in their efforts to implement such practice, have sent several of its officers to PERTAPIS in Singapore, an NGO accredited by the Singapore Government and Daytop, where the officers were given the exposure and knowledge on TC model that the centre implements. Apart from this, the bureau will continue to upgrade and look into new effective programmes that are hoped to decrease the number of relapse cases further and could reform a person once he leaves the rehab centre.

The construction of the new drug rehab centre, which is under the RKN 8, is currently in the process and according to schedule. The new modern drug rehab centre located in Kerakas, Payau in Tutong, is expected to be completed by year 2010. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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