Purpose: This paper aims to focus on the perspectives of correctional officers supervising young offenders on community supervision in Singapore. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted a qualitative research framework, where attention was devoted to understanding the perspectives of eight reintegration officers, and what they perceived to have helped young offenders successfully discharged from community supervision. Findings: The five essential factors that emerged are compliance to supervision conditions, education and/or employment, ability to cope and efforts to change, support and environment. Each factor is defensible and had been substantiated by past research that incorporates evidence-based practice in correctional rehabilitation for offenders. Research limitations/implications: Due to constraints imposed on the research timeline, the five factors identified do not take into account societal-level barriers such as stigma, discrimination and inequalities, which are important factors that can be further explored in subsequent studies. Originality/value: In Singapore, there is no research study on the Reintegration Officers' perspectives on what they deemed as critical for offenders to be discharged from community supervision. Understanding these key factors may help to shape future research in determining supervisees’ readiness for discharge from community supervision in Singapore. This knowledge gained could further inform and bolster the correctional rehabilitation services provided by SPS and be further developed into a tool that can be used to systematically assess the readiness of offenders to be discharged from community supervision.

The #MeToo Movement, which originated in the USA against sexual harassment and violence, has caught on in Singapore. This article suggests that the recent debate on toxic masculinity in the country, brought to public attention in a speech by Corinna Lim, chief of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), is an extension of the #MeToo Movement. The debate on toxic masculinity has largely revolved around the issue of whether the mandatory National Service (NS), which all Singaporean men have to perform, is a site of toxic masculinity. This article is a preliminary attempt to connect the dots and examine the implications of the debate for civil society, NS, and women’s activism in contemporary Singapore. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

In recent years, the term 'social inclusion' has more frequently been mentioned in policy initiatives than academic debates in an Asian context that is characterised by fast economic growth, widening poverty gap, ageing populations and prevalent stigma situation for disabled and marginal groups. It may be particularly meaningful to understand what social inclusion means to the people on the ground, in leading societies like Singapore. This paper presents the qualitative findings of seven focus group discussions with a total of 51 participants of different background, including social workers, social work students, users of mental health services, older community dwellers, adults and youth leaders. The concepts are by and large similar to those found in Hong Kong and UK, surrounding access and opportunities to basic dimensions of community living, but there are also several interesting and unique observations with regard to social inclusion.