GCIS PARLIAMENTARY MEDIA BRIEFING
MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
18 September 2001
Document Handed Out: Minister’s Media Briefing September 18, 2001 [See Appendix below]
Questions by the media and response by Minister Ben Skosana
(Q) You have indicated a change in approach to one of being much more concerned with rehabilitation. Kokstad prison, on which millions were spent, was built to serve the punitive role of prisons. Can one regard the Kokstad prison project as the waste of resources?
(A) There is no shift as such, but there is refocusing on rehabilitation programmes rather than the punitive role of prisons. We cannot undermine the punitive role the correctional service has to play in achieving criminal justice in our country. Kokstad prison was built in the spirit of serving this punitive role, I quite agree with that assertion. But with the refocus on rehabilitation we will bring Kokstad correctional service to par with this policy. Wastage of resources is just out of this world
(Q) What would be your response to the fact of a man being raped in prison, being infected with HIV/AIDS, and other people suing you in terms of the provisions in the Bill of Rights?
(A) The definition of rape in South Africa does not cater for this scenario as ‘rape’ is defined as unlawful sexual intercourse with a female without the due consent of the female. The scenario you are drawing can be classified as sodomy. Yes, sodomy does occur, and it is attributable to the overcrowding of our prisons. That is why in trying to address this unpalatable situation we are introducing the unit system. There is however a problem of the resources to address the issue of overcrowding and thereby avoiding sodomy. In the meantime we are exploring all we can do in order to ensure that we correct this problem. Yes, I agree that we might get sued for treating prisoners inhumanely. But if that situation arises it would be very regrettable as we are pushing very hard to avoid such eventualities.
(Q) Would you agree with compulsory HIV/AIDS testing for prisoners?
(A) That would be against the law. How is the compulsory testing of prisoners going to help if there is no alternative policy covering society at large, since prisoners hail from these societies? There must be uniformity with the law of the country. If we test prisoners we will be discriminating against them and international law also does not allow mandatory testing of prisoners. What would be the basis for that test? Will you be testing to provide any drugs to help those found HIV positive? In South Africa such drugs are not being provided yet. Will you be testing to determine when the victim contracted HIV? I doubt that you can afford that, as you will be required to conduct tests almost every day. Will you be testing them to provide treatment so as to protect other prisoners? To all these questions you will hardly find a positive answer, therefore such testing will be baseless and there is no need to carry it out.
(Q) Does the department have a recruitment policy to employ ex-prisoners as warders?
(A) Our policy does not cater for the ex-prisoners. It is in line with any public service recruitment policy that people who have a criminal record must state the nature of the criminal act formerly convicted of. Our policy provides that ex-prisoners cannot work for the Department of Correctional Services. It becomes worse for those convicted of Schedule 1 offences. We are saying, as a department, that the recruitment policy for all sectors must be debated for the purpose of changing it, that is, it should not exclude ex-prisoners from being eligible for employment. We submit this in view of the fact that government is putting more money on the rehabilitation programme of the correctional services. Programmes offered in these centres are credited by external institutions such as the South African Qualifications Authority. If a criminal record remains an issue after undergoing the rehabilitation programme, we would be wasting the tax payers money by engaging in a worthless programme. In short, the department submits that the recruitment policy must be revisited and must take into consideration the rehabilitation programme the department is involved in.
(Q) In short are you intending a review of the recruitment policy?
(A) Yes
(Q) Can you tell us the steps of this review?
(A) We have taken no fundamental steps thus far. We have been toying with the idea in our department. The department has started to informally lobby other departments so as minimise disagreements over this policy.
(Q) Do you have any information as to when Abe Williams, (former Western Cape MEC for Social Services), is to be released on parole?
(A) I have not been informed of the specific date, although I have been informed that a decision has been taken on the matter. It was only said to be some time in October.
Appendix: GCIS PARLIAMENTARY MEDIA BRIEFINGS
Ministry of Correctional Services
18 September 2001
Colleagues
Ladies and gentlemen of the Media
First of all I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Mr Linda Mti who is the new Commissioner of Correctional Services. Prior to joining us, Mr Mti was the Director-General of the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee (NICOC) and takes over from Mr Watson Tshivhase who acted for a brief period in this position.
The enormous experience which Mr Mti brings with him in intelligence matters will be of great advantage to us in his newly chosen career. Mr Mti not only has a solid background in intelligence matters but has also been a Member of Parliament. His familiarity with parliamentary operations and procedures will assist in fostering even closer links between the Department and Parliament.
A universally embraced empirical experience points out the fact that a correctional or prison system, by its very nature and origin seldom attracts wide public sympathy and positive media reports. It equally holds true that the readiness of societies to embrace an institution of their own "discarded people" has over many years evolved with tremendous difficulty, and societies including our own, continue to show this reluctance based on fear, mistrust, prejudices, ignorance and even resentment.
Rightfully or wrongfully this remains forever the challenge to those of us who find themselves wanting to speak, write or report about a correctional or prison system, to go beyond the irresistible realm of negativity. I wish to appeal to you ladies and gentlemen of the media to try hard and honestly to discern into the reality of the existence of an offender society with the potential for both bad and good. Hence Correctional Systems in many parts of the globe now share commonly in a mission statement that:
"Corrections, as part of the criminal justice system, should contribute to public safety by exercising the safe and effective custody and control of prisoners, by monitoring and managing offenders in the community, and by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law-abiding citizens".
It is a cold fact that in incarcerating many thousands of prisoners and offenders, we manage to shift some of the crime and criminals from the social arena into the archipelago of concrete human warehouses we call prisons. And it is from these human warehouses where we have been charged to help reintroduce the inmates into law-abiding citizens. This I admit, as I have done on many occasions, that we in Correctional Services cannot achieve this alone without the co-operation and assistance of all the various stakeholders, including the media.
It is with this understanding that Correctional Services has decided to put Rehabilitation and Restorative Justice at the centre of its operations.
Concentration on rehabilitation is meant to strike a balance between rehabilitation and safe custody.
This has subsequently brought the need for the re-skilling of officials in rehabilitation techniques thereby enhancing the goal of rehabilitation.
For rehabilitation to succeed, prisoners must be treated as individuals with each prisoner having his/her own programme. The development of individualised needs-based rehabilitation programmes entails provision of specialised treatment and development programmes to prisoners in partnership with the community and the offender. This is done by enhancing the personal and social functioning of each offender in line with his or her individual needs, with a view to preparing them for re-integration as productive, well adapted and law abiding citizens.
The active engagement of the community in the rehabilitation process of the prisoner as a collective responsibility strengthens our partnership in the treatment of the prisoner. To promote and enhance community involvement will be developed to ensure a structured working relationship, which will regulate involvement between role players.
The exercise of promoting restorative justice is meant to create a platform for dialogue between the offender, the victim and the community to facilitate the healing process. We realised that what is needed in response to criminal behaviour is more healing than more hurting by bringing together the offender, the victim, families and the community.
Furthermore, the Department realised that the lack of community involvement in the parole system has been a matter of grave concern to many of us. This has therefore necessitated the amendment of the Correctional Services Act to provide for representations to be made to the Parole Board, either by the victim in person or by a representative of the victim. The Correctional Services Amendment Bill is currently under consideration by Parliament in the NCOP to be specific.
The composition of the new Parole Boards will include two permanent members from the community, members from the Departments of Correctional Services, Justice and the South African Police Service. They will be chaired by a member of the community.
On the issue of training, five training centres have been completed and four more are under construction. These training centres will enhance the provision of skills to offenders and in turn, improve the effectiveness of the Department's rehabilitation and reintegration efforts. All training is accredited with external service providers and prisoners will therefore receive externally recognised certificates upon completion of training.
However, government and the community are faced with the challenge of providing employment opportunities for people who qualified in prison.
The Department is working on the development of its HIV/AIDS policy in collaboration with all its stakeholders and the final draft policy will be submitted to the relevant authorities for approval. In addition, the Department has established and approved a dedicated structure to fully manage and coordinate HIV/AIDS programmes within the Department both at National and Provincial levels.
The new orange prisoner's uniform is being manufactured in the Department's factories.
The uniform is orange because this is a more easily identifiable colour than the current green one.
On the question of overcrowding in prisons, as at 31 July this year, there were 168 497 prisoners in custody, of whom 50 902 were unsentenced and 117 595 sentenced. The total accommodation capacity of our prisons is 105 016 prisoners, meaning that we were overcrowded by 63 481 or 60.4%.
To address challenges presented by overcrowding, the Department is involved in a number of inter-departmental projects developed within the Crime Prevention, Justice and Safety Cluster. These include the following:
* The awaiting-trial prisoner project which is meant to reduce the detention cycle time of awaiting-trial prisoners in an integrated manner.
This system has been piloted at seven sites. The official launch of the national roll-out took place on 17 August this year where further twenty-six sites were identified and it is envisaged that it will be implemented before July 2002.
* The Department is further involved in the Saturday Courts project, which was introduced in ninety-nine courts countrywide. During February 2001, the number of awaiting trial prisoners in custody at these prisons served by those specific courts declined by 12% or 4 355 from 36 300 to 31 945.
* We intend to dramatically increase the accommodation capacity of the prison system by as much as an additional 30 000 beds during the forthcoming MTEF period. This will be achieved by building low cost "New Generation" prison facilities for medium and low risk prisoner categories, who are in the majority of the country's prison population. These facilities will be strategically situated around the country in the areas most affected by overcrowding. This building programme will be supported by the development of construction norms and standards based on "New Generation" design principles to achieve low life-cycle facility cost.
These construction norms and standards will be translated into facility design prototypes based on economical and practical design solutions, which take into account our unique situation as a developing country.
* The Department wishes to further increase its existing accommodation capacity. A further ± 8,000 beds will be added to the system with the commissioning of several new prisons.
* At this stage 33 prisons have been identified for repair and maintenance work and these prisons have been divided into three priority groups, each in various stages of progress.
With regard to the question of escapes in prison, the Department managed to decrease the number of escapes by 46%. The number of prisoners who escaped from custody in 2000 is 250 compared to 459 who escaped from custody in 1999.
This downward trend has continued during the first seven months of 2001 with a 16% decrease in the number of escapes compared to the number of escapes during the first seven months of 2000. The comparative figures are 138 for the first seven months of 2000, against 116 escapes for the first seven months of 2001.
The Department has been trying to market the concept of correctional supervision as an alternative method of sentencing rather than imprisonment. Magistrates nationally are empowered to place awaiting trial prisoners under this community-based sentence in terms of Section 62(f) of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 that can go a long way towards reducing overcrowding in our prisons.
The current community corrections population stands at 62 746, which reflects growth from the previous year, which was 57 362.
Problems have been experienced with the implementation of this system. However, these have been overcome and the tender for the full implementation of electronic monitoring will be published during the course of this financial year.
Our strategy is also to decentralise community corrections offices in order to make them more accessible to offenders because some offenders are not financially able to afford travelling expenses to these offices. It has also been established that some who were classified, as absconders were in fact poor offenders who could not afford transport fares to community corrections offices.
The Department of Public Works, in conjunction with Correctional Services, has developed a repair and maintenance programme that entails that prisons in urgent need of repair and maintenance work are identified, repaired to their original condition and maintained. The general maintenance of these facilities will be the responsibility of Correctional Services.
The industries such as workshops and prison farms that are managed by the Department are aimed at both providing products and services to enhance self-sufficiency within the Department and to provide employment skills to prisoners. These production workshops provide 2 400 job and training opportunities to offenders.
The Department is participating in the Integrated Justice System (IJS) to exchange information about offenders electronically between the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development through a computer system.
Other projects include the Court Process Project meant to automate court administration and procedures, and the National Photo Image System, which is meant to define the user requirements with reference to the management of images within the IJS, identification and utilisation of images as well as integration within the system.
The Department is also working on the decentralisation of criminal record information management to the local criminal record centres, the Business Intelligence System Project and the Inmate Tracking System, which I referred to earlier.
With regard to human resource development the retraining of all personnel became necessary with the demilitarisation of the Department in 1996 and a shift in emphasis to rehabilitation.
This involved the training of trainers in all the nine Provinces who would then develop a roll-out plan for retraining in the individual Provinces. The "train the trainer" programme, which concluded in June 2000, resulted in 405 trainers being trained.
Basic training is a core-training requirement for all newly appointed officials in the Department. As of January 2000 to March 2001, 2 103 officials have been trained, and from July 2001, 872 are currently undergoing training which will be completed in December this year.
The Department is presently reviewing the curriculum in the light of the need to align itself to South African Qualification Authority and National Qualifications Framework requirements.
With regard to the departmental medical aid scheme, MEDCOR, we took significant strides to organise the scheme. Earlier this year a taskforce comprising of representatives from management and organised labour was appointed to re-engineer Medcor's business.
However, the scheme is still saddled with problems of abuse. Steps are being taken to arrest the rampant abuse of Medcor by certain members and service providers, and these steps have managed to detect serious cases of fraud and abuse. The money involved is being recovered and in some circumstances the cases have been forwarded to the relevant authorities for thorough investigation.
Finally, I wish to refer to the question of gangsterism in our prisons.
Although gangsterism has been in existence for a long time, it must be mentioned that gang-related activities do not dominate South African prisons, and that gang activities and their structures are not recognised as official structures within the prison environment. Upon admission to prison and regularly afterwards, all prisoners are informed of the existence of prison gangs and warned of the negative consequences that participation in gang-related activities may have for them.
During basic training and regularly afterwards, correctional officials are made aware of the nature and operations of prison gangs and the danger they pose to other inmates as well as staff members to enable them to identify gang related activities timeously. Heads of Prisons have also been empowered to employ strategies to neutralise any gang members in prison.
The Department has identified "Unit Management" as the missing ingredient in the transformation of our prison system. Unit Management provides for the custody, care and control of prisoners in smaller manageable units that enable the direct supervision of individual inmates by a dedicated correctional staff assigned to a specific unit.
Unit Management has demonstrated its effectiveness as a strategy to reduce prison violence and control gang activity while contributing to achieving prisoner rehabilitation.
International experience has demonstrated that the effective implementation of Unit Management must be supported by appropriate facility designs.
As a result, new prison design concepts, referred to internationally as "New Generation" designs, were introduced in order to achieve the full benefits of Unit Management.
In conclusion, I wish to point out that the purpose of today's briefing is to register the progress we have achieved since our last media briefing session in February this year. In addition new issues have been presented before you as a measure of indicating other developments to you.