Letters

From caning to criminalisation: Rethinking deterrence, accountability, and justice in Malaysia’s legal system

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What deters crime, pain or principle?

This question lies at the centre of an increasingly urgent conversation about justice and punishment in Malaysia. For decades, the nation has upheld judicial caning as a tool not only of legal enforcement but of symbolic state authority – a ritualistic expression of control, discipline, and swift justice.

The sharp crack of the rattan cane on bare flesh is, for many, a reassurance: justice seen and heard.

But at what cost?

Today, Malaysia stands at a crossroads. On one path lies the continued reliance on corporal punishment, often defended as a tradition, a deterrent, or moral retribution. On the other lies a reimagined system of justice: one that centres on fairness, dignity, and social cohesion over spectacle, fear, and suffering.

This is not simply a matter of legal reform, it is a deep-seated cultural reckoning. From a criminological standpoint, the evidence is unequivocal – deterrence is not achieved through the severity of punishment, but through its certainty, consistency, and perceived legitimacy. Corporal punishment, no matter how immediate or theatrical, does not achieve this.

Instead, it corrodes public trust, fuels recidivism, and weakens the very foundations of democratic justice. If corporal punishment is so ineffective empirically and ethically, why does it persist?

The answer lies not in an outdated policy but in the complex entanglement of history, culture, political narrative, and emotional response.

To many Malaysians, caning feels right. It is familiar. Tangible. It offers the public an immediate sense of wrongdoing being addressed and justice being done. Politicians, in turn, defend it as a signal of toughness on crime, a visible commitment to law and order. In an era of rising public insecurity, punitive policies play well to the electorate.

This emotional comfort has its price.

When justice is reduced to pain, we lose sight of what its true objectives are: rehabilitation, accountability, and trust in the rule of law.

We risk building a system more concerned with retribution than with restoration, more invested in punishment than in public safety.

This is not a theoretical risk – it is an observable reality.

We must also acknowledge that imprisonment is a serious form of punishment, one that deprives individuals of freedom and liberty.

When someone is sentenced to prison, they are placed under the strict controls of a total institution, where nearly every aspect of daily life is regulated. This loss of autonomy is, in itself, profoundly punitive.

To add further layers of physical punishment, such as caning or subjecting individuals to prolonged solitary confinement, only compounds trauma without evidence of added deterrent value. It shifts the system from lawful restraint to state-inflicted harm. Justice must not become cruelty disguised as discipline.

The implications stretch far beyond the individual. When the state responds to non-violent immigration offences with state-sanctioned physical harm, the result is not enhanced safety but diminished humanity. Such cases reveal a justice system more committed to control than to fairness, more reactive than reflective.

These are not anomalies. They are systemic manifestations of a punitive ethos that conflates order with violence, and justice with spectacle.

Of course, change does not happen in a vacuum. Judicial caning, and corporal punishment more broadly, are embedded in Malaysia’s legal traditions, religious justifications, and societal values. Reform that ignores these contexts risks not only rejection but polarisation.

Yet, from a restorative justice perspective, we are reminded that justice is not about breaking the body, but about rebuilding the social bond between the offender, victim, and community.

This means moving beyond the zero-sum logics of punishment. It means asking how our justice system can foster reconciliation rather than rupture. It means recognising that deterrence is far more sustainable when grounded in legitimacy and dignity than in the fear of pain.

Without clear legal mechanisms to define, prohibit, and prosecute acts of torture, including judicial caning, the state remains in violation of its international commitments.

This gap weakens Malaysia’s credibility on the global stage and raises fundamental questions about the rule of law at home.

Criminalising torture will not dismantle Malaysia’s punitive justice culture overnight, nor will it immediately erase decades of entrenched attitudes, policies, and political rhetoric.

It is a necessary first step, a foundation for broader reforms rooted in institutional accountability, human rights, and public trust.

If Malaysia is serious about building a justice system that deters crime, it must invest not in punishment that wounds, but in systems that heal.

It must prioritise the certainty of justice over its spectacle, and the principle of human dignity over the politics of fear.

Real deterrence and lasting deterrence do not come from fear of the state. It comes from faith in the law.

To move beyond piecemeal reform, Malaysia must urgently institutionalise a coherent, principled approach to criminal justice. This requires the immediate establishment of a Malaysian Criminal Justice Council to coordinate justice policy across agencies, the development of national Sentencing Guidelines to ensure fairness and consistency in punishment, and most critically, the articulation of a clear national philosophy on crime and punishment.

Without these foundational elements, reforms risk being fragmented, reactive, or reversible.

Society must guide a modern justice system with evidence, ethics, and a shared vision, ensuring it does not rely on inherited instincts and punitive tradition. Only then can we build a justice system that is not only lawful but just.

DATO’ DR P. SUNDRAMOORTHY
Criminologist
Centre for Policy Research
Universiti Sains Malaysia