Keeping Singapore safe and changing lives
For these Home Team officers, their service means more than just long hours
It was the 1991 Mediacorp television drama Behind Bars which first sparked Madam Sabrina Tiyu's interest in becoming a prison officer.
Madam Tiyu, now 45, joined the Singapore Prison Service in 1991 and has since built a career as a prison officer.
Yesterday, she was among around 230 officers from across the Home Team who were recognised after their promotions this year, in the Home Team Promotion Ceremony 2019 held at Orchard Hotel.
She was promoted from the rank of Senior Chief Warder 1 to Rehabilitation Officer.
The ceremony was held to recognise officers promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel/Superintendent and above, and equivalent grades.
A total of 6,235 officers were promoted this year across the Home Team.
Minister for Manpower Mrs Josephine Teo was Guest-of-Honour at the ceremony.
Madam Tiyu said she is grateful for the opportunities such promotions give her.
One earlier posting as a personal supervisor to an inmate in the 1990s stuck with her, she told The New Paper.
The inmate, a teenage girl, was serving a five-year sentence for drug offences which started when she was just 17.
She managed to study for and take a national exam in prison, scoring very well.
Madam Tiyu said: "We still keep in touch. I felt very sorry for her when she was a teen, as I felt that she had been misguided.
"But now, she's in her 30s and works with special needs children.
"I feel very proud about her progress, after all I was her supervisor. I'd like to think that I contributed to her change."
TIRING
Also promoted, Assistant Superintendent (ASP) Muhammad Sadikin Muhamad Jailani of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said the job is by no means easy.
ASP Sadikin, 27, oversees and supervises a drug supervision programme in the CNB Enforcement 'G' Division.
He said: "It can be tiring at times, with long hours of assignments.
"But at the end of the day, it's something that keeps Singapore safer."
For others like Senior Assistant Commissioner (SAC) Arul David Scott, who is commander of the SPF's Special Operations Command (SOC), a uniformed career was always the plan.
With four generations of his family in the civil service, and three uncles in the police force, SAC Arul has spent 24 years in SPF, and has been in the SOC for nine years.
As commander of the SOC, SAC Arul has overseen police involvement in security for the Trump-Kim Summit, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's funeral, and was in charge of stopping the Little India riots in 2013.
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