phtthp:

Irrelevant:

Minister says: less than 10% of kids will face the ballot.


Since not all schools are created equal, not all schools require balloting. Imagine if just 20% of the schools (almost certainly the popular ones) require balloting, does than imply that 50% of all those applying for such schools would face balloting? Life become just a gamble?

not all Secondary schools, will ballot
those un-popular schools, with lots of vacancies left, nobody want to enroll : no balloting

only those very popular, hot-in-demand schools, will ballot

MOE's words as quoted: 9 in 10 students would not need to go to the balloting stage.

They certainly did not mention that 9 in 10 students in any school would not need to go to balloting stage. This implies 4000 students out of a cohort of 40,000. If a majority of schools would not have balloting, those schools that conduct balloting would have a very high proportion of students undergoing balloting!

Minister says: less than 10% of kids will face the ballot.


Since not all schools are created equal, not all schools require balloting. Imagine if just 20% of the schools (almost certainly the popular ones) require balloting, does than imply that 50% of all those applying for such schools would face balloting? Life become just a gamble?

floppy:

However, is that's something worth cheering for? Because there's a smaller than expected increase (actually a decline, statistically speaking) in people killing themselves. There's no denying that 79 to 126 is an increase of 59.5% in 14 years or an absolute increase of 47 cases. A person who values life will probably see it as one too many.

Bro

Perhaps you can point out to me which part of my posting concluded that we should be happy and cheering those statistics? On the other hand, if you've got some great solution to reduce suicide rates amongst the elderly, the world will beat a path to your door. Other folks might be interested to read further: http://theweek.com/articles/449669/why-are-many-elderly-asians-killing-themselves

floppy:

Both CSJ and you offer a classic case of using the same statistics to address different viewpoint. And both of you would have been rated as being mostly true. Remember the old adage of lies, damned lies and statistics.

If this is your conclusion, IMHO, you should get some maths tuition too.

From CNA - On Tuesday night (May 3), the chief of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) broached the issue of elderly suicides, citing the statistical increase – from 79 cases in 2000, to 120 in 2014.


I always feel like crying when I see some folks (including politicians and journalists) quote figures like that.

If a person is a serious analyst, a simple question would be => what is the elderly population in 2000 as compared to 2014? If elderly is defined as being 60 and above, the resident elderly population would have increased by ~90% since 2000. So the statistic quoted reflected a smaller than expected increase in suicide rates.... :nunchuk:

Perhaps SDP would like some maths tuition?

janet88:

besides, i find the whole anniversary thing tastefully done.

I have no doubt that there are some events that are tastefully done. But do you reckon more than 100 events imply that the situation is a bit \"over\" the top? What rubbed (pun intended) her the wrong way was the eraser event. I don't think that she feels there should be zero events...

My interpretation is that the kid sister loves her father deeply, so deep that she doesn't mind a public fight with big brother.

pirate:

From LWL's point of view, she is respecting her father's wishes, while the PM or Cabinet is not.

I tend to sympathise with her.

My non scientific gut feel is that big brother has too many 马屁精 revolving around him.

stetan:

\"One shoe fits all\" approach for both adults and minors?

To be honest, I have not handled juvenile offenders before.

Based on the cases that were received by my ex-employer, (it's been a while but) my gut feel is that approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the cases, we couldn't prosecute. So there is a lot of unhappy complainants who think that we are pretty ineffective.

jetsetter:

Good that you've done IO work before. Btw, would you and fellow IOs question the interviewees in matter-of-factly tone, in a chronological order you were trained to, or question as gently as would a nurse to a patient? :evil: I believe IOs' preference is to extract firsthand, virgin, untainted statement out when the accused hasn't met with anyone else yet, right?

Matter of fact tone. I have raised my voice before, because accused gave cock and bull story. The risk is always that if the accused is fully prepared, evidence would have been disturbed/destroyed. As one might know, an accused's statement is normally not used directly in court as evidence to prove guilt.

Any measure introduced to \"protect/enhance\" the rights of an accused would naturally shift the balance in the accused's favour. As the burden of proof is high (beyond reasonable doubt), many cases that I know are closed due to a lack of evidence, good evidence.

jetsetter:

On the early access to legal counsel...methinks it's worth reviewing, and I've gone on record to say please do something about that in this thread.

Allow me to offer a perspective.

Does a person need early access to legal counsel if he is innocent? From my (probably biased) previous experience as an investigation officer, there is really nothing to hide if a person is innocent. Counsel will probably advise the accused to tell the truth anyway.

On the other hand, if a person is guilty.....


P.S. Is this thread all about protecting the innocent or defending the rights of the guilty?

After reading through some of the thread, I think there could be a lack of understanding about the law enforcement process.


Investigation
AFAIK, the interview process of the accused does not consist of just 1 or 2 questions, i.e. (a) Are you guilty of the offence or (b) Why did you do it? The interviewer (investigator or IO) would start off by asking the routine/ administrative questions, e.g. a line of questioning could be as follows:

1. Did you go to school this morning?
2. What time did you leave home?
3. How did you get to school?
4. Did you take a detour?
{If the accused is not truthful, investigator will introduce evidence to counter him}
E.g. Since you said you didn't make a detour, why does the CCTV show that you went to XXX block?
5. Etc.

In other words, the IO would have prepared his questions and evidence. If the accused is not truthful, most of the time, the IO would have been able to detect inconsistencies in the statement and try to probe further. If the accused is innocent and refuse to even answer simple questions, it makes the IO rather suspicious.

The police does not need an admission of guilt from the accused to press charges. As long as there is sufficient evidence to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, the IO will make a recommendation to charge the accused. As far as I can tell, the likelihood of false convictions are very low in Singapore, the higher probability is that the accused is set free from of lack of evidence.

Formal Charge
After the decision to press charges has been taken, the accused will be formally informed of the charge(s). A cautioned statement in the following manner would be taken:

“You have been charged with [or informed that you may be prosecuted for] —
(set out the charge).

Do you want to say anything about the charge that was just read to you? If you keep quiet now about any fact or matter in your defence and you reveal this fact or matter in your defence only at your trial, the judge may be less likely to believe you. This may have a bad effect on your case in court. Therefore it may be better for you to mention such fact or matter now. If you wish to do so, what you say will be written down, read back to you for any mistakes to be corrected and then signed by you.”.

Whether the accused remained silent or say something, it will be recorded down.

Trial
Only after the above, will the accused by presented in open court. Even at that moment, the accused can still ask for an adjournment, e.g. need time to appoint a lawyer.

As far as I know, usually there is a long lead time from investigation to trial, depending on complexity of case, might be months or years. There are also plea bargaining, representations to be made by defence counsel, pre-trial conference, etc.