Malaysia Has No House Arrest Law; The Cabinet Just Approved Drafting One
Malaysia’s 41 prisons hold around 93,000 people against a capacity of 75,000. The Cabinet has now approved drafting a House Arrest Act – a proposal the Home Minister says he first raised in 2024, two years before it reached this stage.
The government is proposing a new House Arrest Act to ease overcrowding in Malaysia’s prisons, with the law targeting remand detainees awaiting trial.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the proposal would allow courts to place eligible remand detainees under house arrest.
Said detainees will have their movements monitored electronically until their trial date.
“The concept we have been discussing from the outset is clear, that for remand detainees who meet the requirements, the court may consider placing them under house arrest with electronic monitoring until their trial,” he said in a video posted on his Facebook page.
Serious criminal cases would be excluded from the mechanism.
House Arrest Not A New Concept
The remarks came two days after YPDA Sultan Ibrahim granted former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak a second conditional pardon, allowing him to serve the remainder of his SRC International sentence under house arrest until 23 August 2028.
Saifuddin stressed the House Arrest Act proposal is not new.
He said he had first mooted it as one of the Home Ministry’s measures back in 2024, aimed at reducing prison overcrowding and improving how the country’s correctional system is managed.
“We do not yet have an act or law on house arrest,” he said, noting there is still no actual bill in place despite the idea being floated for close to two years.
The Cabinet has now given in-principle approval for the Home Ministry to begin drafting and tabling the House Arrest Act in Parliament.
The Overcrowding Problem
Malaysia currently has 41 prisons housing about 93,000 people, against a total capacity of 75,000, Saifuddin said.
Remand detainees refer to individuals who have been charged but were either denied bail or unable to post bail, resulting in them being held in prison pending trial.
Under the proposed law, eligible remand detainees could remain at home while their movements are monitored electronically until their court proceedings conclude.
“If the Bill is passed, we can release these remand detainees to their homes and equip them with modern devices to monitor their movements until their trial date,” Saifuddin said.
This isn’t the government’s first attempt at tackling the problem.
Since 2008, the Prisons Department has run community-based programmes such as parole, compulsory attendance orders, resident reintegration and licensed prisoner release to reduce the number of people held in prison.
In March 2024, Saifuddin said the government had agreed in principle to allow licensed prisoner release through home detention for inmates serving four years or less, covering the elderly, the chronically ill, persons with disabilities and expectant mothers.
The Prisons Department has also targeted having two-thirds of eligible inmates in community rehabilitation programmes by 2030. Most of these measures, however, applied only to convicted prisoners – not remand detainees awaiting trial.
