FREE DAILY EMAIL

Date : 27/03/2003
Source: Department of Correctional Services
Title: Mti: Seminar on Offender Reintegration


SPEECH DELIVERED BY MS MAHLANGU ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, MR. LINDA MTI, DURING THE SEMINAR ON OFFENDER REINTEGRATION, HOSTED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CRIME PREVENTION AND THE REINTEGRATION OF OFFENDERS (NICRO), Fourways, Johannesburg, 27 March 2003

Programme Director
Distinguished Guests
Ladies And Gentlemen

Today I am standing in for Commissioner Mti who requested that I convey his sincere appreciation and gratitude for having been invited to the seminar but to also extend his apologies for having not been able to honour today's occasion because of commitments he could not get out of. Commissioner Mti also requested that I express his congratulations to NICRO for having organised a seminar on an issue as important as offender reintegration and that he wished the seminar all the success it deserves.

It was with a sense of great joy that the Department of Correctional Services received the invite to address this seminar today, primarily because this provides us with a golden opportunity to share with our social partners the developments taking place within the department.

During the past year the department has been involved in a number of intensive processes intended primarily to change the face of corrections by re-defining, for ourselves, the role of corrections in a democracy. In the past few years the department has attempted some or other form "restructuring" that was focused only on identified aspects of the department and therefore did not go far enough and in other instances had unintended consequences.

Unlike the previous attempts at "restructuring" the current initiatives are thoroughgoing and system-wide in that they touch every aspect of our department - from human resource matters, budgeting right through to offender rehabilitation.

While the intention is to address ourselves on offender re-integration as per the topic of the seminar I proposed to do exactly that by way sharing with you, although briefly, some of what we regard as far reaching processes taking place within the department.

During March 2002 the Minister of Correctional Services launched a project called "Gearing DCS for Rehabilitation". The gearing process is premised on an analysis of the department's Constitutional mandate that we interpreted to be the safe custody of offenders as well as their rehabilitation for the duration of their sentence irrespective of where the sentence is served. The gearing process is focused on the strategic repositioning of the department with regard to the following:

* Overall policy review;
* Redefinition of strategy;
* Development of an organisational structure; and
* Resources.

It is important to mention that these processes are currently dealt with as parallel processes. Because of time limitation I will, unfortunately, not deal with the details of each of these save to say that the strategic plan has been updated, new organisational structure suited to new objectives is being developed and these processes are being costed. I would however, be expanding a little on our attempts at operationalising rehabilitation within a corrections environment. Delegates will be afforded the opportunity to read in detail some of these issues when they are circulated for comments during the course of the year.

Regarding policy review the mandate analysis we have spoken about revealed that there was a policy gap in terms of carrying out our Constitutional mandate. The White Paper developed immediately after 1994 was inadequate for our new mandate. To this end, we are currently developing a Green Paper that will be commuted into a White Paper on Corrections for South Africa after it is circulated and consulted. The green paper process has identified six service delivery areas through which we will be effecting the rehabilitation of offenders. The six service delivery areas include:

* Security: these are services aimed at ensuring the provision of safe and healthy conditions for offenders while providing protection for the public against the threat from offenders
* Care: these are needs based services aimed at the maintenance of the well-being of offenders, providing for physical fitness, nutrition, social link with families, spiritual and moral well-being, psychological well-being and health care
* Corrections: these are services aimed at the assessment of the security risk and criminal profiles of offenders based on their social backgrounds and the development of a correctional sentence plan targeting elements associated with the offending behaviour
* Development: these are services aimed at the development of competency through the provision of social development and consciousness, vocational and technical training, recreation, sports and opportunities for education
* Facilities: this refers to the physical infrastructure aimed at ensuring the minimum facilities required for rehabilitation responsibilities and objectives
* After care: these are the services focused on offenders in preparation for the completion of sentences, to facilitate social acceptance and effective reintegration into their communities.

Anyone remotely familiar with the operations of the department will recognise that some of these services are already on offer in our prisons or correctional centres, as we would be calling them. Our immediate task is the strengthening of these and the development of new ones that do not currently exist.

We are as a department mindful of the fact the focus on offenders alone will not ensure the intended results unless there is a concomitant attempt to focus on correctional officers. It is for this reason that the gearing process also focuses on personnel of the department as well as our social partners such as the organisations you represent.

On the issue of personnel of the department we intend professionalising the work of a correctional officer with all the requirements that attend any other profession. It is also worth mentioning that the work of rehabilitation within the department will no longer be the preserve of social workers, psychologists or educators but that of all correctional officers as we move to realise our slogan: every correctional officer is a rehabilitator!. This approach is borne of the realisation that correctional officers are the primary nurturers during incarceration and should therefore be active participants in the rehabilitation process. We will also be undertaking a major retraining exercise for correctional officers in line with the new objectives.

Regarding our social partners such as yourselves we will, as part of the green paper process, be defining your roles in each of the service delivery range of services. It will be important; however, that our social partners understand our new direction and we form partnerships designed to achieve our stated objectives.

In this regard we will be very meticulous when considering offers to partner with us in performing work in our correctional centres by our social partners. The department can ill-afford to partner with individuals or organisations whose objectives are not aligned to ours.

Having given you a broad overview of the processes underway within the department as we position our systems, processes and structures for rehabilitation, I now would like to focus my attention to the service delivery range we have spoken about particularly as it relates to the topic of the day.

A cursory review of the six service delivery areas will reveal that they are not meant to operate as distinct parts but rather as parts of a seamless whole. It for this reason that in terms of our approach to rehabilitation we view the issue of offender reintegration as beginning at the point of admission to our correctional centres.

Upon admission to our centres the offenders will undergo a compulsory, comprehensive assessment to identify areas of growth and change while the primary objective being needs identification. It is during the assessment that the criminal profiles as well as the profile of the community of origin of offenders would be outlined. The information gleaned from the assessment will be used to develop a sentence plan for the offender and will also be used as baseline information to measure progress.

Sentence planning is of vital importance in anticipating and planning for factors that could contribute to relapse on the part of the offender. With proper sentence planning we can better plan for the offender's transition by coordinating treatment services with our social partners at various levels. Primarily the sentence plan will aim at the following:

* Inculcating and strengthening the offenders resolve to commit to rehabilitation by including him in the planning;
* Providing the offender with coping skills to respond to factors that could lead to a relapse into a life of crime
* Providing linkages to community treatment such as those provided by the organisations such as NICRO; and
* Involving significant others as a support system.

Along with the development of a sentence plan there will be a monitoring and evaluation mechanism to ensure that the quality of service meet the set standards.

As could be gathered the primary objectives of after care for the department will be the identification of needs of the family of offenders who must come to terms with the abhorrent actions of someone they love, as well as the reduction of re-offending. The relationships between the offender and his family should be strengthened and maintained because it is the family that holds the key to a life free of acts of criminality.

Anyone working in the criminal justice system knows that however effective treatment programmes the circumstances of the family and community of origin has the potential to grossly erode the rehabilitative effects. The private sector's inability to engage ex-offenders in meaningful employment contributes to the problem of re-offending.

In her book titled "STEERING BY THE STARS - being young in South Africa" the Managing Director of the World Bank, Dr. Mamphele Ramphele, wrote the following about a typical family in a township called New Crossroads in the Western Cape "The family unit cannot be taken for granted and the availability of a mother, let alone both parents, is a luxury few children enjoy. In addition, the provision of basic needs is beyond the means of many, and trusting and respectful relationships are an exception rather than the rule. The family is under siege from the combined legacy of the migrant labour system, poverty, adherence to outmoded traditions, and changing roles of men and women as gender politics is reconfigured everywhere in post-apartheid South Africa".

The problem with families on the edge of survival such as the ones described by Dr. Ramphele is that they do not only provide the circumstances for relapse for ex-offenders but also provide fertile grounds for acts of criminality for the young people growing up in them.

As a department we recognise the family a the basic unit of society and as the primary level at which correction should take place; the community, including schools, churches and organisations as the secondary level at which corrections should take pace with the state being the overall facilitator where the Department of Correctional Services renders the final level of corrections. It is important that we arrest these anomalies at the primary level.

It is for this reason that we need the co-operation of other government departments, community based organisations and Non-governmental organisations in ensuring that we contribute to the betterment of the circumstances of families and communities if we are to realise our objective of rehabilitation. Our challenge for the two days is to deliberate on the challenges I have outlined especially as they relate to mechanisms of strengthening of families and the empowerment of communities to ensure that we realise the all important objective of crime prevention through rehabilitation.

In conclusion I would like to take this opportunity to wish you well on your deliberations and hope that you will also assist us in our quest of redefine corrections in a democracy.

Thank you.

Issued by Department of Correctional Services
27 March 2003
Source: (http://www.dcs.gov.za)

SPONSORED BY

Advanced