Original story

Cyber Times 13.8.2010

Singapore orders compulsory emotional rehabilitation for long-term prisoners

Singapore has introduced emotional conditioning simulators as a feature of all prison sentences over six months. The aim of the conditioning is to improve prisoners’ behaviour while they serve out their time, and also to facilitate speedy rehabilitation on their release into society. *

In the simulations the user is fitted with a virtual reality helmet, through which he encounters a variety of real-life situations. The programme contains built-in acceptance and rejection responses to the behavioural models offered by the prisoner to each situation, and either rewards or punishes answers with audio or visual stimuli. In addition the simulation contains subliminal signals designed to prompt subconscious associations and reinforce the expected behavioural responses. Prison authorities are enthusiastic about early results of the scheme, and believe that simulator training will cut down on unwanted behavioural models.

Singapore’s Junior Interior Minister Tung Daio, who has responsibility for the city-state’s prison system, is at a loss to explain the international furore that has followed the announcement of the scheme. In his view, the Americans are the last who should be complaining about it. “Their idiotic TV-programmes have caused addiction all over the world and have brainwashed and conditioned millions into a state of moral degeneracy. We are simply trying to pick up the pieces after them”, shrugged Tung.

According to Tung, the procedure will be used only in prisons. “The basic principle of prison is the withdrawal of personal freedom and self-determination. For example the roles of the educational system is quite different, and emotional conditioning has no place in teaching. Naturally in our schools - as in those of other countries - there are rewards for good performance and swift reminders for errors and failures, since this is either directly or indirectly the very foundation of the learning process.”

UNESCO behavioural expert Brian Epson has warned of the dangers inherent in the new simulation methods. Epson has pointed to the possibility that people can be conditioned into behaving in totally unpredictable ways, particularly if the simulation is reinforced by smart psychopharmaceutical drugs. Conditioning can also easily lead to a state “beyond the zero”, in which the manipulated patient does not even recognize that he or she has been controlled in this way.

Epson suggests therefore that school curricula should include an introduction to basic conditioning techniques, in order that a child may learn to recognise when he is subject to such influences or particularly prone to them. “It is also very worrying that in spite of repeated international calls for a complete ban on these things, we have seen increasing signs of ethically questionable conditioning techniques in play in the marketing field. I refer for instance to the insertion into feature films of short subliminal advertising clips, which the eye does not notice but which will inevitably register on the subconscious.”

Toteuma-arvio 2026

Toteuma lyhyesti

  • Ilmiön toteuma: 3/5
  • Toteuma viiden vuoden tarkkuudella: kyllä; arviointi-ikkuna on 2005–2015
  • Toteuma väljemmällä aikahorisontilla: kyllä, mutta rajatusti
  • Ilmiön ydin: virtuaalitodellisuutta käytetään rikoksentekijöiden käyttäytymisen harjoitteluun ja kuntoutukseen, mikä herättää kysymyksiä manipuloinnista ja itsemääräämisoikeudesta.

VR-pohjaisia empatia-, päihde-, väkivallan ehkäisy- ja vapautumiseen valmistavia ohjelmia on kokeiltu vankiloissa. Pakollista alitajuista tunnekonditionointia ei ole otettu laajasti käyttöön.

Johtopäätös: kuntouttavan simulaation ydin toteutui osittain, mutta tarinan voimakas kontrolli ei.