Date: 13/04/2005
Source: Ministry of Correctional Services
Title: Gillwald: Correctional Services Dept Budget Vote 2005/2006
Address by Ms Cheryl Gillwald (MP), Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, on the Budget Vote of the Department of Correctional Services , National Assembly, Houses of Parliament, Cape Town
Madame Speaker,
Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen
In commending prison reforms to the House of Commons in July, 1910, Winston Churchill said: “The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country. A calm, dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State and even of convicted criminals against the State: … a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate … all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts toward the discovery of curative and regenerative processes, unfaltering faith that there is treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of any man – these are the symbols which, in the treatment of crime and criminals, mark and measure the stored up strength of a nation and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”
As we enter our second decade of freedom fortified by the lessons that we have learned over the past ten years and girded by the principles that underpin the Freedom Charter and our Constitution, it has become quite clear that our system of incarceration might well prove the acid test of our human rights framework.
The prison reform movement has gained in strength and stature over the past century or so. Feeding into this progressive movement our own Freedom Charter stated in 1955 that “imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance”. Our vision for a transformed Correctional Service is further inspired by the Constitution’s founding values and principles. The Correctional Services White Paper approved by Cabinet earlier this year is a distinct departure from the past – it sets the pace for moving our institution from an apartheid style penal system to a humanitarian and development-centred system of correction and rehabilitation.
Madame Speaker, in my input, I will describe some of the challenges that face our Department and the Safety & Security Cluster and attempt to sketch the plans that we have put in place to remedy the system where it ails and strengthen it where it show signs of resilience.
The conditions that prevail in our correctional facilities are highly indicative of the functionality (or lack thereof) of the entire Criminal Justice System (CJS). We are, in a sense, the tell-tale spots on the proverbial misled pig.
Because the CJS is a continuum of arrest, adjudication and sentence any improvements in any part of the system will swell the numbers of inmates housed within our facilities. So too – and herein lies the rub – any inefficiencies that exist or persist within the system have precisely the same effect.
To illustrate the point, the following example: We all welcome the announcement that 8 000 new recruits will join SAPS during this budgetary cycle. This improved capacity holds distinct and challenging implications for the rest of our cluster. The improved SAPS capacity will undoubtedly place increased pressure on our courts and the knock-on effect for Correctional Services to house greater numbers of offenders is an unavoidable consequence. Balancing and compensating for efficiency gains within the various elements of the CJS provides perhaps the most serious challenge to our cluster management and inter alia calls for well structured protocols between line functions at the points where they interface.
But, Madame Speaker, it is not just the factors within the cluster that require nimble and informed management; it is the context within which the cluster operates that necessitates close examination and certain very specific responses.
One of the more interesting characteristics of our inmate population is that nearly 68% of our offenders are under the age of 35 years. And given that the average sentence of those incarcerated (and convicted) within our facilities is some 9 years and 2 months it can be expected that many offenders will enter our system, spend a considerable amount of time within our facilities and then return, at a relatively youthful age, to the communities from which they originate.
Our ability to intervene constructively during that time of incarceration is a critical element of our cluster’s crime prevention strategy. To this end the Department is embarking on an ambitious programme of profiling each offender for the development of a correctional sentence plan for each person in our care. This will be implemented at selected correctional centres in the current financial year. Our intention is that each offender receives the care most appropriate to his or her needs and roll-out must, of necessity, be incremental.
The development and care of correctional officers is also addressed in this budget. Quite apart from the obvious management skills required to run such a large institution, provision has been made for the acquisition and development of the many specialist skills required for sound service delivery; skills such as Pharmacy, Psychology, Sociology and Information Management. In addition to these initiatives our Performance Management Systems have been improved and a Career Pathing Model has been developed. These interventions seek to enhance our service delivery capacity, while creating the necessary space for employees to develop and grow within the workplace.
The announcement that four new prisons will be constructed within the current budgetary cycle is a welcome development, but needs to be seen within the context of existing current overcrowding rates and projected inmate numbers for the future. With a net inflow of approximately 7 000 inmates expected in the coming year, we understand fully that Correctional Services will not now – or ever – be able to build its way out of the overcrowding problem – and neither should it try.
Madame Speaker, overcrowding is a challenge that faces prison systems world wide. Its existence compromises the health of inmates; places unrealistic demands on existing infrastructure with serious cost implications for infrastructure maintenance; frustrates the institution’s capacity to rehabilitate offenders; and it puts at severe risk the safety and security of correctional officials and inmates alike.
A successful response to this problem in various jurisdictions has been to incentivise the speedy finalisation of cases by the courts through various automatic cut-off and review mechanisms for awaiting trial detainees (ATDs). Currently, too many ATDs languish in our facilities suffering the indignity of multiple case remands, stalled case investigation procedures and irregular access to state-provided legal defence services. With the current ATD population exceeding 51 000 persons, finalising the protocols that govern interaction between Justice and Correctional Services as these pertain to ATDs is essential. So too, protocols governing matters that pertain to the affordability of bail are critical.
A review of our sentencing framework is perhaps now more necessary than ever before. It is the belief of our Department that sentences should reflect the seriousness of the crime perpetrated – that goes without saying. A worrisome feature, however, of our criminal justice system seems to indicate that the sentencing trends in our country show a marked difference to progressive and comparable jurisdictions internationally. In 1995, inmates sentenced for 10 years and longer numbered some 10 000; this figure has almost quadrupled to just under 40 000 in 2004. Our propensity to resort to imprisonment as a primary response to crime is illustrated by the alarming statistic that four out of every 1000 South Africans are prisoners. Two thirds of the world’s countries have imprisonment rates of less than one-and-a-half per 1000.
We must develop a restorative justice approach that combines an appropriate sentencing framework with alternative sentencing mechanisms such as community service; contextually sound bail provisions; and flexible parole and probation frameworks that take into account rehabilitation interventions and readiness-for-integration considerations.
As it pertains to children in our facilities; their mere presence within correctional facilities flies in the face of existing legislation, relevant international instruments and the constitutional provision that children’s rights must enjoy specific affirmation and interventions that ameliorate their particular vulnerability to the vagaries of social injustice and discrimination. There are currently 3 300 children (between 13 and 18 years) housed within our system. Of these more than half are awaiting trial. The Departments of Correctional Services and Social Development have appointed a task team to conduct a facility audit of eligible government infrastructure that can be used - with appropriate remodelling - to accommodate the special needs of sentenced and awaiting trial children. Further plans to ensure the reduction of the child population in prisons must be further articulated by the team and it will report to the cluster on a regular and ongoing basis.
An aspect of our work that requires further refinement and consideration is the gendered nature of imprisonment. Many of our female inmates find themselves incarcerated far from their families – a factor that has devastating implications for families and for the inmates themselves. So too, the gradual, but inexorable feminisation of poverty over the past century implies that current practices relating to the affordability of bail have a profoundly discriminatory impact on woman inmates. There are currently 200 women incarcerated in our jails – not because they represent a threat to society – but because they cannot afford to pay the fines that have been imposed. In addition, 330 of our 986 female ATDs cannot afford the bail that has been set by the courts. These and other symptoms illustrate all too starkly the equality imbalances that pertain to woman inmates and the distressing multiple discriminations which they endure in a supposedly gender-neutral environment.
The House will be interested to learn that significant progress has been made in reducing the number of escapes from our facilities. In 1996, One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Four escapes were recorded. This number was reduced to 250 escapes in 2000 and 175 in 2004.
Madam Speaker, the Department’s White Paper calls for a humanitarian and rights-based approach to imprisonment. The plans that we have put in place to reach this objective will necessitate the use of partnerships with strategic role-players who can support us in our mission. Already NGOs are playing a pivotal role in our rehabilitation interventions. So too, our outreach programmes appealing to communities to support the reintegration of offenders have demonstrated remarkably positive results.
The establishment of 52 parole boards, chaired by community representatives, will ensure increasing community familiarity with the challenges that face our system and their active involvement in matters relating to the release and reintegration of inmates is expected to enhance public confidence in the CJS.
Rehabilitation and correction form the cornerstone of our vision for a transformed Correctional Service whose interactions with all role-players – NGOs, private sector, organised labour and communities – should provide a holistic framework aimed at reintegrating offenders into society. In an attempt to harmonise the programmes provided by our civil society partners, an audit of existing services is being conducted while plans are underway to develop criteria that will assist in their accreditation, and integration into the Department’s rehabilitation programme.
Madame Speaker, the challenges that face our Department are complex and requires a measured, but determined approach. Today’s debate is about how we, in the criminal justice system, bring the vision for a just and crime-free society into fruition. The budget is a tool that quantifies the programmes that we have set in place to achieve our vision for a transformed, humanitarian and modernised system of correction and rehabilitation. The Constitution – our country’s declaration of intent for a society free of discrimination, racism and sexism – has charted the course for the way forward. Our White Paper and the strategic plan of action have crystallised the steps that must be taken in the short, medium and long term. Budgetary constraints are a reality with which we must all grapple – and establishing an expenditure pattern that demonstrates best-value considerations at every level of our performance is essential. The challenges that the Department faces are nothing short of daunting; our approach is, of necessity, one of incremental and measured progress towards the long-term objective. It is a tall order, but we remain confident that plans for achieving this heady vision are clear, sustainable and in the best interests of our nation.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Correctional Services
13 April 2005
Source: Ministry of Correctional Services
Title: Gillwald: Correctional Services Dept Budget Vote 2005/2006
Address by Ms Cheryl Gillwald (MP), Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, on the Budget Vote of the Department of Correctional Services , National Assembly, Houses of Parliament, Cape Town
Madame Speaker,
Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen
In commending prison reforms to the House of Commons in July, 1910, Winston Churchill said: “The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country. A calm, dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State and even of convicted criminals against the State: … a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate … all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts toward the discovery of curative and regenerative processes, unfaltering faith that there is treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of any man – these are the symbols which, in the treatment of crime and criminals, mark and measure the stored up strength of a nation and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”
As we enter our second decade of freedom fortified by the lessons that we have learned over the past ten years and girded by the principles that underpin the Freedom Charter and our Constitution, it has become quite clear that our system of incarceration might well prove the acid test of our human rights framework.
The prison reform movement has gained in strength and stature over the past century or so. Feeding into this progressive movement our own Freedom Charter stated in 1955 that “imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance”. Our vision for a transformed Correctional Service is further inspired by the Constitution’s founding values and principles. The Correctional Services White Paper approved by Cabinet earlier this year is a distinct departure from the past – it sets the pace for moving our institution from an apartheid style penal system to a humanitarian and development-centred system of correction and rehabilitation.
Madame Speaker, in my input, I will describe some of the challenges that face our Department and the Safety & Security Cluster and attempt to sketch the plans that we have put in place to remedy the system where it ails and strengthen it where it show signs of resilience.
The conditions that prevail in our correctional facilities are highly indicative of the functionality (or lack thereof) of the entire Criminal Justice System (CJS). We are, in a sense, the tell-tale spots on the proverbial misled pig.
Because the CJS is a continuum of arrest, adjudication and sentence any improvements in any part of the system will swell the numbers of inmates housed within our facilities. So too – and herein lies the rub – any inefficiencies that exist or persist within the system have precisely the same effect.
To illustrate the point, the following example: We all welcome the announcement that 8 000 new recruits will join SAPS during this budgetary cycle. This improved capacity holds distinct and challenging implications for the rest of our cluster. The improved SAPS capacity will undoubtedly place increased pressure on our courts and the knock-on effect for Correctional Services to house greater numbers of offenders is an unavoidable consequence. Balancing and compensating for efficiency gains within the various elements of the CJS provides perhaps the most serious challenge to our cluster management and inter alia calls for well structured protocols between line functions at the points where they interface.
But, Madame Speaker, it is not just the factors within the cluster that require nimble and informed management; it is the context within which the cluster operates that necessitates close examination and certain very specific responses.
One of the more interesting characteristics of our inmate population is that nearly 68% of our offenders are under the age of 35 years. And given that the average sentence of those incarcerated (and convicted) within our facilities is some 9 years and 2 months it can be expected that many offenders will enter our system, spend a considerable amount of time within our facilities and then return, at a relatively youthful age, to the communities from which they originate.
Our ability to intervene constructively during that time of incarceration is a critical element of our cluster’s crime prevention strategy. To this end the Department is embarking on an ambitious programme of profiling each offender for the development of a correctional sentence plan for each person in our care. This will be implemented at selected correctional centres in the current financial year. Our intention is that each offender receives the care most appropriate to his or her needs and roll-out must, of necessity, be incremental.
The development and care of correctional officers is also addressed in this budget. Quite apart from the obvious management skills required to run such a large institution, provision has been made for the acquisition and development of the many specialist skills required for sound service delivery; skills such as Pharmacy, Psychology, Sociology and Information Management. In addition to these initiatives our Performance Management Systems have been improved and a Career Pathing Model has been developed. These interventions seek to enhance our service delivery capacity, while creating the necessary space for employees to develop and grow within the workplace.
The announcement that four new prisons will be constructed within the current budgetary cycle is a welcome development, but needs to be seen within the context of existing current overcrowding rates and projected inmate numbers for the future. With a net inflow of approximately 7 000 inmates expected in the coming year, we understand fully that Correctional Services will not now – or ever – be able to build its way out of the overcrowding problem – and neither should it try.
Madame Speaker, overcrowding is a challenge that faces prison systems world wide. Its existence compromises the health of inmates; places unrealistic demands on existing infrastructure with serious cost implications for infrastructure maintenance; frustrates the institution’s capacity to rehabilitate offenders; and it puts at severe risk the safety and security of correctional officials and inmates alike.
A successful response to this problem in various jurisdictions has been to incentivise the speedy finalisation of cases by the courts through various automatic cut-off and review mechanisms for awaiting trial detainees (ATDs). Currently, too many ATDs languish in our facilities suffering the indignity of multiple case remands, stalled case investigation procedures and irregular access to state-provided legal defence services. With the current ATD population exceeding 51 000 persons, finalising the protocols that govern interaction between Justice and Correctional Services as these pertain to ATDs is essential. So too, protocols governing matters that pertain to the affordability of bail are critical.
A review of our sentencing framework is perhaps now more necessary than ever before. It is the belief of our Department that sentences should reflect the seriousness of the crime perpetrated – that goes without saying. A worrisome feature, however, of our criminal justice system seems to indicate that the sentencing trends in our country show a marked difference to progressive and comparable jurisdictions internationally. In 1995, inmates sentenced for 10 years and longer numbered some 10 000; this figure has almost quadrupled to just under 40 000 in 2004. Our propensity to resort to imprisonment as a primary response to crime is illustrated by the alarming statistic that four out of every 1000 South Africans are prisoners. Two thirds of the world’s countries have imprisonment rates of less than one-and-a-half per 1000.
We must develop a restorative justice approach that combines an appropriate sentencing framework with alternative sentencing mechanisms such as community service; contextually sound bail provisions; and flexible parole and probation frameworks that take into account rehabilitation interventions and readiness-for-integration considerations.
As it pertains to children in our facilities; their mere presence within correctional facilities flies in the face of existing legislation, relevant international instruments and the constitutional provision that children’s rights must enjoy specific affirmation and interventions that ameliorate their particular vulnerability to the vagaries of social injustice and discrimination. There are currently 3 300 children (between 13 and 18 years) housed within our system. Of these more than half are awaiting trial. The Departments of Correctional Services and Social Development have appointed a task team to conduct a facility audit of eligible government infrastructure that can be used - with appropriate remodelling - to accommodate the special needs of sentenced and awaiting trial children. Further plans to ensure the reduction of the child population in prisons must be further articulated by the team and it will report to the cluster on a regular and ongoing basis.
An aspect of our work that requires further refinement and consideration is the gendered nature of imprisonment. Many of our female inmates find themselves incarcerated far from their families – a factor that has devastating implications for families and for the inmates themselves. So too, the gradual, but inexorable feminisation of poverty over the past century implies that current practices relating to the affordability of bail have a profoundly discriminatory impact on woman inmates. There are currently 200 women incarcerated in our jails – not because they represent a threat to society – but because they cannot afford to pay the fines that have been imposed. In addition, 330 of our 986 female ATDs cannot afford the bail that has been set by the courts. These and other symptoms illustrate all too starkly the equality imbalances that pertain to woman inmates and the distressing multiple discriminations which they endure in a supposedly gender-neutral environment.
The House will be interested to learn that significant progress has been made in reducing the number of escapes from our facilities. In 1996, One Thousand Two Hundred and Forty Four escapes were recorded. This number was reduced to 250 escapes in 2000 and 175 in 2004.
Madam Speaker, the Department’s White Paper calls for a humanitarian and rights-based approach to imprisonment. The plans that we have put in place to reach this objective will necessitate the use of partnerships with strategic role-players who can support us in our mission. Already NGOs are playing a pivotal role in our rehabilitation interventions. So too, our outreach programmes appealing to communities to support the reintegration of offenders have demonstrated remarkably positive results.
The establishment of 52 parole boards, chaired by community representatives, will ensure increasing community familiarity with the challenges that face our system and their active involvement in matters relating to the release and reintegration of inmates is expected to enhance public confidence in the CJS.
Rehabilitation and correction form the cornerstone of our vision for a transformed Correctional Service whose interactions with all role-players – NGOs, private sector, organised labour and communities – should provide a holistic framework aimed at reintegrating offenders into society. In an attempt to harmonise the programmes provided by our civil society partners, an audit of existing services is being conducted while plans are underway to develop criteria that will assist in their accreditation, and integration into the Department’s rehabilitation programme.
Madame Speaker, the challenges that face our Department are complex and requires a measured, but determined approach. Today’s debate is about how we, in the criminal justice system, bring the vision for a just and crime-free society into fruition. The budget is a tool that quantifies the programmes that we have set in place to achieve our vision for a transformed, humanitarian and modernised system of correction and rehabilitation. The Constitution – our country’s declaration of intent for a society free of discrimination, racism and sexism – has charted the course for the way forward. Our White Paper and the strategic plan of action have crystallised the steps that must be taken in the short, medium and long term. Budgetary constraints are a reality with which we must all grapple – and establishing an expenditure pattern that demonstrates best-value considerations at every level of our performance is essential. The challenges that the Department faces are nothing short of daunting; our approach is, of necessity, one of incremental and measured progress towards the long-term objective. It is a tall order, but we remain confident that plans for achieving this heady vision are clear, sustainable and in the best interests of our nation.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Correctional Services
13 April 2005
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