“On the day that the prisoners will be released back to society, the Director/Warden will be there, and a list of his biography, weight before and after entering prison, crimes committed and time served will be called out…”

“We then give a test to see if they have changed and improved themselves. Each inmate will go to a religious class and be assigned their guru. If you’re Muslim you go to the Islamic classes and if you’re Buddhist or Hindu you go to those religious classes. We tell them ‘when you walked in here, you were empty, you did not know many good things. You now leave with goodness in you’.

Majority of prisoners here are Malays, about 60{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} of them, with 40{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} Chinese and Indians. There’s 3000 inmates in this (Bentong) prison, and 200 of them are women. The women are in mostly because of drugs, and the men’s crimes vary from drugs to rape and assault.

Most of the prisoners are here because of drug-related crimes. For inmates, their uniforms vary on color. We measure them by months. If you’re here for more than 12 months, and for many years, you will be wearing the dark blue uniforms. Those who had attempted to escape out of prison will be wearing those black and white striped uniforms that you see in the cinemas. New prisoners wear the orange colored uniforms.

They spend their time doing work – we pay them and they gain valuable skills that they can use after they have served their prison sentence.

There’s 4 workshops the can work on – laundry, sewing, metal works, gardening and making chairs out of rotan.

We want to show that here in Malaysia, even though they are in prison, we are training them in useful vocational skills so that they have a chance for the future.

Death row prisoners (those who have been served death sentences and are awaiting their time) are not allowed to go out and work. They are secured in the maximum security cells, with only 1 hour a day given to go out on a break.

Their food and meals are specials too – the chicken that we serve does not contain any bones. This is because they can potentially use this to end their own life”.

– Humans of Kuala Lumpur

Captured at the “Beauty Behind the Wall” programme, a CSR initiative by KDYTM Tengku Puan Pahang (TPP) Tunku Hajah Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah and Resorts World Genting, aimed to equip female inmates of Bentong Prison with culinary skills.

Photostory by Mushamir Mustafa