True Crime Classics: Pulau Senang, The Experiment that Failed (A True Story)

• Convicted criminals heartlessly kill the one person who believes in their reformation.
• Tragic end for the director of the penal settlement who fails to foresee the betrayal of the men he befriends and works hard to rehabilitate.
• A fascinating story of the tragedy and following trial which focuses on why the experiment to reform the criminals failed on such a colossal scale.

In 1965, 18 convicted criminals were sentenced to death for murder—a haunting testimony to the failure of a bold experiment to reform seasoned criminals in a gaol without bars. Right to the end, Daniel Dutton, director of the model penal settlement, could not believe that the men he had befriended and worked so hard to rehabilitate would want to destroy him. Too late he realised the extraordinary hold secret society leaders had over their men.

Pulau Senang reconstructs the events that led to the tragedy and the trial, and throws light on a question that has never been answered satisfactorily—why did the experiment fail?