Caning Case Prompts Look At Singapore's Tough Stand On Crime

SINGAPORE - "Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world," wrote Keith Kimball of Vallejo, Calif., in a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. "We should have those tough kinds of punishment in America."

A Singapore court's decision to sentence an American teenager to a flogging for vandalizing cars with spray paint has produced a predictable nod of approval from many Singaporeans, long accustomed to their government's firm hand. Perhaps more surprising was the wave of support that has emerged for its harsh legal system from Americans - reinforcing opinion polls in the United States that show worry about crime now equals concern about the economy.

In both Singapore and the United States, newspapers have been inundated by letters supporting the sentence handed down last month against Michael Fay, an 18-year-old student.

In elevating Singapore's administration of justice to overnight celebrity, the Fay case seems to have prompted many Americans to ponder two fundamental questions: Could the tough approach in Singapore, which places order before law, serve as a model elsewhere? And what is the cost to individual freedom?

Fay was sentenced to six strokes of the cane, administered by a jailer trained in martial arts; four months in prison; and a $2,230 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of vandalism, two counts of mischief and one count of possessing stolen property. His appeal of the caning sentence was thrown out by the country's chief justice Thursday.

Starting in the 1960s, when Singapore gained independence from Britain, the government imposed increasingly harsh penalties for a range of crimes, including the death penalty for armed robbery and drug trafficking. Singapore has also jettisoned some traditional safeguards, such as jury trials, on grounds that guilty criminals were manipulating the system to walk free.

Visitors are invariably impressed by the country's lack of graffiti and general feeling of safety. Women confidently stroll the streets late at night, the subway is clean and muggings are rare. Gang warfare, a significant scourge in the 1950s, has been stamped out.

Statistics comparing Singapore and Los Angeles, with its roughly equal population of about 3.5 million, provide a dramatic contrast. In 1993, 58 murders, 80 rapes, 1,008 robberies and 3,162 car thefts were reported in Singapore. Los Angeles Police Department statistics for the same period show 1,100 homicides, 1,855 rapes, 39,227 robberies and 65,541 car thefts.

Last year, Singapore had just three armed robberies. It has had no kidnappings for the past three years. The crime statistics have barely changed in five years.

"I have two kids, and I don't have to worry about their safety," said Davinder Singh, a lawyer and member of parliament from the ruling People's Action Party. "I don't have to worry about them being exposed to drugs or alcohol. For me this is very important."

There are fewer than 3,757 full-time police officers in the country, and they are rarely visible on the street despite the nation's reputation as an authoritarian society.

All guns are outlawed, except those belonging to the police and armed forces.

Another difference with America is the makeup of the society itself: 77 percent ethnic Chinese and 14 percent conservative Muslim Malays living in relative isolation on a small island. There is virtually no poverty - 80 percent of the people own their homes - and the family remains the backbone of society, with few divorces and children living at home until marriage.

As in many Asian societies, public shame, for the criminal and for his family, is a potent deterrent.

The philosophical underpinnings of Singapore's tough approach were laid out by former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew, who was trained in the law at Britain's prestigious Cambridge University. Lee remarked 30 years ago that "hard realities" meant that the phrase "law and order" had to be turned around so that order took precedence over the law.

"When a state of increasing disorder and defiance of authority cannot be checked by the rules then existing," Lee said, "new and sometimes drastic rules have to be forged to maintain order so that the law can continue to govern human relations. The alternative is to surrender order to chaos and anarchy."

According to the ministry of Home Affairs, between 1989 and 1993, the government hanged 47 convicts, of whom 22 were drug traffickers. Another 103 people are awaiting execution.

Caning, the term for flogging done with a moistened, 4-foot rattan cane, is imposed for rape, robbery and extortion, and for such nonviolent crimes as vandalism and employing illegal aliens.

According to Singapore officials, sentences are intended not just as punishment but as a deterrent.

When an 18-year-old man who is "educationally subnormal" repeatedly kissed a woman in an elevator, he was charged with molestation. A court sentenced him to six months in prison. When the man's lawyer appealed, Chief Justice Yong Pung How, saying "sentences have been too light; they are not having a deterrent effect," increased the punishment to include three whacks of the rattan cane.

According to judicial records, judges increased sentences in 19 of 170 appeals filed in the first half of last year.

Khoo Boon Hui, a senior assistant commissioner of Singapore's police department, said in an interview that the country's death penalty has been an undisputed success.

Armed robberies, which he said had proliferated to more than 150 a year in the 1970s, have been reduced to almost zero since the death penalty was adopted. Kidnappings have also been eliminated by the threat of execution, he said.

But David Marshall, an attorney who was Singapore's first elected chief minister under British rule, said, "I see every year an increase in the number of death sentences imposed, which suggests that it is not acting as a deterrent."