Public Prosecutor v YII [2026] SGYC 7

Do the recent amendments to the Youth Court’s dispositional powers operate retroactively for a youth’s benefit? Can general deterrence, specific deterrence and/or retribution be part of the calculus in a Youth Court order? Can a sentencing guideline for youthful offenders apply to offenders in the Youth Court? These were among the many questions which I had to consider, in deciding which dispositional orders to pass for a youth who has recently turned 16 years old.

Facts

The youth offender (“Y”)— a female born in July 2009—pleaded guilty in May 2026 to 4 charges, and consented to a further 6 charges being taken into consideration for the purpose of making my dispositional orders. The charges are reproduced below. On the rightmost column, “P” indicates that the charge was proceeded with, while “TIC” indicates that the charge was taken into consideration.

In this judgment, I give my reasons for:

(a) ordering both the Reformative Training (“RT”) Suitability Report (“RTSR”) and—despite the Prosecution’s objections—the Probation Suitability Report (“PSR”);

(b) refusing to grant a further adjournment to the Prosecution;

(c) passing dispositional orders to place Y in the Singapore Girls’ Home (“SGH”), being a Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre (“JRC”), for 21 months; and

(d) staying the commencement of the JRC placement until either the appeal was dealt with or the appeal timeline had lapsed.

Which reports should be called?

After Y’s guilty plea was recorded, the question arose as to which report(s) ought to be called for the purpose of considering the appropriate disposition in this case.

The Prosecution objected to the calling of a PSR, and submitted that the Court should order only a RTSR.

The Prosecution, as I understood, was essentially arguing that the Court should eventually impose RT unless Y was found unsuitable for it. The Prosecution’s arguments were that:

(a) Where a young offender commits a serious crime, a balance must be struck between the public interest and the interests of the offender, where tension arises between the sentencing considerations of rehabilitation (on account of the youth’s age) and deterrence (on account of the severity of the offences).

(b) For the CDSA offence, the Sentencing Advisory Panel Guidelines for Scams-Related Offences (“SAP Scams Guidelines”) posits that the offence of handing over bank accounts is serious and ordinarily calls for a deterrent custodial sentence, considering that scam offences continue to be rampant, and the accused’s offence was a critical component that allows organised crime syndicates to perpetuate these offences.

(c) Y committed a series of hurt and property offences of escalating severity. Considering the gravity of the CDSA offence, Y’s other offences, and the aggravating features in this case, a measure of deterrence is warranted alongside rehabilitation.

(d) Y has attained 16 years of age, and it would be “expedient with a view to [Y’s] reformation that the offender should undergo a period of training in a [RT] centre”.

While I was prepared to accept that the offences could be viewed as severe, I called for both the PSR and RTSR. My reasons follow.

PSR

In the realm of criminal sentencing under the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (2020 Rev Ed), the court before sentencing a youthful offender generally calls for a probation pre-sentencing report, and can do so on its own initiative. This is a practice of respectable vintage (see, eg, Wong Shan Shan v Public Prosecutor [2008] SGHC 49 (“Wong Shan Shan”) at [22] per Lee Seiu Kin J, referring to Tan Kah Eng v Public Prosecutor [1965] 2 MLJ 272). The Court should not embark on an assessment of the offender’s suitability for probation without the benefit of such a report, unless the basic prerequisites for probation to be ordered were not met, or the court was clearly satisfied that probation was not a realistic option on the facts of the case (A Karthik v Public Prosecutor [2018] 5 SLR 1289 (“A Karthik”) at [20]–[21] per Sundaresh Menon CJ; Wong Shan Shan at [20]–[21]).

It would in fact seem that, at least in the context of sentencing youthful offenders, courts are entitled to err on the side of calling for a PSR. In this regard, I note that the sentencing court in A Karthik was found to be in error for having failed to call for a probation suitability report. Similarly, in Ahmad Syafiq bin Azmi v Public Prosecutor [2018] 5 SLR 837 (“Ahmad Syafiq”), See Kee Oon J at [27] held that probation ought not to have been ruled out even though it had not been expressly sought by the offender. Conversely, I am unaware of any decision involving youthful offenders where the Court was held to have been in error in calling for a PSR, even where probation was eventually not ordered. Even in Praveen s/o Krishnan v Public Prosecutor [2018] 3 SLR 1300, where four probation reports were called in total, Steven Chong JA did not express the view that the sentencing judge’s approach was wrong in principle, unnecessary or wasteful.

In my view, for youth offenders dealt with under the CYPA, calling for a PSR ought to be the default approach. Departing from this approach requires exceptional reasons.

First, the logic in calling for a PSR in the Youth Court is even more compelling. Unlike criminal matters prosecuted in the High Court, District Court or Magistrate’s Court, where probation is availed to offenders under the Probation of Offenders Act 1951 (2020 Rev Ed) upon the satisfaction of certain criteria (eg, where the offence is not one for which the sentence is fixed by law), probation is unconditionally available as a dispositional option under s 49(1)(e) of the CYPA. For this reason, there is no occasion to say that the strict legal prerequisites for probation are not met in the Youth Court.

Second, in criminal sentencing, one of the considerations in deciding whether to call for a PSR is whether rehabilitation has been displaced as the presumptive or predominant sentencing consideration. If it has, then it follows that the PSR need not be called (Ho Mei Xia Hannah v Public Prosecutor and another matter [2019] 5 SLR 978 at [91]–[92] per See J; but see the comments in Public Prosecutor v Abdul Qayyum bin Abdul Razak and another appeal [2020] SGHC 57 at [9]–[10] per Sundaresh Menon CJ). In my view, this can be thought of as a specific application of the principle that the PSR need not be called if probation is not a realistic sentencing option.

However, in the Youth Court, the starting point is that rehabilitation is the focus of the Youth Court’s dispositional objective. This is made clear by, among other things, ss 4(b) and 34(1)(b) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1993 (2020 Rev Ed) (“CYPA”), which provide, respectively, that:

(a) in all matters relating to the administration or application of the CYPA, the youth’s welfare and best interests must be the first and paramount consideration; and

(b) the Youth Court is to facilitate the protection and rehabilitation of the child or young person, and his or her reintegration with his or her family and with society.

At [123] et seq, I also explain why, contrary to the Prosecution’s submissions, deterrence cannot be accommodated as an independent consideration to justify the severity of a disposition. Much less can deterrence be said to displace rehabilitation as the dispositional objective. At any rate, at the stage where reports are called, the Court should not provisionally rule out rehabilitation—and with it the possibility of probation.

Third, the PSR in the Youth Court serves a function that other reports are not well-placed to serve.

The RTSR is ordered to discharge the statutory function in s 305(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010, ie, to assess the youth’s physical and mental condition and suitability for a stint of RT, and the nature of rehabilitation that is recommended for the youth.

By contrast, the PSR goes further to give valuable information about the youth’s rehabilitative needs and risks. For example, the Pre-Sentence Report in the Schedule to the Probation of Offenders Rules (R 1, 1990 Rev Ed) requires officers to inquire into the offender’s family and relationships, expectations, hopes and aspirations, neighbourhood, friends and associates, history, physical and mental health, and attitudes, in coming to a recommendation as to the offender’s suitability for probation. As observed in Ahmad Syafiq at [27], a PSR would “allow the court to have a more complete and accurate assessment of the appellant’s background, character and attitude, and would assist the court in determining the most appropriate sentencing outcome”.

Indeed, although the PSR is titled as such, in practice, it involves much more, at least in the context of offenders dealt with under the CYPA. The Probation Officer (“PO”) tasked with authoring the report will, after having conducted the relevant interviews/inquiries and addressed the matters above, assess not only whether the youth is suitable for probation. That is only the first task of the PO: if the PO finds probation unsuitable, then the PO will recommend any alternative dispositions that he/she considers appropriate. In practice, in most cases where probation is assessed to be unsuitable, the PSR will recommend a stint in a JRC, and specify the JRC in which the Youth is recommended to be placed. Second, the PO will recommend the duration of the probation or JRC stint, as the case may be. This, in turn, depends on the PO’s assessment of the circumstances of the case and the suite of interventions that the PO has in mind for the youth. Third, if probation is recommended, the PO will recommend the type of probation—whether it is intensive, supervised or administrative (and the duration of each type, if the recommendation is split probation)—and the conditions of the probation. In exceptional cases, the PO might recommend other dispositions such as a detention order, or assess the youth to be unsuitable for both probation and JRC.

It is true that a report is not a necessary precondition to making an order for a youth to reside in a JRC. However, when a PSR is not called for, the court is not only foreclosing any practical chance of the youth being found suitable for probation. It is also doing away with the benefit of the PO’s assessment as to the youth’s suitability for JRC, and the recommendation as to the duration of the JRC stint, where probation has been rejected as the preferred modality of disposition. At this stage, no reasons were given why a JRC stint should be ruled out, or why the Court would not benefit from a recommendation as to the appropriate length of probation or JRC, if the PO were minded to recommend these.

I also did not find any exceptional reasons that would make probation or JRC unrealistic options in this case. For example, I note that, in Wong Shan Shan, the High Court declined to call for a PSR despite holding that the sentencing court ought to have called for one, on the basis that the offender had been unable to raise bail pending appeal, and had already served more than half her sentence of imprisonment by the time the appeal was heard (at [25]). There were no concerns of an analogous nature in this case, such as where Y had been on remand for an inordinately long time.

For these reasons, I called for the PSR despite the Prosecution’s objections.

RTSR

The Prosecution, citing s 49(1)(k) of the CYPA as it stood immediately before 30 December 2025, submitted that the Youth Court has the power to impose RT where Y is 16 years old, and the Court “is satisfied that it is expedient with a view to the offender’s reformation that the offender should undergo a period of training in a [RT] centre”:

I was provisionally of the view that the dispositional powers available to me were those prevailing at the time the charges were filed, or at the time Y is found guilty, or at the time the dispositional orders are passed (ie, in each case, after the CYPA amendments came into effect on 30 December 2025). In other words, the qualifying criteria were:

(a) First, on the day Y is found guilty,

(i) Y is at least 18 years old (s 49(1)(k)(i)(A)); or

(ii) Y is at least 14 years old, but under 18 years old (s 49(1)(k)(i)(B)(BA) and s 49(1)(k)(i)(B)(CA)), and

(A) was previously ordered by a youth court to be sent to a JRC in respect of another offence (s 49(1)(k)(i)(B)(BB)–(BC)); or

(B) is of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely detained in a juvenile rehabilitation centre/place of detention (s 49(1)(k)(i)(C)(CB)); and

(b) Second, the Court was satisfied that, having regard to Y’s character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence, to reform Y and prevent crime, Y should undergo a period of training in a RT centre.

The relevant provision reads:

Even under the amended s 49(1)(k), there were two possible “pathways” to impose RT:

(a) First, that the dispositional powers that apply are in fact those prevailing at the time of the offence (ie, before the CYPA amendments came into effect); or

(b) Second, that Y is found to be of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely detained in a juvenile rehabilitation centre/place of detention.

At this juncture, neither of these could be summarily ruled out, considering that, respectively:

(a) there were no specific savings and transitional provisions that dealt with the amendments to s 49(1)(k); and

(b) 6 of the 10 charges Y was involved in (of which 2 were proceeded with) concerned hurt (and, in some cases, the hurt was serious), and the determination of unruliness of character can benefit from an assessment conducted by the officers tasked with authoring the probation or RT suitability reports.

For these reasons, I did not rule out the possibility of RT, and also called for a RTSR.

Whether the hearing for dispositional orders ought to be adjourned

At the hearing for the dispositional orders on 4 August, the Prosecution sought an adjournment. As this may have had a bearing on the position(s) which the Prosecution did or were able to advance, I record my reasons here.

Whether an adjournment ought to be granted for the Prosecution to consider the legal permissibility of RT

By way of background, the hearing for the dispositional orders had been adjourned once. At the first hearing for the dispositional orders on 20 May 2026, the Prosecution had sought an adjournment with a view to having the benefit of the High Court’s judgment on a set of consolidated “money mule” appeals involving young offenders. This would presumably have been relevant to the CDSA offence here. The Prosecution indicated that the High Court had reserved judgment (with no indication as to when it would release its judgment), and that the applicability of the Sentencing Advisory Panel’s guidelines was in issue in those appeals.

I had not been entirely impressed with the reason for the adjournment request. Ultimately, I had not regarded it as likely that the judgment would be of guidance in this case for two reasons. First, the Youth Courts are expressly excluded from the scope of the SAP guidelines. Paragraph 7(c) provides:

I considered it unlikely that the High Court would express a view as to the appropriate approach in passing dispositional orders in the Youth Court, considering that the appeal before the High Court did not lie from the Youth Court, and in the light of para 7(c) of the SAP guidelines. Second, as I will explain later, the approach to passing dispositional orders in the Youth Court is different from criminal sentencing in the Magistrate’s or District Court. It did not seem worthwhile to permit a longer adjournment in the hope of receiving guidance which was unlikely to come. Ultimately, I granted a 3-week adjournment with a view to allowing the Prosecution to consider any judgment should it be released in July. I was not minded to grant any further adjournment, having weighed the risk of unnecessarily prolonging Y’s reintegration with her family and society against the risk of deciding this matter before useful guidance is issued.

At the adjourned hearing for the dispositional orders, the Prosecution sought a further adjournment to consider the issue of the legal permissibility to impose RT.

I refused the adjournment as I took the view that this was an issue that the Prosecution ought to have been prepared to address since the finding of guilt was made on 20 May 2026 (ie, two hearings prior, or 10 weeks ago). At the hearing where Y’s guilty plea was taken, the Prosecution objected to the calling of a PSR, and took the view that it was seeking only RT. For reasons I explained above, I proceeded on the basis that Y was not eligible for RT unconditionally, since, based on the dispositional powers afforded to the Youth Court at the time of the hearing of the dispositional orders, only persons aged 18 and above were eligible for RT unconditionally; young persons (ie, aged 14 and above, but under 18) were eligible only if certain criteria were met. There were only two pathways for the Prosecution to establish that Y should be sent for RT:

(a) either persuade the court that, contrary to my impression, the applicable dispositional powers were those prevailing at the time the offences were committed (such that Y, being 16 years of age at the time of the finding of guilt, would be unconditionally eligible for RT); or

(b) accept that the applicable dispositional powers were those prevailing at the time of the hearing of the dispositional orders, and instead persuade the court that Y was of so unruly a character that she could not be safely detained in a JRC or place of detention.

At the adjourned hearing, the Prosecution initially stated that it had not taken a position on the issue of whether Y was of so unruly a character that she could not be safely detained in a JRC or place of detention. At the same time, the Prosecution essentially stated that it needed more time to look into the issue of which version of the Court’s dispositional powers applied. Although the Prosecution reserved its position on dispositional orders until it received the RTSR, in my view, this fairly covers the issue of whether Y should be sent for RT, in the light of the assessment of Y’s suitability for RT. It cannot extend to affording the Prosecution more time to address me on how a legally necessary pathway might be established to the only dispositional order it had sought, since the Prosecution, in seeking only RT and nothing else, must be taken to impliedly assert that either of the two pathways to RT has been established.

I did not consider it acceptable for the Prosecution to not have a definitive position on both issues, considering that its position that RT must be imposed can only be sustained if either of the two propositions above are true.

In the circumstances, I refused the adjournment.

Whether the Youth Court may transmit a case to another court after a finding of guilt

When I indicated that I was not minded to grant an adjournment for the Prosecution to consider the issue of the legal permissibility to impose RT, the Prosecution then sought an adjournment to put in the necessary papers to transmit the matter to the District Court.

I refused the adjournment on this basis because I took the view that the Youth Court no longer had the power to do so.

While the Prosecution is correct that the transmission provisions do not impose a time limit on when the matter may be transmitted, the architecture of the provisions reveals that the cut-off is based on a milestone, namely, the finding of guilt. I reproduce s 39 of the CYPA for easy reference:

The Youth Court’s powers (or obligation) to transmit the case is found in ss 39(2A)–(2D). In particular, s 39(2A) provides that certain young persons are to be tried for an offence by another court if the Youth Court either transmits the case in accordance with the Public Prosecutor’s fiat, or if it on its own motion opines that the young person ought to be tried in that other court. The provisions consistently refer to the trial of an offence and, in particular, s 39(2C) lists three things a Youth Court must do upon receipt of the Public Prosecutor’s fiat—reading and explaining the charge, transmitting the case for the purpose of trial, and considering bail until and during the trial. None of these three tasks make sense upon a finding of guilt. The charge will have been read and pleaded to, and there will be nothing to try; all that is left is to impose the dispositional order. It has never been the practice—and I do not think there can be any serious suggestion that it would be otherwise here—for one court to make a finding of guilt and for another to pass the dispositional orders. In fact, as a matter of practice, the dispositional orders are as far as possible made by the same judge who made the finding of guilt.

At this juncture, it is worth noting s 45 of the CYPA. It provides a power for other courts to remit juvenile offenders to the Youth Court to pass dispositional orders:

Section 45 is, in that sense, a statutory exception to what I have observed above about the practice of courts—and indeed of individual judges—to “follow through” from the trial to the passing of dispositional orders. It has remarkably different language from s 39. In particular, s 45(2) provides that the Youth Court may deal with the offender as if he or she had been tried and found guilty by the Youth Court, and the checklist provided by s 45(5) is different—it permits the court to deal with bail, which in this case is not until or during the trial, but until the offender can be brought before a Youth Court. It also requires a remittal certificate setting out the nature of the offence. No doubt, this is to enable the Youth Court to properly discharge its function of passing the appropriate dispositional orders. Most importantly, s 45 is unidirectional: it permits only other courts to remit juvenile offenders to the Youth Court, and not the other way round. If Parliament had intended for the transmission provisions in s 39 to allow transmission of cases where a finding of guilt has been made by the Youth Court, s 39 would have been drafted in very different language.

In my view, once a finding of guilt has been made, the Youth Court no longer has the power to transmit a case to another court.

In the event, I stood the matter down for the Prosecution to briefly consider its position and address me on the dispositional orders that ought to be made.

Which dispositional order(s) should be made

In deciding which dispositional orders should be made, the question is which disposition—which must be made with Y’s welfare and best interests as the first and paramount consideration—best facilitates Y’s rehabilitation, reintegration with her family and with society, and prevention of Y’s future offending. Put briefly, the goal is to identify the least restrictive order that will meet Y’s rehabilitative needs.

Briefly, in the PSR, the PO assessed that Y was unsuitable for probation, and recommended instead a 21-month stint at SGH, being a JRC. In the RTSR, the relevant officers(s) assessed that Y was suitable for the RT regime, and that if RT were imposed, Y was recommended to undergo Level 1 intensity (ie, a 6-month minimum residential period in the RT Centre).

Probation unsuitable; JRC prima facie suitable

Neither the Prosecution nor Y took issue with the PO’s assessment that Y was unsuitable for probation. On the basis of the risk factors identified in the PSR, I agreed with the assessment that probation was unsuitable.

Neither Y nor the Prosecution took issue with the duration of the JRC stint that the PO had recommended. I also had no reason to disagree with the PO’s recommendations. Prima facie, a 21-month JRC stint seemed to be the most appropriate dispositional order to pass.

RT unavailable and, in any event, unsuitable

When the stood-down hearing resumed, the Prosecution submitted that Y was of so unruly a character that she could not be detained in a JRC. The Prosecution submitted that RT was the most appropriate dispositional choice, being more conducive to Y’s rehabilitation than a JRC stint. The Prosecution objected to a JRC stint, citing the sustained nature of Y’s offending, and the fact that the offences in the present case were serious and grave. To recapitulate, the Prosecution had also submitted earlier that:

(a) Where a young offender commits a serious crime, a balance must be struck between the public interest and the interests of the offender, where tension arises between the sentencing considerations of rehabilitation (on account of the youth’s age) and deterrence (on account of the severity of the offences).

(b) For the CDSA offence, the SAP Scams Guidelines posits that the offence of handing over bank accounts is serious and ordinarily calls for a deterrent custodial sentences.

(c) Considering the gravity of the offence, Y’s other offences, and the aggravating features in this case, a measure of deterrence is warranted alongside rehabilitation.

(d) The youth has attained 16 years of age, and the Youth Court need only be satisfied that “it is expedient with a view to [Y’s] reformation that the offender should undergo a period of training in a RT centre”.

As I explained above, Y is eligible for RT only if:

(a) The applicable dispositional powers under s 49(1)(k) of the CYPA are those that exist at the time of the offence (ie, before the amendments came into force on 30 December 2025); or

(b) Y is shown to be of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely kept in a JRC.

In my view, neither of these conditions are met and, even if they were, an RT stint is not a superior dispositional option to a JRC stint.

Whether Y is unconditionally eligible for RT by virtue of age

(1) How should the issue be characterised?

It will be recalled that the offences were committed between 2023 and 2025, where Y was between the ages of 13 and 16. At that time, the “default” qualifying age for RT was indeed 16 years old (whether under s 49(1)(k)(i) of the CYPA or s 305(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (2020 Rev Ed) (“CPC”)). The qualifying age of 14 would apply only where Y had been previously sent to JRC for an offence (s 49(1)(k)(ii) CYPA and s 305(1)(b) CPC). The version then in force reads:

However, the “default” qualifying age for RT was raised to 18 years old with effect from 30 December 2025 at 12.01am—the significance of this will be explained in more detail below, by operation of s 5 of the Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2025 (Act 21 of 2025) (“CL(MA)A 2025”) (see para 2 of the Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2025 (Commencement) Notification 2025 (S 816 of 2025)).

(a) First, the youth must, on the day he or she is found guilty:

(i) Be at least 18 years old (s 49(1)(k)(i)(A)); or

(ii) Be at least 14 years old, but under 18 years old (s 49(1)(k)(i)(B)(BA) and s 49(1)(k)(i)(B)(CA)), and

(A) was previously ordered by a youth court to be sent to a JRC in respect of another offence (s 49(1)(k)(i)(B)(BB)–(BC)); or

(B) is of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely detained in a juvenile rehabilitation centre/place of detention (s 49(1)(k)(i)(C)(CB)); and

(b) Second, having regard to the offender’s character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence, to reform the offender and prevent crime, the offender should undergo a period of training in a reformative training centre.

The amended s 49(1)(k) provides:

In both cases, the relevant date to assess Y’s eligibility for RT is the date she was found guilty, ie, 20 May 2026. However, the more insoluble question is: which version of s 49(1)(k) applies? If the applicable version is the one that existed at the time the offence was committed, Y—being 16 years old at the date she was found guilty—would be eligible for RT unconditionally under s 49(1)(k)(i). However, if the applicable version is the one that existed either at the time the charges were brought in court (ie, March 2026), or the one that existed on the date that Y was found guilty (ie, May 2026), or the one that existed on the date that dispositional orders are passed (ie, August 2026), then Y—not being 16 years old at the date she was found guilty—would be eligible for RT only conditionally, ie, only if the circumstances in s 49(1)(k)(i)(B) or (C) prevail.

Here, I make a small detour to explain my view that, under the pre-amendment s 49(1)(k), the relevant date that the eligibility for RT is assessed is the date that the youth is found guilty. It is true that the chapeau of the pre-amendment s 49(1)(k) does not state this explicitly (compared to the post-amendment s 49(1)(k)(i)). Nonetheless, this must be the case, for at least 3 reasons.

(a) First, the chapeau in both the pre-amendment and post-amendment version of s 49(1) provides that the Youth Court’s powers arise “where a Youth Court is satisfied that an offence has been proved, or where the … offender … admits the facts constituting the offence”. Ex facie, the Youth Court’s dispositional powers cannot arise before the finding of guilt.

(b) Second, it can be seen from the analogue of s 49(1)(k) CYPA—s 305 of the (pre-amendment) CPC, which the pre-amendment s 49(1)(k) itself refers to—that the relevant date to assess eligibility for RT is the date of the offender’s conviction (see the chapeau to s 305(1) CPC). This is, by virtue of s 46(2) CYPA, treated as the date that the youth offender is found guilty.

(c) Third, in Muhammad Nur bin Abdullah v Public Prosecutor [2018] 1 SLR 114, the Court of Appeal endorsed the “forward-looking approach” as the preferable approach in determining the relevant date on which eligibility for RT is assessed. In other words, the concern is with the state of the offender at the time he or she is convicted and about to be sentenced (or, in this case, where he or she is found guilty and about to have dispositional orders passed). There is no serious reason to think that the age threshold in s 49(1)(k) CYPA would have referred to the age of the offender at some other time (such as the date the offence was committed, or the date that the charge was brought).

The issue, at its heart, concerns whether a statutory provision governing the court’s dispositional powers, introduced after the commission of an offence, operates retrospectively to govern the disposition of the matter. The answer, in my view, is that the applicable version of s 49(1)(k) is the version that applies either at the time of making the dispositional orders or upon a finding of guilt.

(2) The applicable law

This issue of retroactive application of court powers in criminal matters was discussed at some length by Pang Khang Chau J in Public Prosecutor v CRH [2024] SGHC 34 (“CRH”), albeit obiter. (As such, it was not the subject of, or discussed in, the appeal from the decision (CRH v Public Prosecutor [2024] 1 SLR 998 at [11(b)]).

First, Art 11(1) of the Constitution prohibits the imposition of a harsher punishment for an offence than was prescribed by law at the time it was committed, but the converse is not necessarily true, in that a court is not prohibited from applying a new penal provision which is more lenient (CRH at [126]).

Pang J then examined what I discern to be three lines of analysis, in respect of which he ultimately declined to express a definitive view. They are as follows:

(a) The first line involves reasoning from English (and New York) sentencing practice. The English courts’ common law sentencing practice is to sentence according to the law and practice prevailing at the time of sentencing, regardless of when the offence was committed, subject to the lex gravior principle (ie, no sentence must be imposed which exceeds that to which the defendant was exposed that the time of committing the offence)—the same principle that is enshrined in our Art 11(1) (CRH at [129]–[133]). The rationale for this is that courts will “[abstain] from imposing a sentence now recognised as excessive” (CRH at [156], citing R v Docherty (Shaun) [2017] 1 WLR 181 (UK Supreme Court) at [42]). Specifically, where a reduction in the penalty for a crime “indicates a legislative judgment that the lesser penalty adequately meets all the legitimate ends of the criminal law, imposing a harsher penalty would be an exercise in vengeance, which the law does not permit” (CRH at [156], citing The People of the State of New York v Jerome Walker (1993) 81 NY (2d) 661 at 666 (New York Court of Appeals)). In other words, assuming that English practice applies in Singapore, whether the new provisions apply retrospectively depend on whether they represent a view that the earlier penal provisions were excessive (see CRH at [157]–[158]).

(b) The second line involves reasoning from local cases. In Kalaiarasi d/o Marimuthu Innasimuthu v Public Prosecutor [2012] 2 SLR 774, V K Rajah JA considered, on the merits, whether community-based sentences—which were then new sentencing options introduced after the offender committed the offence but before she pleaded guilty—should be imposed. Likewise, in Loy Zhong Huan Dylan v Public Prosecutor [2019] SGHC 283, the court upheld the District Court’s sentencing of the offender based on the reduced minimum detention period for reformative training, which had also been introduced after the offender committed the offence but before he pleaded guilty. While these decisions could be explained based on the relevant transitional provisions (ie, they were permitted only by legislative design, rather than sentencing practice), this might suggest that the courts ought to develop a similar sentencing practice based on Lord Diplock’s comments that where a steady legislative trend can be discerned across “successive Parliaments as to what the public interest demands in a particular field of law, development of the common law in that part of the same field which has been left to it ought to proceed upon a parallel rather than a diverging course” (CRH at [151]–[154], citing Erven Warnink BV v J Townsend & Sons (Hull) Ltd [1979] AC 731 at 743).

(c) The third line concern involves s 16(1)(d) and (e) of the Interpretation Act 1965 (2020 Rev Ed), which is reproduced below.

While the equivalent English provision was not discussed in the English cases analysed in the first line of reasoning, a separate English decision—Potter v Manning [1984] Lexis Citation 2023, (1984) Times, 23 March— was interpreted in Diggory Bailey & Luke Norbury, Bennion, Bailey and Norbury on Statutory Interpretation (LexisNexis Butterworths, 8th Ed, 2020) at p 301 to mean that this is a savings provision to save a penalty for an offence against a repealed enactment, and does not apply where only the penalty-creating provision (but not the offence-creating provision) is repealed (CRH at [159]–[165]). Pang J embarked on an analysis assuming that Potter v Manning was correctly decided and interpreted, and what he expressly declined to decide was only whether s 16(1)(d)–(e) also preserved the penal provisions for an offence against a repealed provision.

Ultimately, the Court analysed the question of retrospective application through purposive interpretation. Whether legislation applies retrospectively entails a single overarching enquiry as to parliamentary intent (CRH at [135], citing ABU v Comptroller of Income Tax [2015] 2 SLR 420 (“ABU”) at [76]). Only if ambiguity persists may the court then consider the various presumptions concerning the retrospective application of legislation. Whether the presumption applies is a question of fairness, which in turn requires an assessment of several factors including the degree of retrospective effect, the purpose of the legislation and the hardship of the result (ABU at [76], endorsing L’Office Chefifien Des Phosphates v Yamashita-Shinnihon Steamship Co Ltd [1994] 1 AC 486 at 525–526 per Lord Mustill). This is the inquiry that I am bound to undertake. Where the legislative amendment benefits the offender, it would presumably be fair not to apply the presumption against retroactivity (CRH at [142], [148]).

(3) The proper construction of the amendment legislation

At the outset, I state that, if it is necessary for me to take a view on it, I would consider that s 16(1)(d)–(e) of the Interpretation Act does not apply to the present case. I would accept the interpretation of these provisions as given in Potter v Manning, which was for the sake of argument assumed correct in CRH. These provisions are engaged only when the offence-creating provision is repealed. In the present case, the offence-creating provision remained intact; what was amended was simply the dispositional powers of the Court in respect of the offence.

In my view, the relevant amendment legislation, on its proper construction, was intended to apply retrospectively, in the sense that it would apply to offences committed before the effective date of the amendments. I will embark on 3 lines of analysis to explain this.

(i) Inferences drawn from the (absence of explicit) transitional arrangements

A close examination of the legislative history reveals that the path to the current state of the legislation was carefully considered, and refined over time. Two amendments are of interest: the first is the expansion of the Youth Court’s jurisdiction (which is relevant to whether Y may even be charged in the Youth Court), and the second is the evolution of the dispositional powers as regards reformative training (which is relevant to whether I may order RT in this case).

(a) The relevant provisions and their legislative history

I begin with the provisions on the expansion of jurisdiction. The essence of the Youth Court’s criminal jurisdiction is neatly encapsulated in the then-s 33(1) of the CYPA (as it stood in 2019). It provides that, subject to the rest of s 33, no child or young person shall be charged with or tried for any offence by a court of summary jurisdiction except a Youth Court. “Child” and “young person”, in turn, are defined in s 2(1) to mean, respectively, a person who is below the age of 14 years, and a person who is 14 years of age or above and below the age of 16 years. In sum, the Youth Court’s criminal jurisdiction extends to youths under 16 years old. This provision was the subject of amendments in the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Act 2019 (Act 30 of 2019) (“CYP(A)A 2019”). Interestingly, the amendment legislation provided for two amendments, which presumably were to take place successively. These are found in s 2(1)(j) and 2(2)(b):

As it turns out, the amendment effected by s 2(1)(j) came into force on 1 July 2020, while the amendment effected by s 2(2)(b) came into force on 30 December 2025. The effect of the two-stage jurisdictional expansion meant that the provisions dealing with care and protection (s 49 of the then-CYPA) and family guidance (then called “beyond parental control”) (s 50 of the then-CYPA) were implemented first, while the provisions relating to the expansion of youth court’s criminal jurisdiction (generally ss 33–48 of the then-CYPA) were deferred.

In the same amendment Act, it was intended that the dispositional powers as regards RT were to be adjusted, such that only offenders age 18 and above would be unconditionally eligible for RT, while offenders aged 14 to 18 would be eligible only if they had a previous offence in respect of which they were sent to JRC (as was broadly the law then), or if they were of so unruly a character they could not be safely detained in a JRC. In this regard, s 32(a) of the CYP(A)A 2019 provided:

As it turned out, this amendment never came into effect; to date, this sub-section has never been commenced. However, in 2025, the Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2025 (Act 21 of 2025) was passed, to introduce a slightly different formulation of the provision (which, in the interim, had been re-numbered). This later formulation was also commenced on 30 December 2025. The amendment provision read as follows:

The amendment legislation shows a conspicuous absence of savings and transitional provisions specific to the amendments relating to the criminal jurisdiction and the corresponding dispositional powers of the Youth Court. Section 76 of the CYP(A)A 2019 provides transitional provisions for care and protection and for family guidance (or beyond parental control) applications (in s 76(1)–(2)), but did not make definitive savings or transitional provisions for the expansion of criminal jurisdiction, leaving it instead to the Minister to prescribe them if thought necessary or expedient (in s 76(5)):

Section 77 of the CL(MA)A 2025, which promulgates the amendments to the dispositional powers which eventually came into effect, likewise provides that the Minister for Home Affairs may, by regulations, prescribe any savings or transitional provision consequent on the enactment of that provision that the Minister considers necessary or expedient:

However, no such regulations have been promulgated in respect of the relevant provisions. For completeness, the Commencement Notification pertaining to s 5 of the CL(MA)A 2025 also does not purport to provide any savings or transitional provisions.

(b) What conclusions can be drawn about the amendments?

The first point is that the two-stage expansion of jurisdiction was necessitated by capacity constraints and operational readiness. This was made clear in the Second Reading of the Bill that corresponds to the CYP(A)A 2019, in particular the debates, and the Minister’s closing speech explains (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development):

It might be surmised from these excerpts that the amendments relating to the Youth Court’s jurisdiction and powers were more likely intended to apply retroactively. Retroactive application would mean that offenders who commit offences before the commencement date of the amendments can immediately be charged in the Youth Courts and have the matter dealt with in accordance with the amended dispositional powers. Conversely, a prospective application would entail a significant lag time before the first cases engaging the expanded jurisdiction appear in the Youth Court, because the offences would need to be committed and investigated first. The Minister’s concern with ensuring operational readiness and capacity before commencing the amendments suggests an expectation that cases engaging the expanded jurisdiction will be filed in Court immediately rather than after a significant lag time.

Sections 76(1)–(2) of the CYP(A)A 2019 mean that care and protection and family guidance applications filed before the commencement date of the amendment legislation will continue to be dealt with as if they were filed after the commencement of the amendment legislation. A fortiori, care and protection and family guidance applications filed after the commencement date of the amendment legislation must be dealt with under the post-amendment framework, even if they involve circumstances which arose before the amendments came into force. In the absence of any specific indication either way for the expanded jurisdiction and amended powers in respect of youth offenders, it would seem more likely that Parliament intended the same arrangements (ie, applying the post-amendment framework), as compared to a contrary arrangement where the amended dispositional powers apply only to offences committed after the commencement date of the amendments. In this sense, s 76(5) is in my view best thought of as a provision that preserves an avenue for the Minister to depart from this default arrangement if it later occurs to the Minister that doing so would be necessary or expedient.

The second point is that the amendments to jurisdiction (ie, expanded jurisdiction) and dispositional powers (ie, the raising of the qualifying age for unconditional eligibility for RT) should be equally retroactive. Jurisdiction and power go hand in hand to delineate what matters a court may hear and what orders a court may pass. If the amendment provisions are contained in the same amending legislation, then they should both apply (or not apply) to any given case. To be clear, I consider the present case one such case, even though the jurisdictional expansion was contained in the CYP(A)A 2019 and the amendments to the dispositional powers were contained in the CL(MA)A 2025. This is because Parliament intended to amend the dispositional powers in CYP(A)A 2019, and the CL(MA)A 2025 merely represents a refinement of the amendments passed in 2019.

If the jurisdictional expansion applies retroactively to offences committed before the effective date of the amendment legislation (ie, youths who committed offences before 30 December 2025 may be charged in the Youth Court if they are between 16 and 18 years old), then the amended provisions for the eligibility for RT must likewise operate retroactively to those youths who committed offences before 30 December 2025.

At this juncture, I note that it has been the unchallenged practice in the Youth Court for more than 6 months (ie, since the amendments came into force expanding the Youth Court’s jurisdiction and amending its dispositional powers) to take jurisdiction over offenders aged between 16 and 18 whose offences were committed before the effective date of the amendments. In the period immediately following the effective date of the amendments, several cases involving offenders aged between 16 and 18, whose cases were pending in the State Courts, were transferred to the Youth Court. Unless this practice was mistaken, I would consider that Parliament intended to allow youths whose cases had not concluded to benefit from the expanded jurisdiction and amended dispositional powers of the court.

If it were otherwise, there would be an anomalous result: a 16-year-old youth might have the benefit of being tried in the Youth Court, but still find himself/herself unconditionally eligible for a dispositional order which would leave a criminal record that is not rendered spent upon completion. I turn to this issue now.

(ii) A clue from the destigmatisation of youth offenders

The second line of analysis involves tracking the deeming provisions which render a criminal record spent upon the youth’s successful completion of a youth court order. In 2019, CYPA amendments were mooted to treat youth offenders’ criminal records as spent upon completion of the order, to allow youths to “pick themselves up”, support their reintegration with family and society, and avoid experiencing lasting stigma or condemnation. In this regard, the Minister, in his opening speech at the Second Reading of the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Bill 2019 (Bill 22 of 2019), explained as follows (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development):

An order for RT was notably left out of this coverage. The provision introduced in the Registration of Criminal Act read as follows:

The powers in the then-s 44(1) of the CYPA provided for the discharge of the offender (s 44(1)(a)–(b)), a care committal order (s 44(1)(c)), and a parental bond (s 44(1)(d)). These raise no concern as far as criminal records go. On the other hand, the dispositional powers also provided for the power to impose RT under s 44(1)(k). It was not explained in Parliament why an order for RT was left out of this scheme. However, considering that the Minister named every order which would become the subject of the deeming provision, and also dealt with RT in other sections of his speech, it appears plain that this was a considered policy choice and not an inadvertent omission.

It can be seen in s 44(1)(k) that RT was at that time reserved for youths who have either attained 16 years old, or those who were between 14 and 16 years old and had been sent to a JRC before. This is significant because the Youth Court only has trial jurisdiction over youths who have not turned 16 years old. Nonetheless, youths aged 16 and above could fall to have dispositional orders passed in the Youth Court, because the age of the youth, for the purpose of jurisdiction, is reckoned as at the date of the plea of guilt or the commencement of the trial (as the case may be). In this regard, the then-s 33(6)–(7) of the CYPA provided as follows:

When the Youth Court’s jurisdiction was expanded to include youths aged 16 to 18, the qualifying age to be eligible for RT unconditionally was also raised to 18 years old, and both provisions were timed to commence on the same day.

In my view, these provisions go hand in hand. If a youth has reached 16 years of age, ie, the age where the Youth Court will no longer have jurisdiction over the youth in a fresh trial, then it can be said that the youth falls outside the core class of persons which the CYPA is intended to protect or benefit, such that the policy objective of shielding the youth from the lasting effects of a criminal record does not apply in its full force.

These considerations reinforce the view that the jurisdictional expansion and the amendments to the dispositional powers must be equally retroactive.

(iii) Amendments as “beneficial” and “enlightened” legislation

If the substantive amendment legislation, transitional provisions and commencement timelines do not lend themselves to a sufficiently clear inference that the amended s 49(1)(k) applies retroactively, I turn to the next line of analysis, which broadly concerns itself with the “fairness” analysis in ABU. Among other things, this involves examining the purpose of the legislation and the hardship of the result. It seems to me that the English sentencing practice discussed in CRH (see [58(a)] above) is cognisable as an inquiry into the purpose of the legislation, while the principle of “beneficial legislation” argued by the Young Independent Counsel in CRH is cognisable as an inquiry into the hardship of the result. I will examine each in turn.

(a) Amendments as “beneficial” legislation

The first main point I make here is that the amendments should be taken to represent beneficial legislation for the offender.

At the Second Reading of the relevant Bills, the Minister in fact characterised the amendments as a “benefit”, by saying that the inter-agency committee reviewing the youth justice system had recommended allowing youths to benefit from a wider range of dispositional options. More importantly, I consider that the text of the pre- and post-amendment provisions, examined on their own terms, independently supports this characterisation.

The first obvious difference between the pre-amendment and post-amendment provisions is the requirement in the post-amble. Under the old s 49(1)(k), the Youth Court would have had to be satisfied that “it is expedient with a view to his reformation” that he should undergo a period of training in a RT centre (“RTC”), whereas under the new provision, the Youth Court would need to be satisfied of this “having regard to the offender’s character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence, to reform the offender and prevent crime”. In my view, this reformulated test is no less stringent. The inquiry as to character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence is in a sense more structured than a “expedient with a view to reformation” test. In this sense, the offender should be regarded as no more susceptible to an order for RT under the new amendments than he/she was under the pre-amendment framework.

It might be argued that the amendments are not beneficial in the sense that they establish a new pathway to RT (where none previously existed) for the class of offenders aged 14 and above but under 16, namely, where the Youth Court thinks that the offender is of so unruly a character that he/she cannot be safely detained in a juvenile rehabilitation centre or a place of detention. In other words, the argument is that the amendments are onerous to this class of offenders and therefore the amendments as a whole ought not to apply retroactively. I would not be persuaded by this argument.

(a) First, this is not the class of offenders into which Y falls. Y falls into the category of offenders where RT would have been unconditionally available. It is possible that, in respect of that class of offenders who now face a new pathway to RT, the provisions would only apply prospectively.

(b) Second, and more fundamentally, this pathway to RT is not entirely new. Under the old s 44(7) (or the current s 49(6)) of the CYPA, where a Youth Court is satisfied, on the representations of the manager of JRC or a place of detention/safety, that a person ordered to be detained there is of so unruly a character that he cannot be so detained, the Court already has the same powers to impose RT (it is notable that these were also slated for amendment via the CYP(A)A 2019). In that sense, it is not accurate to say that this class of offenders (youths aged 14 and above but below 16) would, under the pre-amendment framework, not be liable to be sent to RTC even if they are of unruly character.

It might be further argued that, under the post-amendment framework, the Youth Court may bypass what would otherwise have been an intermediate JRC placement before RT is considered. The argument, presumably, is that the youth is more “exposed” to the possibility of RT under the post-amendment framework and the post-amendment framework should not be considered beneficial legislation. One Member of Parliament in fact queried the Minister about this, by noting that the Youth Court could now impose RT at the first instance even if the youth has never stayed at a JRC, and querying how the Youth Court could conclude that the youth would be a failure at the JRC, and about the danger of an “overreach” (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Ms Sylvia Lim, MP for Aljunied GRC)). In my judgment, such an objection would be slightly pedantic. While it is true that under the pre-amendment framework, a youth would not be eligible to be sent for RT until he/she actually manifests unruly character or behaviour in an institution, the test for actually imposing RT remains identical under either pathway, ie, that the Youth Court thinks that the offender is of so unruly a character that he/she cannot be safely detained in a juvenile rehabilitation centre or a place of detention. The Minister alluded to this in his Closing Speech, when he explained that the Youth Court would call for a suitability report, and consider if the youth has demonstrated “aggressive or violent behaviour, such as when the youth was remanded at the MSF Youth Homes” and “assessed to have such a high risk of aggressive behaviour that it may not be safe for the youth to be detained in the JRC”. In fact, the corollary of such an amendment is that, under the post-amendment regime, a youth who will eventually qualify for RT now will not need to spend time under a JRC order which will not be counted towards the satisfaction of a RT order.

In fact, Parliament was evidently careful to make sure that this class of offenders—youths aged 16 to 18 of unruly character—did not face a lower barrier of entry to RT. Under the 2019 formulation of the amendments, this limb (ie, unruly character) stood alone; there was no need to show that the youth should undergo a period of training in a RTC having regard to his/her character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence. This, however, was corrected under the 2025 formulation of the amendments: regardless of which limb is sought, it must be shown that the youth should undergo a period of training in a RTC having regard to his/her character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence.

Ultimately, the amendments should be treated as beneficial or at least neutral to Y, such that there is no hardship to Y in applying the amended s 49(1)(k) retrospectively.

(b) Amendments as “enlightened” legislation

The second main point is that, in any event, the amended legislation reflects an enlightened view of how youth offenders ought to be dealt with.

To recapitulate, the English cases suggest that where the purpose of introducing more lenient penal provisions is to recognise that a lesser penalty meets the legitimate ends of the criminal law, then imposing a harsher penalty would be an impermissible exercise in vengeance. Stated at a higher level of abstraction, it seems that updated penal provisions should be afforded retrospective effect (subject to constitutional limits) if they represent a more updated or enlightened policy position.

In this case, the amended legislation—in particular, the enlarged jurisdiction of the Youth Court and the raised age for unconditional eligibility for RT—reflects an enlightened view, and a conviction that the post-amendment framework would be intrinsically better for the youth’s rehabilitation and reintegration.

(a) In this regard, one of the reasons that the jurisdiction of the Youth Court was enlarged was to give effect to Singapore’s obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognises youths aged under 18 (and not only under 16) as children (see also Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (19 November 2018) (Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development), where the Minister was updating a member on the government’s assessment on raising the cut-off age for the definition of a “young person”)).

(b) Second, and more fundamentally, Parliament sought to recognise the fact that youths aged 16–18 might not have the full cognitive maturity and should not, as was then the case, be tried as adults in the State Courts or Community Courts (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development). In this vein, members noted that such youths should receive the “necessary attention and appropriate rehabilitative support” when they offend (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Ms Rahayu Mahzam, MP for Jurong GRC)), and access to a justice system which emphasises “rehabilitation and reintegration so that the mistakes of the past do not continue to haunt” the youth in adulthood (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Christopher de Souza (MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC)). These amendments, therefore, were intended to give such youths access to a wider range of dispositional options.

(c) Third—although this is perhaps not as explicit from the debates—there appears to be an undercurrent of concern in ensuring that dispositional options are age-appropriate. Concerns were raised about segregation of children in homes based on the reason they are placed there (ie, whether for offending behaviour, or for care and protection) (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (4 September 2019) vol 94 (Anthea Ong, Nominated Member of Parliament)), or about bullying in residential homes being aggravated with a wider age group of residents and older youths (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Ms Rahayu Mahzam, MP for Jurong GRC)). The Minister in his closing speech, and in his final exchange with Ms Anthea Ong, acknowledged the phenomenon of contamination in adult prisons as a well-documented one in criminology, and stated that children are “as far as possible … separate[d] based on age”, and that the youth guidance officers in the homes are careful about the youths’ progress and “ensure that negative influences are curtailed as far as possible”. The point is that, Parliament, in its wisdom, made the considered policy choice to prefer placing offending youths aged between 16 and 18 in youth homes/hostels than in RT, and the Court should give effect to this policy preference where possible.

I am guided by the English cases, and I consider that, absent indications to the contrary, these provisions afford options which Parliament would rather not withhold from youths whose matters are pending, because doing so would be depriving the youths of access to the updated contours of the justice system that Parliament thinks is beneficial for the youths.

(4) Conclusion

For the above reasons, I conclude that the applicable dispositional powers are those in force after the amendments came into effect on 30 December 2025, and Y is eligible for RT only if Y is of unruly character.

Although the English cases have suggested that the applicable dispositional powers are those at the time of sentencing (or, in our case, the time the dispositional orders are passed), the reference in s 49(1(k) to the day that the youth is found guilty raises a suggestion that the applicable dispositional powers are those prevailing on the date that the youth is found guilty. This makes no difference in this case; it would matter only where the amendments had come into effect between the day the offender was found guilty and the day that the dispositional orders are passed. I will leave this to be decided in a case where this issue arises.

RT may not be imposed

(1) Whether Y is of so unruly a character she cannot be safely detained in a JRC

I now turn to the issue of unruly character.

As explained above, Y is currently under 18 years of age. She has also never been ordered to reside in JRC for an offence. In the light of my views on the applicable version of s 49(1)(k), the only way that Y can qualify for RT is if she is of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely detained in a JRC or a place of detention.

(i) When is a youth “of so unruly a character” that he/she cannot be “safely detained” in a JRC or place of detention?

In understanding the ambit of this phrase, it is instructive to refer to Cheng Thomas v Public Prosecutor [2000] 3 SLR(R) 828 (“Cheng Thomas”). There, the appellant—a 15-year-old boy—had been ordered to stay in a boys’ home, whose superintendent made representations to Court that the appellant was “of so unruly a character: that he could not be detained at the Boys’ Home. The then-Juvenile Court agreed and invoked its powers under the then-s 44(2)(e) of the CYPA to refer the appellant to the District Court, which then sentenced him to reformative training, against which he appealed. Yong Pung How CJ’s exegesis on this phrase in the then-s 44(2)(e) remains instructive considering that the chapeau of the then-s 44(2)(e), in which this phrase appears, is worded in a similar way:

Yong CJ held that unruly character is a question of fact, and that “unruly” can adopt its plain and literal meaning. Across the three dictionary definitions, the common denominator is difficulty of control or discipline. The definitions converge on two related aspects to this word. The first is behavioural: that the youth is disorderly, hyperactive. Essentially, this suggests resistance to rules and routine in a practical, observable sense. The second is attitudinal: that the youth is ungovernable, not submissive to control. Essentially, this suggests an underlying attitude of resistance, and in fact speaks to a character trait.

In Cheng Thomas, the “litany of misdemeanours” relied on was described at [3] to include two counts of vandalism, attempted suicide and self-harm, escape from lawful custody and removal/disposal of handcuffs, and being rude/defiant/vulgar:

The two dimensions of unruliness can be seen in Yong CJ’s approach in analysing the issue on the basis of the juvenile’s current behaviour in the Boys’ Home and his history of delinquent conduct. A history of delinquent conduct by definition demonstrates the behavioural aspect of unruliness, but more importantly, it is often the clearest and most reliable indicator of unruliness as a character trait (or attitude). Continued delinquent conduct in the presence reinforces that finding. But, more importantly, recent delinquency satisfies the need for that unruliness to be continuing in the present. This is because the court must be satisfied that the youth “is” of so unruly a character. The Youth Court—whose interest is in the rehabilitation of youths—has no business finding that a youth is of so unruly a character if that youth has shown some reform and that his/her unruliness can fairly be said to be a thing of the past.

Conversely, even if the youth has had no history of unruliness, sustained unruliness in the present can satisfy a finding that a character trait has formed. This was the case in Public Prosecutor v GCS [2018] SGYC 5, where the youth had initially shown progress during the first ten months of his JRC order at the Singapore Boys’ Home (“SBH”), adjusting well to the structured regime, demonstrating no behavioural issues, and participating receptively in programmes including intensive drug counselling, before his behaviour regressed into:

(a) a pattern of escalating institutional infractions including:

(i) secreting items;

(ii) passing rude remarks to staff;

(iii) breaching time restriction during home leave;

(iv) quarrelling with residents; and

(v) consuming drugs during home leave;

(b) sustained resistance to counselling and intervention targeting his peer loyalty and negative peer influence, showing limited receptiveness despite repeated sessions; and

(c) culminating in an incident involving serious threatening and intimidatory conduct towards staff, including threatening to punch a staff member, promising to create a mass disturbance if he returned to SBH, disruptive conduct, and active defiance of staff instructions during the incident itself.

The court found that this pattern of escalating and sustained misconduct, demonstrated that a character trait of unruliness had formed notwithstanding the absence of a prior history of such conduct.

In the 2019 amendments, the Minister took the opportunity to elaborate on what this unruliness entailed. Essentially, his comments confirm that the focus is whether the presence of the offender in question in a JRC would disrupt the rehabilitation of other residents. In response to questions from Members of Parliament, he elaborated that the Youth Court would consider whether the youth has demonstrated aggressive or violent behaviour, such as when the youth was remanded in an institution. In fact, unruliness within an institutional placement was the subject of both examples which the Minister examined in his opening and closing speeches at the Second Reading of the corresponding Bill for the CYP(A)A. These involved:

(a) First, a 15-year-old youth who:

(i) verbally threatened the staff at the home every day he was there;

(ii) on the day of his Court hearing, he pretended to grab the baton of the escorting Police Officer;

(iii) swung his arm towards an MSF officer to intimidate him;

(iv) continued to intimidate other youths at the Home despite counselling; and

(v) held his dormitory mate by the neck and lifted him off the ground, choking him.

(b) Second, a youth (based on the opening speech) or some among seven youths (based on the Minister’s closing speech) who:

(i) had a history of aggression, including past incidents of punching his schoolmates, getting into fights with strangers;

(ii) punched and injured his dormitory mates on various occasions; and

(iii) assaulted and seriously injured one Auxiliary Police Officer (serious eye injury) and two MSF officers (head injuries).

The Minister had said:

(ii) Whether Y is of unruly character

I turn to the present case.

Having had the benefit of the PSR and RTSR, I am not satisfied that Y is of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely detained in a JRC.

I begin with Y’s history of conduct outside any institutional setting. Based on the PSR and RTSR, there can be no question that Y has a history of delinquent conduct. She has been the subject of prior warnings, has associated with negative peers across multiple settings, and has committed offences of increasing severity culminating in the present charges. In this regard, the various factors below—most of which were highlighted by the Prosecution—which may be relevant to this inquiry:

(a) First, Y inflicted sustained and serious violence victims even when they became quite defenceless, over a trajectory of increasing agency and severity. This involved:

(i) On 2 October 2023, being part of an unlawful assembly, of which the members took turns to kick and punch the victim’s face multiple times (causing pain, dorsal left wrist bruising, left knee abrasion, and left eyebrow swelling and tenderness) (this charge was proceeded with);

(ii) On 3 October 2023, being part of an unlawful assembly, of which some members kicked, slapped and punched the victim’s body and face (causing pain, and face, body and elbow scratches) (this was a TIC charge);

(iii) On 30 October 2023, punching the victim (this was a TIC charge); and

(iv) On 19 February 2024, (as part of a TIC charge), pulled the hair of the victim (a 13-year old female) and hit her head twice against the gate to the victim’s home; (as part of a proceeded charge) punching one side of the same victim’s face 10 times, and punching her nose, and then placing her knee on the victim’s chest and punching her 5 more times after the victim fell and hit her head on the concrete ground; and (as part of a TIC charge), punching the same victim’s face multiple times and her arm, sitting on her back while she lay on the ground, and punching her back multiple times.

(b) Second, Y offended despite prior warnings (a stern warning in January 2020 and a 12-month conditional warning in September 2021) and interventions (she was placed in Gladiolus Place from April 2021 to December 2022).

(c) Third, Y offended across multiple kinds of offences knowing that her conduct was illegal, perhaps suggesting conscious defiance of norms rather than impulse.

(d) Fourth, Y rejected professional help and interventions: in 2022, Y and her mother were referred to the Family Services Centre, but Y was increasingly unreceptive to engagement efforts; and in 2025, referrals were made to Project Bridge and YouthGo to support Y’s engagement through vocational training and youth services, but Y remained unresponsive to YouthGo’s outreach and defaulted on the Project Bridge interview as she was staying away from home. Yet, Y reported to the Probation Officer that she did not qualify due to poor school attendance.

(e) Fifth, Y had several risk factors, including poor frustration tolerance, risk-taking tendencies, poor consequential thinking, susceptibility to negative influence, limited victim empathy, limited insight, low readiness for pro-social change.

(f) Sixth, Y continued to vape and smoke within her placement at Gladiolus Place; this was direct proof that Y was not fully compliant with rules even within an institutional setting.

(g) Seventh, Y had chronic truancy, and self-reported assaulting a schoolmate by grabbing her head and slamming it against a door (for which she received detention and suspension from school); this was—on the basis that school is treated as a semi-institutional setting—further evidence of non-compliance within an institution.

I was not persuaded that Y crossed the threshold for a finding of unruly character, even in the light of the above.

First, and particularly in response to Y’s offences involving violence, a history of delinquency in the community (as opposed to an institutional setting where structure is actively imposed) is not direct evidence of unruliness as a character trait in the relevant sense (ie, for an assessment of whether the youth can be safely detained in a JRC). The focus, ultimately, is on her manageability within an institutional setting, and her disposition towards the rules, authority and regime of such a setting. Similarly, the fact that Y offended despite prior warnings/interventions and that Y offended despite knowing of the wrongfulness of her conduct speaks far more to her risk of reoffending. The fact that Y rejected professional help and interventions speaks more to her difficulty in engagement in a community setting. These are quite distinct from her risk of institutional manageability and open defiance to coercive authority.

Second, in my view, it is a misstep to reason that Y’s risk factors reveal her tendencies and, therefore, her character, with the eventual conclusion that Y is of an unruly character. These risk factors are criminogenic needs which explain why Y offended, and what needs to be the subject of targeted intervention. They should not be confused for evidence that Y will be unsafe or unmanageable in a structured residential setting. Indeed, there is no suggestion in the report that the PO had relied on these to suggest that they are character traits going towards manageability in an institution.

Third, the Prosecution’s argument about Y’s school conduct as non-compliance within a semi-institutional placement is, respectfully, not entirely helpful. The characterisation of school as a semi-institutional placement is itself a borderline one in my judgment. A school may impose its norms and sanctions, but its participation ultimately remains largely voluntary at a practical level. A JRC, on the other hand, is a compulsory residential setting with structured authority. Truancy and misconduct in a school setting is limited evidence of unruly character in an institutional setting. The analysis might have been different, for example, if Y had terrorised multiple students, openly defied or challenged the authority of the teachers or head of discipline, or caused disruption to the school’s operations. However, I leave it open as to the when the conduct of a youth at school is sufficiently egregious to demonstrate institutional manageability (if at all). It suffices for me to state that truancy and one incident of hurt remains quite far from any line that might be drawn.

Fourth, Y’s institutional placements generally points in Y’s favour.

(a) Y was previously placed at Gladiolus Place from April 2021 to December 2022, on the basis of at-risk behaviours, defiance towards authority figures, and caregivers’ inability to ensure adequate supervision. However, the reports disclose that during that period, she adjusted well to the strict and structured regime of the institution, attended school daily with no behavioural issues apart from occasional reminders about schoolwork, was compliant with rules, and was forthcoming with her caseworker (and even demonstrated motivation to work towards reunification with her mother). She completed the Protective Behaviours Programme in December 2021 and successfully completed Extended Home Leave for 1 month before her discharge. While this predated the offences for which she has now been found guilty, this is relevant in displacing the impression that Y is unruly to the point of unmanageable. The fact that Y continued to vape and smoke while at Gladiolus Place does not bring Y near the threshold for unruly character. It is no doubt a clear violation of the institution’s rules, but without more it involves no violence, no threats, no defiance in the face of authority, and no material disruption to the regime at the home.

(b) More recently, Y was remanded at SGH from 20 to 26 May 2026 for the purpose of assessing her with a view to preparing the RTSR. During that period, she was compliant and incident-free, receptive to staff guidance, cooperative, and committed no disciplinary infringements. She has also complied with the trial time restriction imposed on 4 June 2026, and was confirmed to be at home during random checks on 15 June and 1 July 2026. These are recent and directly probative indicators of her manageability within a structured setting. Of course, it might be said that, at this stage, Y has been put on notice of the possibility of facing RT and is therefore putting up her best behaviour temporarily with a view to avoiding a placement in the RT centre. This type of concern was in fact recognised in Public Prosecutor v Koh Wen Jie Boaz [2016] 1 SLR 334 (“Boaz Koh”) at [66]–[67] per Sundaresh Menon CJ. However, given that her response to authority figures and manageability in a structured institutional setting is the very subject of the enquiry, any compliance—even if incentive-driven rather than internalised—is still relevant and should be given non-trivial weight.

Fifth, to the extent that Y has demonstrated unruliness in her offences, there are also signs of reform: Y has reportedly disengaged from her co-accomplices and anti-social peers since 2024, has been more open with her mother since late 2024, and has expressed regret and acknowledgement of wrongdoing. These are by and large self-reported changes, but Y’s disengagement from negative influences has been corroborated by her mother. She has also reported to have reinforced this with other affirmative steps, such as overhauling her social media presence, and forming other pro-social peer networks and engaging in other constructive pursuits. More importantly, the offences most relevant to unruliness—those involving violence—were last committed in February 2024. Nearly 2.5 years have passed since then. This is a significant period of desistance from the conduct most relevant to the inquiry of unruly character. After that, while Y continued offending, these other offences concern property/honesty and do not involve that same measure of unruliness that would suggest unmanageability in an institutional setting.

Sixth, the present case is quite far removed from the level of conduct seen in both Cheng Thomas and GCS. In Cheng Thomas, the youth had demonstrated a sustained and escalating pattern of defiance, violence, self-harm, escape from custody, and threatening conduct both before and during his institutional placement, such that the Boys’ Home was plainly unable to manage him. In GCS, the youth’s initial progress gave way to a pattern of escalating infractions, drug consumption, peer-related misconduct, and ultimately serious threatening and intimidatory conduct towards staff. In both cases, the finding of unruliness was grounded in concrete evidence of the youth’s inability or unwillingness to submit to institutional authority and control, demonstrated through their actual conduct within the institution itself. Y’s conduct—especially that as observed in an institution—presents quite a contrasting picture. There is no record of defiance towards staff, no threatening or intimidatory conduct, no escape or attempted escape, no drug consumption during home leave, and no pattern of escalating infractions within any institutional setting. There is no evidence of entrenched resistance towards institutional authority. The risk factors identified in the reports — including her susceptibility to peer influence, her limited consequential thinking, and her prior offending — are real and must be taken seriously. But these are factors that speak to her risk of reoffending in the community, not to her unmanageability within a JRC. It must be remembered that a youth does not need to become an angel to avoid RT; that is not the expected presentation of the youth at the point of making the orders, but the rather aim of the rehabilitative processes that the youth will be made to undergo. In this context, the youth simply needs to show some present capacity to be managed. The youth’s risk factors are properly addressed through the rehabilitative programmes and structured regime that a JRC is designed to provide, rather than treated as a basis for bypassing that regime altogether. Ultimately, the picture that emerges in this case, by contrast, is not of a youth who is presently ungovernable or incapable of responding to institutional structure and authority.

For these reasons, I am not satisfied that Y is of so unruly a character that she cannot be safely detained in a JRC. The threshold under s 49(1)(k)(i)(C)(CB) is not met, and the power to impose RT is therefore not available on this ground.

(2) Whether Y should undergo a period of training in a RTC

In addition, for Y to qualify for RT, s 49(1)(k)(ii) of the CYPA requires the Court to be satisfied that, having regard to Y’s character, previous conduct and the circumstances of the offence, to reform Y and prevent crime, Y should undergo a period of training in a RTC.

However, I would not be entirely satisfied that Y should undergo a period of training in a RTC, having regard to these matters.

Briefly, while a number of Y’s offences fall within the 2nd Schedule to the CYPA and should therefore be regarded as serious offences, I note that Y has not been the subject of any prior court-ordered intervention. The PSR and RTSR reveal that Y’s offending was largely peer-driven and contextual, rather than predatory. While the reports are clear that Y should be placed in a residential programme instead of a community-based intervention, they do not clearly show a need for a more serious residential programme.

In any event, RT should not be imposed

On the assumption that I am wrong on the issue of the retroactivity of the amended s 49(1)(k) (such that Y is fact unconditionally eligible for RT), or that cumulatively Y is of so unruly a character she cannot be safely detained in a JRC and that she should undergo a period of training in a RTC having regard to the matters in s 49(1)(k)(ii), then the question is whether I should impose RT or order Y to reside in a JRC. My view would remain that RT should not be imposed.

(1) Do deterrence and retribution have a place in the Youth Courts?

The Prosecution submitted that the aggravating features of this case and the gravity of the CDSA offence warranted “a measure of deterrence … alongside rehabilitation”, especially considering the other offences. The Prosecution highlighted, in relation to the CDSA offence, that:

(a) Scams continue to be rampant, and are by far the most prevalent type of crime in Singapore;

(b) Y’s offence of providing credentials to financial accounts enabled organised criminal syndicates to perpetrate scams, made it difficult to follow the money trail, and ultimately undermined the integrity of our economic infrastructure; and

(c) Y’s offence was aggravated by the fact that she opened her YouTrip account for the purpose of handing it over, on the promise of monetary gain, with the result that significant harm was caused (9 police reports were lodged, and some $112,000 flowed through the account during the relevant period).

The first two points above are, in substance, submissions that general deterrence should apply. The prevalence of an offence has been recognised as a particular circumstance of the offence which may attract the application of general deterrence (Public Prosecutor v Law Aik Meng [2007] 2 SLR(R) 814 (“Law Aik Meng”) at [25(a)] per V K Rajah J (as he then was)). Similarly, the application of general deterrence has been recognised in respect of offences “affecting the delivery of financial services or the integrity of the economic infrastructure” (Law Aik Meng at [24(e)]), offences where detection and/or apprehension is difficult (Law Aik Meng at [25(d)]), and group or syndicate offences (Law Aik Meng at [25(b)]).

The Prosecution suggested that underlying considerations in the SAP guidelines might nonetheless apply in this case, even if (as I explained at [29]) the guidelines themselves do not. Presumably, these considerations are found in paragraph 7(a)–(b), which posits that the sentences for scams-related offences must be “punitive enough and commensurate with the harm suffered by the victims”, and “warrant … custodial sentences for the purpose of deterrence”:

These correspond to the Prosecution’s submissions as to the rampancy of scam-related offences, the deliberateness of Y’s conduct, and the harm occasioned by the offence. In other words, it appears that the Prosecution is suggesting that general deterrence and/or retribution should assume centre stage in the disposition.

In oral submissions, the Prosecution also submitted that, in accordance with s 34(1)(c) of the CYPA, specific deterrence was engaged in this present case, and necessary to facilitate prevention of any further contravention of the law. The Prosecution highlighted that the 2 rioting charges are “ordinarily serious offences and do attract a measure of deterrence”.

I confess I found great difficulty with the Prosecution’s submissions on the application of deterrence and/or retribution in the Youth Court. There have been some suggestions that deterrence and/or retribution may exceptionally have a place in the Youth Court’s calculus, but the changes to the CYPA framework have made it increasingly difficult to accommodate deterrence and retribution.

(i) The state of the case law

For example, in Youth Justice in Singapore, it was remarked at para 1.14 that:

In the (relatively limited) corpus of Youth Court cases, it has been said that “less emphasis is typically placed” on other considerations like “retribution, prevention and deterrence, especially general deterrence” (Public Prosecutor v GFF (a minor) [2023] SGYC 2 at [10]). The court there, in turn, cited the remarks in Public Prosecutor v GCB (a minor) [2019] SGYC 1 made in the same paragraph as the passage endorsed by the Chief Justice in Raveendran:

In some other cases, the court appears to have gone further as regards the role of these other considerations, going so far as to consider that deterrence may displace or eclipse rehabilitation as a consideration in the court’s dispositional choice. For example, in ZZ (a minor) v Public Prosecutor [2009] SGJC 2 at [48], the then-Juvenile Court reasoned that the need for “retribution”, the purpose of which was to “deter” the youth from further misbehaviour, was to be balanced with the need for rehabilitation:

There have even been instances where the language of the Juvenile Court suggested that general deterrence was an operative consideration.

For example, in Public Prosecutor v WV (a minor) [2008] SGJC 3 (“WV”), the Court stated that dealing with the youth firmly would send a strong message to youths in society that the Juvenile Court took an uncompromising stand against drug trafficking. The Court reasoned at [34]:

In Public Prosecutor v WQ (a minor) [2008] SGJC 4 (“WQ”), the Court took a similar view:

Some recent cases have continued this trend. In Public Prosecutor v GFN [2023] SGYC 5, the court, citing the Chief Justice’s remarks in Boaz Koh, suggested that the focus on rehabilitation can be diminished or even eclipsed by considerations such as retribution or deterrence:

In Public Prosecutor v GCJ [2018] SGYC 2, deterrence was in fact explicitly invoked as an independent consideration going towards the dispositional order. The judge reasoned:

These pronouncements are not to be lightly taken. They raise the important question of what the legitimate place the other classical considerations in criminal sentencing occupy in the youth justice calculus. I now turn to examine the primary sources to understand the precise scope of application of these considerations.

(ii) How deterrence and retribution are incompatible with the youth justice architecture

It is useful, at this junction, to recall the essence of each of these principles:

(a) retribution is the deontological principle that punishment is inherently justified because a wrong has been committed and justice demands that the offender must pay for what he has done, with a punishment proportionate to the seriousness of the crime;

(b) general deterrence involves the utilitarian reasoning that making an example of the offender at hand through the penalty will deter would-be offenders from breaking the law; and

(c) specific deterrence involves visiting a sufficiently unpleasant penalty on the offender to such that he/she would not reoffend and face the unpleasantness of a similar penalty.

A preliminary point must be made. In the sentencing of youthful offenders qua adults, rehabilitation is the dominant sentencing principle, but this focus can be diminished or eclipsed by deterrence or retribution where circumstances warrant, such as when the offence is serious, the harm is severe, the offender is hardened and recalcitrant, or the conditions do not make rehabilitative options viable (Boaz Koh at [29]–[30]). However, the approach of the Youth Court is fundamentally different, because the application of the CYPA changes both the form and substance of criminal sentencing. The language is transformed, and the logic is fundamentally reoriented. Briefly, in my view, the sole focus of the Youth Court’s dispositional choice must be the rehabilitation of the youth. In giving effect to this objective, parsimony is the preferred approach of the Court. Deterrence—both general and specific—and retribution have, I think, no independent role as such.

In Public Prosecutor v XRU [2025] SGYC 6, the Youth Court, referring to ss 4(b) and 34(1)(b) of the CYPA and the palette of dispositional options in s 49(1), reasoned that the focus of the Youth Court must be on the rehabilitation of the youth, and that the “best interests” principle stands in stark contrast to retribution and deterrence and instead demands exclusive focus on rehabilitation and the youth’s present and future well-being:

I agree with these propositions.

There are at least five main features of the youth justice framework that suggest strongly that deterrence and retribution are incompatible with the logic of the Youth Court.

The first point is that the terminology of “conviction” and “sentence” is eschewed in the Youth Court. In this regard, s 46 CYPA provides:

In Public Prosecutor v Muhammad Noor Indra bin Hamzah [2009] 4 SLR(R) 1007 at [12], Lee Seiu Kin J examined the predecessor provision to s 46—s 41 of the Children and Young Persons Act (Cap 38, 2001 Rev Ed)—and concluded that the rationale for this provision was the destigmatisation of youth offender proceedings. The language in s 49(1) reflects, accordingly, that the Court upon a youth being found guilty of an offence, does not sentence, but simply passes dispositional orders. Given that destigmatisation is now achieved more substantively by rendering (almost all) criminal records spent upon the successful completion of the youth court order (see [77] above), it might be wondered if s 46 now performs only a symbolic function, or if it goes further. Even if s 46 itself does not go beyond mandating a change in vocabulary, it at least sets the stage for the idea that, in youth offender proceedings before the Youth Court, the CYPA radically re-orients the logic employed in criminal sentencing.

In this regard, the second notable feature in the CYPA is that the welfare and best interests of the child or young person must be the first and paramount consideration. This much is beyond dispute from s 4(b). Section 4 provides:

This provision was first introduced as s 3A of the CYPA, through s 4 of the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Act 2011 (Act 3 of 2011). At the Opening Speech of the Second Reading of the corresponding Bill, the Minister explained that this provision was intended to provide clarity by expressly articulating and enshrining guiding principles which have already been in place for the 60 years prior (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (10 January 2011) vol 87 at col 2097 (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports)).

The meaning of “first and paramount consideration” was discussed in UKM v Attorney General [2019] 3 SLR 874 (“UKM”), in the context of s 3 of the Guardianship of Infants Act (Cap 122, 1985 Rev Ed), which provides that the “welfare of the infant” is the “first and paramount consideration” in certain proceedings. This was a High Court decision presided over by three judges. Sundaresh Menon CJ, citing J v C [1970] AC 668 at 710H–711A, agreed that this connotes:

The Court then explained that, to give practical effect to “first” and “paramount”, respectively:

(a) the child’s welfare ought to define the scope of the inquiry, in that the court’s analysis is about assessing the impact of the order sought in the light of the relevant indicia of welfare (UKM at [56]).

(b) when a certain outcome is shown to be for the welfare of the child, the court should generally make an order which achieves that outcome unless there are compelling reasons to do otherwise; this leaves room for exceptional fact/context-specific cases which justify an outcome that serves the child’s welfare sub-optimally (UKM at [57]).

General deterrence is, in my view, categorically incompatible with the principle in s 4(b) CYPA that the child’s best interests are paramount. In its strongest formulation, general deterrence justifies a disproportionately severe penalty on the basis that it is effective in deterring others from committing such a crime. In other words, it makes an example of one offender for the benefit of the general public, and to that extent makes that offender an instrument of social policy; a means to an end. In Singapore, the formulation is tempered by the principle of proportionality, to mitigate the objection that it “promotes injustice and disregards the inherent moral worth of the individual by treating him as a means to an end” (Beyond Prison, para 1.45). However, proportionality is not a complete response to the need for the child’s best interests to be paramount. Proportionality, by definition, prevents the penalty from being disproportionate. However, it does not prevent the penalty from being any higher than it would otherwise have been if supported only by the other principles of sentencing; such a formulation leaves no room for general deterrence to meaningfully operate. The proportionality principle admits of a harsh penalty as long as it does not become disproportionate. In other words, the offender is still being used as an instrument—just not excessively or disproportionately so. To this extent, the child’s best interests will not have been treated as paramount.

Specific deterrence is, in my view, also incompatible with the paramountcy of the child’s best interests. Specific deterrence operates by instilling a fear of re-offending through the potential threat of re-experiencing the same sanction previously imposed (Public Prosecutor v Law Aik Meng [2007] 2 SLR(R) 814 at [21]), which ought to visit upon the offender sufficient unpleasantness and distress. Put simply, it frightens the offender into compliance. But, a youth’s welfare and best interests are not served merely by preventing the youth from reoffending through external compulsion or fear. They are served by developing the youth’s capacity to internalise the values and norms desired of them, and to make pro-social (or at least law-abiding) choices autonomously without external constraint. Rehabilitation seeks to achieve precisely this by altering the child’s values so that she no longer desires to commit criminal acts (Public Prosecutor v Mohammad Al-Ansari bin Basri [2008] 1 SLR(R) 449 at [30]). Specific deterrence bypasses rather than develops this capacity for internalisation by operating through external compulsion; it substitutes an external constraint for an internal reorientation towards pro-social choices and, put bluntly, treats the youth as an object to be controlled rather than a subject to be developed. For a youth, who is hoped and expected to develop increasing agency and capacity for internalisation, a disposition that bypasses rather than develops those developmental goals are not oriented towards that youth’s welfare and best interests in the fullest sense.

Retribution, likewise, is incompatible with the paramountcy of the child’s best interests. I should qualify that, in an abstract or loose sense, some retributive element is implicit in the very fact of finding a youth guilty and making a dispositional order, regardless of the nature of the order made. However, it is difficult to give meaningful expression to retribution beyond this. First, retribution is backward-looking and offence-oriented; it asks what the offender deserves to suffer, in proportion to the wrong done. This question is simply not directed to the youth’s best interests, but to the moral desert arising from the offence. A best interests inquiry would be forward-looking and offender-oriented; it would ask what intervention the youth needs. Second, retribution requires that the offender suffer, just as specific deterrence requires sufficient unpleasantness and distress. Suffering is not merely incidental or regrettable; it is the very aim of retribution. By contrast, the best interests analysis seeks to minimise unnecessary suffering and to promote the youth’s well-being.

In conjunction with s 4, s 34 CYPA—the third notable feature and the foremost provision under Part 3 of the CYPA, which deals with the Youth Court—provides a more concrete approach for the Youth Court to follow:

This iteration of this provision was introduced via the CYP(A)A 2019, and in substance contained only what is now s 34(1)(a), with a general direction to have regard to the youth’s welfare:

The expansion of this provision was explained by the Minister as follows (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development)):

This provision lends itself to several observations.

(a) First, the phrase in the chapeau—”is to do the following”—makes it clear that the various objectives in the sub-sections are the mandate of the Youth Court. Unless provided for within s 34, it is not open to the Youth Court to discretionarily depart from any of these imperatives.

(b) Second, paragraph (a)—the requirement to remove the child from undesirable surroundings and secure provision for education and training—is qualified by the phrase “in a proper case”. This qualifier signals that these objectives are not universally applicable. More importantly, the qualifier is also the strongest of the three paragraphs (by contrast, (b) is an unqualified mandate, and (c) is qualified by the reference to the youth’s needs and risks). The reference to a “proper” (and not merely “applicable”) case, in particular, suggests that the qualification goes beyond merely applying this mandate to cases where it is factually applicable; instead, it demands a judgment on the propriety of removing the child from undesirable surroundings. It might be thought that the actions in paragraph (a) are also the most interventionist of the three paragraphs, since the first limb most directly contemplates removing the youth from what must have been his or her usual surroundings, and the second limb begins with “securing”—a word with firmer connotations than the “facilitate” found in paragraphs (b) and (c). If this is so, then paragraph (a) is consistent with a philosophy of parsimony, in the sense that the most disruptive interventions are also made the most conditionally available.

(c) Third, as I mentioned, paragraph (b) has no qualifier. This means that rehabilitation and reintegration are the core, unconditional obligations of this court—an objective to be pursued in every case, regardless of circumstances. The phrase “reintegration with … family and … society”, and its conjunction with “rehabilitation” in a single paragraph, is also telling. Rehabilitation is not regarded as a purely internal process of individual reform. It is inherently relational and social: the goal is to restore the youth to their family and to society. This is consistent with the repeated emphasis found in the Hansard (and, more importantly, s 4(a)) on family as the primary locus of the youth’s development and the ultimate destination of a court intervention. Again, the mention of reintegration reinforces the impression from paragraph (a) that the removal of the child from the community is to be kept to the minimum needed to achieve reform and/or rehabilitation.

(d) Fourth, paragraph (c) enjoins the court to “have regard to the needs of, and risk faced by” the youth. This is a needs-based and risk-based framework. In other words, the court’s attention is directed to the youth’s circumstances, rather than to the quality of his or her conduct. It is worth noting that sub-paragraph (i) (ie, preventing ill-treatment) applies to care and protection cases, while sub-paragraph (ii)—(ie, preventing further law-breaking) applies to family guidance and youth offender cases.

(e) Fifth, the sequence in which these paragraphs appear to envision the sequence and causal chain of court-ordered interventions: the first order of business is to remove the youth from undesirable surroundings and secure education or training for the youth, if it is proper to do so. These lead to rehabilitation and, ultimately, reintegration with family and society. Eventually, the court considers, prospectively, how best to prevent a youth from reoffending, in the light of his or her needs and risk profile. In other words, in the ideal case, the prevention of reoffending is not a standalone objective to be achieved, but the intended consequence of a successful effort at rehabilitating and reintegrating the youth.

Both forms of deterrence directly offend the Youth Court’s mandate in s 34(1)(b) of the CYPA to facilitate the protection and rehabilitation of the youth, and his or her reintegration with family and society and, more generally, the principle of parsimony. Parsimony posits that the Youth Court is to make the least restrictive/severe/intrusive order that is necessary in the circumstances, whereas deterrence is employed precisely to justify an order that is more restrictive than would otherwise have been the case. Similarly, retribution runs counter to the mandate in s 34(1)(b) to facilitate the youth’s rehabilitation. More generally, as I stated above, retribution is backward-looking, whereas the mandates in each of the limbs under s 34(1) are forward-looking.

The fourth notable feature is that the dispositional choices available to the Youth Court are carefully circumscribed and have a graduated structure. In this regard, s 49(1) has been produced at [52] above. Again, there are several notable features about it:

(a) First, the Youth Court is generally not permitted to imprison the youth, commit the youth to prison in default of payment of fine, damages or costs, or impose corporal punishment (s 42). This is perhaps one of the clearest indications that the Youth Court is legislatively constrained from giving full expression to deterrence or retribution.

(b) Second, the first three dispositional options reveal the minimum that is available to the court: discharging the youth outright, discharging the youth on a bond of good behaviour, and a care committal order. This unusually low floor, together with the graduated structure, appears to me to be a statutory expression of parsimony. Parliament must have provided a spectrum of orders starting from the absolute minimum—an unconditional discharge—so that the court is able to select the least restrictive order that will achieve a rehabilitative purpose.

(c) Third, the most onerous order available is RT, and it carries with it the most conditions. This appears to align with the fact that, of the rehabilitative options available, RT is typically thought to carry the most deterrent effect. The first avenue to qualify for RT is the youth having attained 18 years of age as at the date he or she is found guilty of the offence. This invariably means that the youth would have been tried (as opposed to having pleaded guilty) for the offence, since in the first place a youth who has turned 18 on the date of commencement of the hearing of the charge cannot be tried by a Youth Court (s 39(6)). In such a case, it might be said that the youth is no longer thought to deserve the otherwise unconditional focus on rehabilitation. The other two avenues to qualify involve the youth having attained 14 years of age, and either having been sent to a JRC in respect of another offence, or having demonstrated such unruliness of character he or she cannot be safely detained in a JRC or place of detention. Even so, in each case, the Youth Court must be satisfied that the youth should undergo a period of training in a RT centre, having regard to his or her character, previous conduct and circumstances of the offence, and the need to reform the offender and prevent crime (see s 49(1)(k)(ii) and the post-amble to s 49(6)(b) CYPA). The restrictiveness of RT suggests that the “ladder” in this graduated structure is meant to be “ascended” only when lesser options have shown themselves to be inadequate.

(d) Fourth, the focus on the child’s best interests and rehabilitation is reinforced by the procedural rule in s 47(9), which expressly permits the Youth Court to obtain information on the youth’s family background, general conduct, home surroundings, school record, medical history and state of development, and to question the youth on this information (or enlist the help of professionals (s 47(10)) or parents (s 47(11)), to enable itself to deal with the case in the youth’s best interests. This demonstrates that the “best interests” is not intended to involve a mere perfunctory estimation, but an intensely fact-specific and bespoke enquiry.

(e) Fifth, the only exception to this (and perhaps to the first feature discussed at [143]) is s 43(1), which provides that a court may “sentence” a youth “to be detained for such period as may be specified in the sentence”, if the court thinks that “none of the other methods by which the case may legally be dealt with is suitable”, where the youth is convicted of one of four offences: murder, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, and voluntarily causing grievous hurt. Practically, this dispositional option remains open to the Youth Court where a case involving voluntarily causing grievous hurt is not transmitted to another court.

The fifth notable feature concerns the relationship between Youth Court proceedings and other proceedings. The Youth Court has always had presumptive jurisdiction over youth offenders—s 39(1) provides that no child or young person may be charged with or tried for any offence by a court of summary jurisdiction except a Youth Court. However, until recently youth offenders were dealt with in the General Division of the High Court for offences provided by law to be triable only there, and in other courts of appropriate jurisdiction if the case involves a joint charge against a youth and a person who has attained 16 years old (ie, who fell outside the Youth Court’s jurisdiction at that time). The interaction between Youth Courts and other courts was made more nuanced in amendments the substance of which traces back to the CYP(A)A 2019. Essentially, youths are presumptively removed from the usual procedure that applies to adult offenders, and the reversion to that procedure is generally compelled or permitted under a wider variety of circumstances, comprising:

(a) coming of age (s 39(6));

(b) (serious) offences:

(i) provided by law to be triable only by the General Division of the High Court (s 39(2)), except where the Prosecution and the youth’s representative agree otherwise (s 39(2)(a)–(b)); or

(ii) scheduled in the CYPA and committed by older youths, if designated by a Public Prosecutor’s fiat or transmitted by the Youth Court on its own motion (s 39(2A); and

(c) procedural constraints, such as:

(i) there being an offence related to another sent to another court (s 39(2E)–(2F));

(ii) there being a joint charge with an adult (s 39(3)); or

(iii) a charge already being properly before another court (s 39(4)).

Essentially, by creating the Youth Court as a separate creature and then preserving a pathway for youths to be prosecuted as adults in the other courts, reinforce the idea that there must be a meaningful difference between the dispositional approach of the Youth Court, and the sentencing of young offenders in other courts (where rehabilitation is already the dominant sentencing consideration). If Parliament was content with the application of the usual sentencing principles, it would have been far easier to leave youths to be dealt with in the ordinary criminal justice system (where a provision equivalent to s 46 CYPA could easily exist to merely change the vocabulary).

The recent amendments reinforce this. It is notable that the Minister may amend the schedule of offences (s 117A(1) of the CYPA). In other words, the designation of the trial court is no longer a simple operation of written law passed by Parliament. Parliament has afforded the Minister the power to specify offences which he considers serious, at a granular level; and Parliament has afforded the Public Prosecutor a discretion to specify the hearing court in respect of these offences. When the corresponding Bill for the CYP(A)A 2019 was mooted in Parliament, the Minister was clear that these pathways to other courts were exceptions, to deal with serious and/or repeat offences with deterrence in mind (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (3 September 2019) vol 94 (Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development). The Minister said:

The implication is clear: there is a calibrated pathway for the Prosecution to bring serious cases before courts that will employ the logic of criminal sentencing. The Youth Court need not, and should not, employ that logic. If the Prosecution desires the logic of criminal sentencing to be applied in a case, then the onus is on the Prosecution to transmit the case to an appropriate court. By proceeding in the Youth Court, the Prosecution must be taken to accept the statutory re-orientation of the logic employed in choosing dispositional orders.

All these features converge on the view that the CYPA constructs a framework that makes rehabilitation the governing principle in the youth justice regime, and that excludes retribution and deterrence from its calculus. At most, retribution is satisfied by the mere fact of a dispositional order, and the youth justice framework does not give further expression to retribution.

(iii) Anticipating some objections

There is no escaping that I have taken is a strong view. I now turn to address some possible objections or concerns that come to mind.

First, perhaps the clearest suggestion that deterrence may be accommodated comes from the Opening Speech of the Minister when the 2011 amendments were mooted in Parliament. The Minister had said (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (10 January 2011) vol 87 at cols 2105–2106 (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports)):

At least two points stand out about the Minister’s statement. First, he said that “providing deterrence is one of the considerations for the juvenile justice system”. Second, the objective of the juvenile justice system is “not only to punish but also to rehabilitate”, and that this was hopefully the “right balance”.

This statement does not change my analysis.

(a) First, this statement must be seen in context. It was not meant to address the specific question of whether deterrence can legitimately be invoked to independently justify a more restrictive dispositional order. It was addressing whether the age threshold for young persons under the CYPA should be adjusted, and just before this statement, the Minister was also speaking about young offenders between the age of 16 and 21 (ie, offenders who at the time would have fallen outside the strict definition of “young person” in the Youth Court). It would, in my view, be an overreading to treat a passing reference in that context as a considered Parliamentary endorsement of deterrence as an operative dispositional consideration within the youth justice framework.

(b) Second, and more importantly, this statement sits in clear tension with what I have gleaned from the text of the CYPA, and from the Parliamentary debates, which over the years has been replete with references to rehabilitation. It also predated the CYP(A)A 2019, which significantly strengthened the rehabilitative orientation of the Act and curtailed any possible application of deterrence. To the extent that it sits in direct conflict with what I have gleaned from the text, the Minister’s statement cannot be relied on to interpret the CYPA provisions. At worst, it reflects a moment in the CYPA’s development that has since been superseded.

Second, it might be objected that UKM recognised the possibility that, under the definition of “first and paramount consideration” in the GIA, the Court can permit outcomes which are sub-optimal to the child’s welfare if there are compelling reasons. In UKM itself, the Court at [57] gave two examples where this welfare-optimising standard may be departed from:

(a) in the context of adoption, the welfare of the child and the concern to protect his relationship with his natural parents may, in a particular case, pull especially hard in different directions, and whether the outcome favoured by the welfare of the child ought to prevail in every such case cannot be categorically answered here, and must be left to the discretion of the court determining the particular case; and

(b) where there is a countervailing public policy, the Court must consider various factors that influence the weight to be given in the balancing exercise to a value underlying the claimed right or to the countervailing public policy, which include (at [153]–[161]):

(i) how rationally connected or proximate is the public policy in question is to the legal issue that the court is being asked to decide?

(ii) does the public policy or value emanate from the applicable statutory regime from which the legal issue arises?

(iii) to what extent would the public policy be violated, or the value underlying the claimed right would be advanced, if the claimed right were given effect to?

It might be wondered if there can be reasons compelling enough that deterrence and/or retribution can (in the rare case) be a legitimate consideration in the Court’s dispositional order, similar to the way that, in adoption proceedings, the concern to protect the relationship between the child and the natural parents can potentially justify an outcome that is sub-optimal to the child’s welfare. However, I have some discomfort with this analogy.

(a) For example, the concern to protect the relationship between the child and the natural parents is, first, a concern that is woven into the fabric of the Adoption of Children Act, and it arises from the very statutory scheme which is being applied to the dispute at hand. By contrast, deterrence and retribution are imported from the realm of criminal sentencing, and are not specific to youth justice dispositions.

(b) Second, and relatedly, the decision in both types of matters serve different objectives. In an adoption matter, the legal relationship between natural parent and child is the very legal relationship that the court is being asked to preserve or alter. By contrast, deterrence and retribution are merely among the rationales that justify the legal response to a youth’s offending. There is no legal relationship as such that the court is being asked to create or alter, by declining to consider retribution or deterrence.

(c) Third, a child’s bond with the natural parent, even if not perfectly aligned with the child’s welfare, at least overlaps with it, in the sense that the preservation of this relationship is connected with the child’s identity, sense of belonging, and emotional development; these are indicia which go toward the expansive conception of welfare in UKM. In other words, the preservation of this relationship involves not a pure subtraction from the child’s welfare, but a basket of trade-offs which may improve welfare in some aspects and compromise welfare in other aspects. By contrast, deterrence and retribution are societal interests that simply do not take into account the youth’s welfare.

(d) Apart from these distinctions, it should also be noted that the CYPA has a far more elaborate architecture that is designed to exclude retribution and deterrence, such that I cannot conceive of any situation where rehabilitation can legitimately be displaced by deterrence or retribution. I turn to these other features now.

As for the “public policy” exception, I am unable to discern any public policy that seems compelling enough for the Youth Court to displace rehabilitation in favour of deterrence or retribution as its dispositional consideration. In the broader scheme of criminal law, the youth justice architecture represents an exception to the usual manner of dealing with offenders. Accordingly, general public policy against certain classes of crimes does not necessarily apply to youth justice dispositions. It would, I think, take a public policy of extraordinary specificity—for example, to take a strong stance against certain crimes committed by youths—to seriously raise this question. Even so, there is already a schema in place for such policy positions to be statutorily expressed—the Second Schedule, for example, provides an avenue for such offences to be dealt with by other courts.

Third, it might be objected, as the Prosecution did, that s 34(1)(c)—presumably the words “facilitate the prevention of … any further contravention of any written law”—supports deterrence as a dispositional consideration.

There is some initial attraction in the Prosecution’s submission. However, this seems to miss the fact that it is ultimately the goal of all sentencing considerations to prevent reoffending. The fact that s 34(1)(c) is directed at preventing reoffending does not mean that s 34(1)(c) reveals a preference as to the dispositional consideration that should govern. A reading of this phrase in its broader context suggests that the focus remains very much on rehabilitation. This is confirmed by the Minister’s explanation, namely, that the substance of s 34(1)(b)–(c) was added to “ensure better outcomes for children and break the cycles of abuse, neglect and offending”. This is not the language of frightening a youth into compliance with a harsh deterrent sentence. This is the language of a needs-and-risks-based rehabilitative intervention. Likewise, I would not have been impressed with a suggestion that s 34(1)(c) accommodates retribution as a dispositional consideration. Retribution is indifferent to the offender’s risks and needs; it is concerned instead with deserts proportionate to the wrongs.

Fourth, it might be objected that sometimes truly difficult cases arise in which the only viable response is a retributive or deterrent one. In this regard, it seems to me that there is no compulsion for the Youth Court to factor deterrence or rehabilitation into account, either because a rehabilitative approach remains adequate to address the concern, or because the deterrent/retributive goals either can be achieved by another court, or do not align with the statutory expression of policy. In this regard, I examine five “difficult cases” which come to mind.

(a) The first scenario might involve a youth who rejects a rehabilitative intervention. Where a youth has expressed aversion or contempt at a rehabilitative intervention, it might be thought that rehabilitation is either undeserved or empirically unviable, and that it should yield to retribution and/or deterrence. However, rehabilitation is not contingent on the youth’s cooperation or consent at the point that the dispositional order is passed. For example, a more structured environment, or the passage of time, may lead to conditions in which engagement becomes possible over time, even if it is rejected at the outset. The rehabilitative aim is not lost; rather, it requires the court to make a forward-looking assessment.

(b) The second scenario might involve a youth in respect of whom several interventions have failed to produce a change in values, attitudes or conduct. It might be thought that there is no way to reform the youth than to let the youth experience the unpleasant consequences of his/her actions to discourage the youth from reoffending. In such a case, the disposition would appear to be founded on specific deterrence. However, the better analysis in my view is that a rehabilitative approach yields the same answer as specific deterrence, but the key is that the outcome is reached by applying the logic of rehabilitation, not specific deterrence. Specific deterrence asks what disposition will be sufficiently unpleasant to discourage the youth from reoffending; the severity of the intervention is calibrated to its deterrent effect on the offender. By contrast, rehabilitation (and parsimony) asks what is the least intrusive intervention that will be effective in addressing the root causes of this youth’s offending and in teaching the youth to desist in future? If less intrusive options are assessed to be insufficient, then the more intrusive intervention is selected—not because it will deter, but because it is necessary. Deterrence tolerates a more intrusive order than is necessary where it achieves a sufficient deterrent effect; rehabilitation does not. Saying that the disposition has a deterrent effect is not the same as saying that it was driven by deterrence.

(c) The third scenario might involve the youth who commits a serious offence. It might be thought that, in such a case, deterrence and/or retribution ought to displace rehabilitation as the driving principle when the dispositional orders are being considered. However, as discussed at [158]–[162], Parliament has already provided for this. Parliament has also curtailed the availability of the dispositions which best express retribution and deterrence. Further, for serious offences, the Second Schedule of the CYPA (and the last column of the First Schedule to the Penal Code 1871) sets out a list of offences which can or must be transmitted to another court to be dealt with. For the most serious offences, s 43 essentially identifies four other offences for which the court can issue a detention order as a last resort, that is, where “none of the other methods by which the case may legally be dealt with is suitable”. In other words, Parliament has expressed a policy position on the offences which can attract a disposition outside the Youth Court. If a disposition is desired which factors in retribution and/or deterrence, then the case ought to be placed before these other courts which may properly engage in criminal sentencing of the youths qua adults (ie, using sentencing principles applicable to youthful offenders). If a case that is eligible to be transmitted remains in the Youth Court, then the Prosecution should be taken to accept the rehabilitative logic employed in the Youth Court. To apply retributive or deterrent logic in the Youth Court would seem to undermine Parliament’s expression of policy.

(d) The fourth scenario might involve the sophisticated youth who is almost 18 years old. It might be thought that this youth does not represent Parliament’s conception of the youth when it designed rehabilitative measures. The rationale for pursuing rehabilitation for youth offenders rests on the premise that youths are not fully formed moral agents, and are therefore more amenable to rehabilitation and less deserving of retributive/deterrent punishment. This premise is upset in the case of a sophisticated youth nearing adulthood; the youth is, in the morally relevant sense, an adult. It would be a fiction to treat him as a youth deserving of rehabilitation rather than retribution/deterrence. However, Parliament drew a bright line depending on the age of the youth, and not a sliding scale that depends on the youth’s level of moral and cognitive development. More fundamentally, the age or sophistication of the youth also does not necessarily defeat rehabilitation; it may in fact support the youth’s rehabilitative potential. A youth who executes a sophisticated pattern of offending is also intelligent enough to understand the consequences of his conduct, engage meaningfully with rehabilitative programmes, and redirect his capabilities and efforts toward pro-social goals. There is therefore no strong or necessary compulsion to resort to retribution or deterrence as dispositional objectives.

(e) The fifth–and probably most difficult—scenario might involve a youth who deliberately offends with a view to expecting a less severe disposition by virtue of the case needing to be dealt with in the Youth Court through a rehabilitative lens (ie, the youth commits an offence that is neither covered by the Second Schedule, nor triable only by the High Court). It might be thought that such a youth is trying to “game the system”. To reward that gaming with a rehabilitative disposition would be to reward the very conduct that undermines the statutory framework, to allow the youth to “profit” from his/her own wrong. In such a case, deterrence or retribution would seem to be the only logical and principled response. However, in my view, rehabilitation need not be displaced in favour of retribution and/or deterrence. Rehabilitation does not demand a single outcome; the appropriate response, I think, is to exercise the court’s rehabilitative discretion in a manner that accounts for the youth’s deliberate or calculated conduct. The calculated conduct can be treated as a relevant factor to consider in the rehabilitative assessment (and possibly an indication of higher criminogenic needs), rather than a trigger for retribution/deterrence to apply.

At this point, it is important to consider whether, in extreme cases, rehabilitation is becoming a fig leaf, a post hoc rationalisation for a disposition that is in truth driven by deterrence and/or retribution. In my view, there is a principled distinction which lies in the process by which the result is reached. A rehabilitative disposition is one that is determined by asking what the youth needs to desist from offending and reintegrate into society. A retributive or deterrent disposition is one that is arrived at by asking what this child deserves for what he has done, or what sentence will deter re-offending by the youth or by other would-be offenders. The distinction lies in the shape and the content of the Court’s inquiry, not in the severity of the result. A truly rehabilitative disposition is one that is evidence-based and tailored to the needs and risks of the individual youth at hand, rather than merely to the nature and/or gravity of the offence. This is achieved, quite simply, by faithfully applying the framework in s 34(1)(c) of the CYPA.

Finally, it might be suggested that deterrence or retribution can be accommodated as a subsidiary consideration, namely, in choosing between multiple equally appropriate dispositions from a rehabilitative point of view, it would be permissible for the court to choose the disposition that better expresses deterrence or retribution. However, this seems to be founded on an implausible hypothetical situation. The “best interests” standard does not ask which dispositions are in the youth’s interests; it asks which disposition is best for the youth. This entails a duty of careful inquiry, not a duty to merely shortlist dispositions that meet a threshold of acceptability. If the Court, after proper assessment of the youth’s needs, risks, and circumstances, concludes that two or more dispositions are equally appropriate, the more likely explanation is that the inquiry has not been carried far enough to discriminate the various dispositional options, and not that those dispositions are truly equivalent in their effect on the youth’s welfare. The ideal approach is to press the inquiry further. If, after exhausting that inquiry, genuine uncertainty remains, the principle of parsimony (I explain this more below) would already provide the answer: the less intrusive disposition is to be preferred. There is no need to have recourse to deterrence as a dispositional consideration.

(iv) Concluding thoughts on deterrence and retribution

From the foregoing discussion, I am inclined to the view that deterrence and retribution have no independent place in the Youth Court’s dispositional calculus. In other words, they are not merely subordinate considerations to be weighed against rehabilitation; they appear, on my reading of the statutory architecture of the CYPA, to be considerations of a fundamentally different nature, incompatible with the paramountcy of the child’s welfare and best interests under s 4(b) and the approach mandated by s 34. To invoke them would, I think, be to import a logic that the framework was designed to exclude, rather than to strike a balance within it.

For these reasons, I was ultimately not prepared to accept the Prosecution’s submission that deterrence or retribution could and should be operative considerations in this case.

I am conscious that this view has been stated in more absolute terms than (and, therefore, represents a departure from) previous decisions of this court and of its predecessor. However, I express these considered views with the hope that they may be of some assistance if and when this question falls to be decided definitively in future.

(2) The Youth Court adopts a parsimonious approach

I turn next to examine the principle of parsimony. This principle essentially posits that the dispositional approach of the Youth Court is to impose the least “restrictive” (or least “intrusive” or least “severe”) order that the circumstances allow.

This principle is not explicitly set out in the legislation, but it is well-supported by a variety of sources of law, and has been recognised in a number of decisions before this court (see, eg, Public Prosecutor v ATW (A Minor) [2011] SGJC 2 at [3]; Public Prosecutor v GCB (A Minor) [2019] SGYC 1 at [4]). It was additionally observed in Lim Hui Min, Youth Justice in Singapore (Academy Publishing, 2023), at paras 5.16–5.31, that in a survey of the nine cases where the appeal results were known at the time of writing, the appeal was dismissed in one case, discontinued in two cases, allowed in five cases (with less restrictive orders being made in each case), with the decision in the last appeal being quashed and remitted. This, the author submitted, reflected the High Court’s embrace of the parsimonious approach. This approach—at least when expressed as a general preference—has also been endorsed by Sundaresh Menon CJ in M Raveendran v Public Prosecutor [2022] 3 SLR 1183 (“Raveendran”), even as he rejected its application as a principle in the criminal sentencing of adults:

However, in my view, this principle can be stated in strong if not absolute terms, as was done in, for example, Public Prosecutor v AOP (a minor) [2011] SGJC 1 at [18]:

A parsimonious approach is consistent with, or even supported by the overriding principles of family responsibility and of the paramountcy of the child’s welfare and best interests (in s 4 CYPA); the Youth Court’s mandate in disposing of cases (in s 34(1) CYPA); and more generally the graduated and circumscribed structure of dispositional orders (in s 49 CYPA).

(a) A parsimonious approach can first be grounded in the principle in s 4(a) that the family is the primary locus of the child’s development, and an order that removes the youth from the family environment unnecessarily (or for longer than necessary) is inconsistent with this principle.

(b) Second, and more importantly, parsimony can be grounded in the fact that the youth’s welfare and best interests are paramount, because unnecessary severity or restriction is contrary to the youth’s best interests and welfare, because it exposes the youth to the risks of institutional harm, and incurs a delay in the child’s reintegration with family and society without a correspondingly adequate rehabilitative benefit (which leads to the Youth Court failing its mandate in s 34(1)(b)).

(c) Third, as explained above, the Youth Court’s duty to remove the youth from undesirable surroundings (in s 34(1)(a)) is the most conditional of its obligations, which suggests that it is to be exercised when and to the extent necessary. In a similar vein, the Youth Court’s mandate to have regard to the youth’s needs and risks (in s 34(1)(c)) firmly anchors the analysis on the extent of intervention that the youth needs, not the extent of opprobrium the court must express on behalf of society.

(d) Fourth, the existence of a graduated and circumscribed structure of dispositional orders must mean that the least restrictive options—to the extent of a discharge—are to be considered in appropriate cases. It implies that the court should progress along the “sliding scale” of dispositional orders only as far as necessary.

In fact, in 2011—when the principle of parsimony started to gain judicial recognition—Parliament removed the minimum period of 2 years for which an offender might be sent to a JRC (then called an “approved school”) (see s 19(b) of the Children and Young Persons (Amendment) Act 2011 (Act 3 of 2011), amending s 44(1)(i) of the then-CYPA)). This was noted by a Member to allow orders to be “meted out on a case-by-case basis with some flexibility” (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (10 January 2011) vol 87 at col 2107 (Assoc. Prof. Fatimah Lateef (MP for Marine Parade GRC)). This legislative choice supports parsimony in that the court is not constrained to impose a minimum period but may impose only the duration necessary for rehabilitation.

But, the clearest support for parsimony is found in the Closing Speech of the Minister, who in 2001 moved a Bill to introduce inter alia a broader range of dispositional options for the Youth Court (Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (20 April 2001) vol 73 at cols 1635–1636 and 1641 (Abdullah Tarmugi, Minister for Community Development and Sports)):

The result of this is that, if a JRC order suffices to reform the youth, there is no need to resort to RT, which is an order of more severity.

(3) Ultimately, RT is not a superior dispositional option to JRC

Assuming that Y qualifies for RT, the question would arise as to why RT is a superior dispositional option to JRC, since Y was not only found suitable for RT but also recommended for JRC. I would find it difficult to say that RT is the better dispositional choice.

First, the principle of parsimony would point directly to the JRC order. Second, it is not clear why, from a rehabilitative lens, a JRC order—which was recommended—is likely to fail to bring about lasting, positive change to Y. The PO did not say that JRC was not sufficient. In fact, I note that the recommended duration of the JRC placement is only 21 months. In other words, it is less than the statutory maximum of 3 years, and even less than the maximum duration which is recommended for youths who are to be placed in JRC for the first time. Third, the Prosecution’s objection to JRC—the sustained nature of Y’s offending, and the serious nature of the offences—would in my view be more appropriately a basis for a submission as to why probation is not appropriate, than a basis for a submission as to why RT is superior to JRC.

Conclusion

For the above reasons, I ordered Y to be placed in a JRC for 21 months.

The Prosecution sought a stay of execution on the basis that it wished to appeal my decision, and that it might be prejudicial to Y if time spent in JRC were not to count toward the satisfaction of an order for RT in the case of a successful appeal. However, I considered that it would also be prejudicial, in the case of an unsuccessful appeal by the Prosecution, for Y to have spent time waiting for the conclusion of the appeal if this could have been spent in JRC. Ultimately, considering that Y preferred to wait for the outcome of the appeal, I ordered a stay of execution, and directed that, if no appeal is filed within the timeline permitted for the filing of an appeal, Y is to report to the Youth Court on the day after the timeline for appeal lapses to commence her JRC placement.

It remains for me to thank Mr Loong Seng Onn and Mr Foo Kit Meng, who diligently discharged their duties as advisers for the hearing on the dispositional orders.