Caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment in Singapore. It can be divided into several contexts: judicial, prison, reformatory, military, school and domestic. These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore. Similar forms of corporal punishment are also used in some other former British colonies, including two of Singapore's neighbouring countries, Malaysia and Brunei.
Capital punishment in Singapore is a legal penalty. Executions in Singapore are carried out by long drop hanging, and usually take place at dawn. Thirty-three offences—including murder, drug trafficking, terrorism, use of firearms and kidnapping—warrant the death penalty under Singapore law.
The legal status of cocaine varies worldwide. Even though many countries have banned the sale of cocaine for recreational use, some have legalized it for possession, personal use, transportation, and cultivation, while some have decriminalized it for certain uses. It is necessary to distinguish cocaine from coca leaves or the plant itself.
Woo Bih Li is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court.
Although the legal system of Singapore is a common law system, the criminal law of Singapore is largely statutory in nature and historically derives largely from the Indian penal code. The general principles of criminal law, as well as the elements and penalties of general criminal offences such as assault, criminal intimidation, mischief, grievous hurt, theft, extortion, sex crimes and cheating, are set out in the Singaporean Penal Code. Other serious offences are created by statutes such as the Arms Offences Act, Kidnapping Act, Misuse of Drugs Act and Vandalism Act.
Capital punishment in Malaysia is a legal penalty in Malaysian law.
Choo Han Teck is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was formerly a lawyer before his appointment to the court as a judge. It was revealed in 2021 that Choo was one of the defence lawyers representing Adrian Lim, the infamous Toa Payoh child killer who was executed in 1988 for charges of murdering a girl and boy as ritual sacrifices. In 1994, Choo also defended Phua Soy Boon, a jobless Singaporean who was hanged in 1995 for killing a moneylender.
Internet censorship in Singapore is carried out by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). Internet services provided by the three major Internet service providers (ISPs) are subject to regulation by the MDA, which requires blocking of a symbolic number of websites containing "mass impact objectionable" material, including Playboy, YouPorn and Ashley Madison. The civil service, tertiary institutions and Institute of Technical Education has its own jurisdiction to block websites displaying pornography, information about drugs and online piracy.
Jamie Yeo is a Singaporean actress, model and radio DJ.
Prostitution in Singapore in itself is not illegal, but various prostitution-related activities are criminalized. This includes public solicitation, living on the earnings of a prostitute and maintaining a brothel. In practice, police unofficially tolerate and monitor a limited number of brothels. Prostitutes in such establishments are required to undergo periodic health checks and must carry a health card.
Crime rates in Singapore are some of the lowest in the world, with petty crimes such as pickpocketing and street theft rarely occurring, and violent crime being extremely rare. Penalties for drug offences such as trafficking in Singapore are severe, and include the death penalty.
Alexis Christine Haines is a member of the "Bling Ring" and a former television personality. At the age of 18, she was arrested for her involvement in a string of burglaries that targeted the homes of multiple celebrities. Haines served one month of a six-month sentence after her conviction for one count of first degree residential burglary.
Angie Sanclemente Valencia is a former Colombian beauty queen and lingerie model believed to be the ringleader of one of the world's largest drug syndicates.
Eugene Singarajah Thuraisingam is a lawyer from Singapore. He is the founder of the law firm Eugene Thuraisingam LLP, a law firm that specialises in international arbitration and criminal and commercial litigation. He is also known for his advocacy of human rights and for his opposition of the death penalty in Singapore. In relation to his domestic practice as a criminal lawyer in Singapore, Thuraisingam has defended many alleged suspects in high profile criminal trials, including those who were dissidents and critics of the government of Singapore. For his legal service for many defendants in the court of Singapore, Doyles Guide has named him as a leading criminal defence lawyer in Singapore in 2020.
On 30 October 2010, 19-year-old Darren Ng Wei Jie, a Singaporean student from Republic Polytechnic, was slashed by 12 youths from a rival gang after a staring incident between one of Ng's friends and one of these youths attacking him. Ng suffered from 28 knife wounds and died in Changi General Hospital five hours after the incident. The case was classified as murder, and the police arrested all the suspects. Six of them were charged with murder, but all except one were sentenced to serve lengthy jail terms with caning for culpable homicide, while the others were sentenced to varied jail terms and caning for rioting.
The Orchard Towers double murders was the case of two deaths occurring at Balmoral Park, Singapore, before the victims' bodies were discovered at a carpark in Orchard Towers, thus the title of the case. The victims were 46-year-old Kho Nai Guan and Kho's 29-year-old Chinese girlfriend Lan Ya Ming, and they were both murdered by Kho's British employer Michael McCrea. McCrea was assisted by his girlfriend Audrey Ong Pei Ling in disposing of the bodies before they both fled Singapore to Australia, where they were caught.
Sim Ah Cheoh was a Singaporean drug trafficker of Chinese descent. She was originally sentenced to death in 1988 for the crime, for which she was arrested in 1985, and Sim's two accomplices Lim Joo Yin and Ronald Tan Chong Ngee were also arrested and received the same sentence, and like Sim, both also lost their appeals against their sentence. Subsequently, while Lim and Tan were executed on 3 April 1992, Sim was granted clemency and her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, making her the fourth person since 1959, as well as the second female and second drug convict on death row to be pardoned from execution by the President of Singapore.
Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.
