The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) is under the hierarchy of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

During the late 1990s, prisons were divided into “clusters” . This means that all prisons are co-located in one vast prison complex.

The Changi Prison Complex project started in 2000; the complex was opened in 2004. It is currently composed of 12 institutions:

• two clusters (Cluster A and B)
• five different prison institutions, each with a mixture of maximum-, medium- and low-medium security prisons
• Cluster C, which includes the Tanah Merah Prison School
• the Changi Women’s Prison
• the Operations and Security Command (OSC).

The SPS also administers drug rehabilitation centres (DRC).

Cluster B Accommodates five institutions. Institution B2 is the admissions centre; B4 is the pre-release centre.

Since the early 2000s, SPS has been promoting a public image of rehabilitation and reentry of ex-offenders, while still maintaining a dehumanizing prison system which violates many international human rights standards.

The “Captains of Lives” communication strategy, implemented in 1999¹, transformed the public image of SPS. The objective of prison sentences was shifted from a punitive to a “rehabilitation” and “reintegration” approach.

In 2001, SPS hired Burson-Marsteller, the world’s largest public relations firm, to pilot this image transformation. Burson-Marsteller is best known for its work with dictatorial regimes in Argentina, Indonesia, Ukraine, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia², and the handling of corporate scandals³.

According to Professor Jonathan Woodier, “Burson-Marsteller (BM) was given the high-profile job of cleaning up the image of the Singapore Prison Service, which included not only a stand-out advertising campaign to promote the lot of ex-cons, but also putting together a non-profit company with S$1 million to encourage small businesses and cooperatives to hire people with criminal records.”⁴

Since then, it has been the duty of Burson-Marsteller to publicize the so-called “rehabilitation” efforts of SPS, such as the Yellow Ribbon Project. They set up a “media relationship center” which manages the communication strategy of SPS, highlighting its “organizational excellence” and “rehabilitation programs”. Burson-Marsteller provides training to SPS spokespersons to “refine SPS messages”⁵. Tight media control also allows the government to maintain an aseptic vision of what goes on inside prisons.