In essence, a voluntary surrender is visiting the law enforcement to confess to a criminal offense you’ve fully commited, in contrast to looking forward to the law enforcement to discover and arrest you.
What Comes about Once you Voluntarily Surrender into the Police?
The strategies you are going to deal with whenever you voluntarily surrender to your police are similar to if you had been arrested.
The steps taken towards you rely largely on no matter if you’ve committed an arrestable or non-arrestable offence.
Arrestable offences confer with offences that enable the police for making an arrest with no warrant, and involve offences like theft, robbery and rape. The general guideline is the fact that offences that happen to be punishable with a minimum of three decades of imprisonment, or perhaps a Demise sentence, are categorised as arrestable.
On the other hand, a non-arrestable offence is one particular where by the police will require to acquire a warrant prior to finishing up an arrest. Offences that tumble below this group are voluntarily producing hurt and dishonest misappropriation of house, among the Other people.
Should you have fully commited an arrestable offence
In case you have fully commited an arrestable offence, the police will comply with an arrest course of action that begins with getting you into custody just after your voluntary surrender.
The police will then launch an investigation, which involves having witness statements. Alternatively, you might have to generate a see statement In the event the law enforcement decides to go in advance with pressing fees.
You may well be required to take a polygraph (or lie detector) examination or engage in an identification parade, where you are lined up with other people to permit victims and eyewitnesses to establish you, as well.
Ideally, you need to be somewhat perfectly-versed together with your rights in custody, like the suitable to make a telephone phone to All your family members or to refer to a lawyer (supplied that these acts will never inhibit the investigation). On the other hand, it is important to note that your appropriate to refer to an attorney ordinarily arises only following interrogations have already been executed.
For more info, you might want to refer to our post on police custody in Singapore.
For those who have dedicated a non-arrestable offence
With this state of affairs, even if you have turned yourself in towards the police, you will not be taken into custody quickly.
As a substitute, the law enforcement will Assemble witness experiences and record any parties involved. Any feasible target(s) of the offence is going to be recommended to file a Justice of the peace’s Criticism for even Top criminal lawyer further motion to generally be taken.
As soon as the Criticism has been received, the Magistrate will then determine what the most suitable program of action will probably be. It is only at this point that a warrant could be issued to get you into police custody, In the event the Magistrate directs the police to carry out an investigation in to the Complaint.
Is Creating a Voluntary Surrender a Mitigating Element?
Voluntarily surrendering for the police demonstrates a willingness to cooperate and signifies most likely remorse and repentance. Your surrender would also allow the police to invest their time and resources into other investigations.
This could Participate in an element during the judge’s decision and you may be offered a lighter sentence for the degree of cooperation.
Case analyze: No jail time period just after voluntary surrender
In 2018, then 24-calendar year-outdated Ekawit Tangtrakarn, gained a $six,000 fantastic for defaulting on his Nationwide Support (NS) duties.
Even though Ekawit largely lived in Thailand, he was registered as a Singapore Citizen – earning him answerable for NS. In Oct 2015, he missing his Singaporean citizenship soon after failing to take the Oath of Renunciation, Allegiance and Loyalty inside of 12 months of his 21st birthday.
Having said that, getting rid of his Singaporean citizenship didn't minimize him of his NS obligations, and Ekawit later on voluntarily returned to Singapore to encounter his costs for defaulting on them. His voluntary return thus held pounds to be a mitigating component.
That's why, following the court took other mitigating factors under consideration, what might have been a greatest 3-year imprisonment term in addition to a $ten,000 wonderful, getting the maximum penalties underneath the Enlistment Act, turned a doable nine-week jail term which was inevitably minimized into a $6,000 fine.
Owning your prices taken into account for your purposes of sentencing
On the subject of your conviction therefore you are going through numerous charges, voluntarily admitting towards your offences also stops the specific situation of the prosecution continuing with Every single charge against you independently. This enables for the potential of you having these expenses taken into consideration for sentencing in its place.
Due to this fact, you could encounter much less fees or perhaps a reduced sentence when compared to should you were to deny or dispute the fees.
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Voluntarily surrendering for the police may well demonstrate to be practical later on in your circumstance. Your admission in your crime may very well be effectively-received and get the job done within your favour, reducing your punishment drastically.
If you're continue to Not sure on how to progress, you'll be able to have interaction a felony defence lawyer to hunt guidance on the placement, as well as make clear your rights. A seasoned law firm will be able to most effective put together you on What to anticipate if you turn yourself in and the way to deal with any investigations performed towards you.