Programme Directors: Prof. Xulu and Rev. Zamisa
Premier of Mpumalanga Province: Honourable David Mabuza
Mayor of Gert Sibande District Municipality: Your Worship Councillor Mishack Nhlabathi
National Commissioner: Mr. Tom Moyane
Chief Operating Officer: Ms. Nontsikelelo Jolingana
Chief Deputy Commissioners and Regional Commissioners
Representatives of other government departments
Representatives of civil society
Victims and Offenders
All other Members of the Correctional Services Family
Members of the Media
Distinguished Guests
This month (25 November) marks the start of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. As we gather here in Mpumalanga province today, for the official regional launch of the Victim-Offender Dialogue, together, let us take actions to support No Violence Against Women and Children.
Whilst there are programmes, and interventions, to prevent and respond to abuse, government cannot do this alone and, therefore, depends on mutual partnerships with non-governmental and women’s organisations, business, faith-based organisations, traditional leaders, political parties, various sectors of society and communities. The reality that we must collectively confront is the reluctance on the part of some victims of violence to come forward and seek legal advice and social support.
This could be due to lack of knowledge about their rights, and the social stigma around domestic violence. We must also accept the sad reality that financial dependency on husbands, fathers, partners and family members increases their vulnerability to domestic violence, rape, incest, abuse, and murder. We remain convinced that empowering women will help us win the war against poverty, inequality, unemployment and abuse.
It was here in Mpumalanga in the 1950’s, when the farms of Bethal received much negative publicity as slave farms. Inmates serving their sentences were sent by the authorities to work on the potato farms. The town of Bethal, which is the main centre of the Bethal Management Area of the Department of Correctional Services, consequently became known as eMazambaneni. It was also notorious as the death trap for inmates, and farm workers, who were exposed to harsh working conditions in the town’s farming areas. Some workers even lost their hands whilst digging on these farms.
Whether you are Indian, Black or White, the potato is king of any meal. It was, therefore, bold to call for a boycott of potatoes. But the potato boycott became a mass mobilisation against all forms of apartheid, including slave labour and the sub-human conditions of farm workers. For some time, the potato shared the same symbolic status as other monuments to apartheid such as Bantu Education, the Pass laws, forced removals and land dispossessions. Through the potato boycott, we said freedom for all workers including farm workers.
As President of the ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli was well placed with his deep knowledge of urban, rural and farm life. Gert Sibande really came to the fore, from being a local leader to becoming a national leader. As a farm labourer in the Bethal district, Gert Sibande emerged in the 1930’s as an organiser, founding a farm workers' association and becoming a local spokesman for the ANC. A genuine grass-roots leader, he acquired the nickname "Lion of the East". Because of his political activities, Sibande was hounded by the authorities and deported from Bethal in 1953. He helped Michael Scott and Ruth First in their press exposure of the conditions of Africans on the Bethal farms. South Africa desperately needs this calibre of journalists today.
President Nelson Mandela said you judge any society by how it treats its children, its elderly and its prisoners. The harsh and, often, inhumane prison conditions were also starkly exposed during the potato boycott. Indeed, it led to the passing of the Prison Act of 1959 which introduced some form of rights. Bethal was integral to prison reform.
We were against slave labour in 1959, and we are against slave labour, as well as the ill-treatment of farm workers, today. The Victim-Offender Dialogue must help us to ensure that never again must we have another Bethal.
It is, therefore, befitting that we are hosting this regional inauguration of the Victim-Offender Dialogue, for the Limpopo/Mpumalanga/North West Region of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), in the Bethal Management Area. The launch provides this area with an opportunity to start afresh, by promoting the values of freedom and humaneness as well as reaching out to those most in need of our support: victims of crime and offenders.
The Victim-Offender Dialogues aim to strengthen the current rehabilitation, and re-integration, programmes of the Department of Correctional services. It places the victim at the centre of the corrections process. It reinforces a culture of human rights which South Africa has inculcated over the past 18 years, and which is enshrined in the Bill of Rights enjoined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
The philosophy of the Victim-Offender Dialogues is informed by a constitutional obligation that the offender is a citizen, a human being who has strayed from his or her path. This citizen must be assisted by the corrections system to be rehabilitated, and return to the path of good citizenship. The philosophy further shows that the offender cannot be the only one who must be helped to become a good citizen. Even society, in general, must be steered in the direction of good citizenship. We have to do our utmost best to keep our people, young and old, from imprisonment. Crime prevention is the cure for safe, and secure, living environments.
The community, as the victim of crime, therefore, needs to move away from retribution, and distrust for the concept of rehabilitation, into a new movement that seeks partnerships to reduce crime. This will be achieved by promoting the good values of good citizenship, which include empowering the victim and assisting the offender to regain his or her best self and get re-integrated to society. The purpose of the Victim-Offender Dialogues is to provide:
- A restorative conflict resolution process that actively involves the victim, and offender, in repairing the emotional, and material, harm caused by a crime.
- An opportunity for a victim, and offender, to discuss the offence, get answers to their questions, express feelings and gain a greater sense of closure.
- An opportunity for a victim, and offender, to develop a mutually agreeable plan that addresses the harm caused by the crime.
- An opportunity for broad community participation in the fight against crime. and
- Prevention of repeat offending.
Recent research conducted in Georgia, in the United States of America, has demonstrated that these dialogues have yielded greater satisfaction for the victim, when compared to practices in which victims have not had the opportunity to become involved in this type of process. In addition, research shows that offenders who participate in these types of programmes are more likely to be active in rehabilitation programmes and work hard to regain the social status they had prior to committing the crime. The Victim-Offender Dialogue is, therefore, an opportunity to rebuild personality and character.
In their nature, Victim-Offender Dialogues are voluntary. To be effective, the Victim-Offender Dialogue must start at the level of the Correctional Centre. The Head of the Correctional Centre must play a leading role, and factor the Victim-Offender Dialogue into the performance measurement system of the Centre. A successful Victim-Offender Dialogue should be a performance measurement tool for each of our 243 correctional centres in South Africa. Its success factors should include maximisation of stakeholder participation, and empowerment of both the victim and offender to be normal members of society again.
Over the past fifteen years, South Africa has conducted three national Victims of Crime Surveys. Our government puts a high premium on crime prevention, and the promotion of safe, and secure, living environments. Interesting observations flow out of the 2012 Victims of Crime Survey.
The survey recorded that approximately 62% of the households believed that property crime in their area were likely to be committed by people from their area.
The study also recorded that a large proportion (44,1%) of the victims (from selected individuals) of sexual offences were attacked by a known community member(s) from the area, followed by those attacked by a relative (17%), while only 15,4% stated that the perpetrators were unknown people from outside their area. Only 14,4% were victimised by known people from outside.
On actual places where particular types of crime are likely to happen, the study recorded: almost 30% of incidents of assault (29,9%) occurred at home, while 18,5% occurred in the street in a residential area. About 15% of incidents of assaults were experienced at an entertainment area/bar/tavern, and only 14,1% occurred in streets outside offices/shops. Public transport stations, and political rallies, proved to be the least likely places (0, 2%) for individuals to experience assault.
On the use of weapons in the commission of a crime, the study recorded that, generally, a knife or sharp object was favoured by most perpetrators when committing a crime.
This survey gives us a picture of crime, as something that has an address – in the form of places where particular types of crime are likely to take place, as well as motive, behavioural tendencies and an impact on human lives.
Once admitted into the corrections system, the offender is offered an opportunity to renew their lives through a series of rehabilitation programmes. This is done after creating a risk profile of the offender. The Victim-Offender Dialogue will enhance this by creating an offender status profile, in order to determine the impact of crime, and criminality, on the victim. Offenders receive spiritual care, formal education, skills education, agricultural productivity education, psychological care as well as other interventions, and guidance, by social workers. They also participate in arts, culture, sport and recreation activities, and are kept abreast in knowledge through the Reading for Redemption programme.
An offender, who has successfully served his or her sentence in the correctional system of South Africa, should, according to our national standards, be a renewed person, completely in charge, and in control, of his life, having reconciled with his or her victim. He or she is ready to live life to the fullest, and make a meaningful contribution to the building our country. He needs societal support, in order to fully integrate into society. Society plays a critical role in the successful reintegration of offenders. Crime happens in society.
Society should, therefore, become part of the offender rehabilitation process. Society determines the rules of behaviour for all who live in it. Society sanctions deviant behaviour. Society tends, however, to give, and focus on, the status around the personality of offenders, maintaining the offender status even after they have changed their offender behaviour. It could strengthen our social institutions if, in addition to the offender status label, we could remember that offenders have other forms of status. They are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and neighbours to someone. Let us work together to help the offender return to these positive types of social status.
The Victim-Offender Dialogues are to function in all correctional centres, with a view to strengthening the role of corrections as a developmental issue. I, therefore, today officially inaugurate the Victim-Offender Dialogue Programme in the Limpopo/Mpumalanga/North West Region of the Department of Correctional Services. From now onwards, the Regional Commissioner, Mr. Alfred Tsetsane, together with his eight Area Commissioners and 39 Heads of Correctional Centres, will be working with Head Office through the Outreach Unit, as well as sections of the Incarcerations and Corrections Branch and Community Corrections Branch, to ensure the proper, effective and efficient implementation and management of the Victim-Offender Dialogue programme in this region.
The Freedom Charter states that imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance. It is accepted worldwide that 95% of all inmates will ultimately return to their communities at some point. Therefore, conviction and sentencing can no longer be meted out without considering the eventual reintegration of offenders. Rehabilitation programmes must impact the hearts, heads and hands of offenders.
Corrections is a Societal Responsibility. Let’s continue this dialogue towards finding solutions to South Africa’s high rate of incarceration and breaking the cycle of crime.
Working together, we can do more.
Thank You.
