BUDGET DEBATE: VOTE 21, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, ADDRESS BY THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, MS CHERYL GILLWALD, (MP), National Assembly, Cape Town
15 June 2004

Madame Speaker, Colleagues

The debate on the budget of Correctional Services must be seen against a backdrop of heightened public awareness and concern about crime, burgeoning court rolls and mounting pressure on the Justice System to mete out increasingly stringent sentences against offenders.

As you know, the Department forms part of the Safety and Security Cluster and, as such, is highly dependent on developments in its sister departments - that is to say Justice, including the NPA, Social Development, and the South African Police Services (SAPS), to name but three. In this context the cluster has to be seen as a continuum that progresses from investigations, through prosecutions, to sentencing and ultimately incarceration.

We already know that SAPS has, over the past ten years, demonstrated patent improvements in their investigative capacity. So too, has the National Prosecuting Authority improved the rate of prosecution, on almost all fronts. The supply side pressure on our Department resulting from this improved capacity in both the SAPS and the NPA has swelled the number of inmates to record levels. To say that the Department is under severe pressure to accommodate both inmates and awaiting trial detainees (ATDs) is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. In a nutshell, we have the capacity to accommodate 113 000 inmates and the current prison population stands at 187 000, which includes an ATD population of 53 880 - that is nearly one third of the total inmate population.

This is an entirely unsustainable and unacceptable state of affairs; something has to be done.

If we revert back to the subject of the Criminal Justice continuum and understand the pressure on inflows into our system from the rest of the cluster, it becomes clear that we stand the real risk of Correctional Services being turned into the "dustbin" of the Criminal Justice System (CJS). This is precisely because inmates are housed at our facilities behind high walls - out of sight and, inevitably, out of mind. It is so easy to ignore the problem because of its physical isolation from the rest of the community and, importantly, because of its isolation from the decision-makers whose decisions and actions impact on our prisons.

Given the imperatives of our Constitution and our Department's commitment to a human rights-based system of corrections and rehabilitation, we cannot allow conditions in our correctional centres to decline to such an extent that the notion of a "dustbin" becomes the most appropriate and deserved description of our centres.

We have, in response to the overpopulation problem, put in place a capital expenditure programme of accelerated infrastructure expansion to accommodate dramatically escalating inmate numbers. But, even with an optimistic interpretation of current trends, this programme of expansion will only begin to overtake accommodation backlogs by the end of this decade.

Clearly, infrastructure expansion cannot be the only solution to this problem. We must intervene on the supply side of this equation. Several pieces of legislation have made provision for magistrates, prosecutors and heads of prison to address the issue of awaiting trial detainees. The problem is that these mechanisms are rarely exercised to the full benefit of the system.

Magistrates have the option of considering alternative sentencing mechanisms when dealing with low-risk offenders, but alternatives such as community service in lieu of incarceration are seldom considered. So too, the affordability of bail seems not to be a consideration when magistrates deal with low-risk perpetrators and little effort is exercised to determine whether the prospective ATD in question can be put under supervision as described in section 62(f) of the Criminal Procedure Act.

Heads of prison are empowered to cancel bail provisions and release ATDs - on warning - if the offence is not serious and the offender cannot afford the bail that has been set. This mechanism, too, is often ignored by heads of prison.
Plea-bargaining is another mechanism that has the potential to impact positively on ATD populations, but detainees are rarely advised of these options and prosecutors resort, more often than not, to the very methods that are already swamping our Department's resources.

The courts release about 16 500 inmates per month who have been detained unnecessarily. This problem is caused by arresting or charging an individual in a case before it is trial ready. Many inmates are routinely released after three months when it becomes clear that prosecution will not take place. This clearly places an unnecessary burden on our resources, not to mention the impact on the arrestees, who risk losing their jobs, are unnecessarily removed from their communities and gratuitously deprived of the civil liberties to which they are entitled. We should perhaps consider the reintroduction of case readiness certification before a person is charged.

Colleagues, the factors that contribute to elevated prison populations have come under renewed scrutiny by the Integrated Justice System Task Team that has been appointed by the JCPS Cluster to deal with the issue of overcrowding in general and the matter of ATDs in particular. It is our genuine hope that the remedial measures recommended by the Cluster will materially impact on our Department's inmate populations and ease the pressure on its scarce resources.

Madam Speaker, there is an aspect of prison population demographics of which few people are aware: fully 67% of our inmate population (sentenced and unsentenced) is under 35 years old. Now think about this: if the average sentence of prisoners is just over 9 years (9 years and 68 days, to be precise), the bulk of our inmates will re-emerge into our communities fully expectant of reintegration once their "dues have been paid to society". If our rehabilitation programmes are not appropriately resourced, we run the risk of turning loose on society young people that will have little alternative other than to revert to crime if their capacity to cope with that society has not significantly been improved since their initial entry into our system.

The Department and Treasury are engaged in an ongoing process to ensure the alignment of the Draft White Paper and the budget allocation. If this exercise is based merely on a review of current expenditure patterns, delivery by the Department on its mandate will be severely hampered. What is required, Madam Speaker is a fundamental revision of the real cost drivers and of the current baseline allocation. This realignment exercise must be conducted as a matter of urgency. The wider the gap between expenditure patterns and policy provisions, the more difficult it becomes to achieve that policy's stated aims. This realignment exercise must be conducted as a matter of urgency.

With reference to our expenditure on Personnel, there are several risk areas that should be noted. The success of our Corrections-, Care- and Development Programmes is highly dependent on a range of professional and middle management skills that are unique to this kind of work. Our vision of a people-centred corrections work process is put at severe risk if we do not acquire the necessary psychologists, medical and other attendant skills. This is a people-driven business that requires a specific mix of skills. To ignore these requirements is to impact on our very raison d'être.

In terms of our budget allocation, the impact of HIV/AIDS cannot be ignored. Increased budgets for peer education will be necessary, not to mention the cost of expanded anti-retroviral treatment programmes, prevention regimes for other communicable diseases and Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) processes.

The need for specialist nutritional and medical skills associated with the treatment of HIV and AIDS infections is acute and is also expected to rise sharply in the short to medium term.

Madam Speaker, I must echo the sentiments of the Minister on the issue of overtime payments. It should go without saying that our roughly eight-and-a-half billion Rand budget simply cannot sustain the R900 million (roughly 10% of our total budget!) we spend annually on overtime payments. This expenditure crowds out spending on the operational elements of our budget to the detriment of the Department and the inmates that occupy our correctional facilities. Retaining a 5-day week dispensation as opposed to the 7-day model in the SAPS and other comparable departments is indefensible.

With respect to the issue of children imprisoned in our facilities, the pressure on overcrowding will not abate unless the number of secure places of safety increases commensurate with demand. We rely totally on the provincial Departments of Social Development for the provision of these facilities. Failure to provide the necessary infrastructure places an unnecessary and unsustainable burden on the DCS budget. It also puts us in breach both of our constitutional obligations and of a number of international agreements to which South Africa is a signatory.

Looking to the future, our budget will come under increased pressure as certain provisions in the new legislation become applicable. The Draft White Paper, too, contains specific cost drivers, which are unavoidable if the stated aims are to be achieved.

We have sympathy for the Treasury's valiant attempt to weigh priorities in the face of competing interests for a limited pool of resources. The key to unlocking the full value of the money that has been allocated to us is innovation and imagination. We will have to develop improved methods of achieving more "bang for the buck". Should we not then, as a cluster, consider a shared services model, pooling non-core segments of our expenditure (such as salary processing)? Such a model would, I believe, liberate resources from our budgets for expenditure on the operational programmes that impact on service delivery and expanded reach to our clients. I will leave you with that thought as I lay before this Chamber Vote 21 for its consideration and approval.
Enquiries: Graham Abrahams
Tel: (021) 462 2314/5/6
Fax: 021 465 4375
Cell: 082 453 2244

Issued by: Ministry of Correctional Services
15 June 2004
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