Singapore’s Sentencing (Scams) Bill: Why Parliament Wants Jail, Not Probation, for Young Scam Mules
Singapore has picked an unusual fight: not with scammers abroad, but with a ruling from its own High Court. On November 3, the government introduced the Sentencing (Scams) Bill in Parliament, a short piece of legislation with a very clear purpose. It wants jail or reformative training, not probation, to be the starting point when young people are convicted of scam offences.
What triggered the Bill
In September, a three-judge panel of the High Court, made up of Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Justice Ang Cheng Hock and Justice Hoo Sheau Peng, allowed the appeals of four young offenders. All four had committed scam offences before turning 21 and had been sentenced to reformative training, a structured, custodial regime for young offenders. The court replaced those sentences with probation of between one year and 18 months, and ruled that reformative training or jail should not be the default for young scam mules.
Probation is a very different outcome. Offenders serve their sentence in the community under conditions such as curfews and supervision, and they do not end up with a criminal record.
The Ministry of Home Affairs considers the judgment inconsistent with Parliament’s deterrent stance on scams. The new Bill is the legislature’s answer: it would restate that for offenders aged 21 and below, reformative training or imprisonment should be the primary or default option, with rehabilitative alternatives reserved for exceptional circumstances.
The scale of the problem
The government’s argument rests on numbers. Victims in Singapore have lost more than S$4 billion to scams since 2019. Losses hit a record S$1.1 billion in 2024 and reached S$913.1 million in 2025. In the first half of 2026, police received around 90 scam reports a day, with combined losses of about S$2 million daily. Scams remain the most common type of crime in the country.
Young people are part of that picture, often not as masterminds but as the hands that make the schemes work. In 2025, police investigated more than 1,000 youths in connection with scam reports. Many of them act as money mules, handing over their bank accounts or phone lines, or moving stolen funds through their own accounts, sometimes for a small fee.
The ministry was blunt about the stakes: if a deterrent approach is not taken, it warned, Singapore’s scam and youth offending situation could deteriorate.
Deterrence versus second chances
The debate the Bill opens is a familiar one in criminal justice, but rarely is it played out so directly between a court and a legislature. The High Court’s approach emphasised the long-term cost of locking up young people and the value of keeping them out of the criminal record system. The government’s approach emphasises the signal sent to recruiters, who target teenagers and young adults precisely because they are expected to receive lighter punishment.
Both sides want fewer young people drawn into scams. The disagreement is about which lever works better: the fear of a custodial sentence, or the chance to rebuild a life without a record. The Bill keeps a door open with its exceptional-circumstances clause, but it moves the burden firmly towards custody.
For parents, teachers and young people themselves, the practical message is already clear. Lending out a bank account or a phone number to a stranger is no longer something that can be explained away as a naive favour. Under the proposed law, it is likely to be treated as a serious offence from the very first conviction.