results
19 July 2006
The four-day official visit to the United Kingdom (UK) by the Minister of
Correctional Services, Mr Ngconde Balfour, to gain insight into systems and
strategies employed by the UK government to, amongst other issues, strengthen
the criminal justice system and the capacity of correctional officials, reduce
overcrowding and number of juveniles as well as young children belonging to
female offenders in correctional centres, has yielded some fruitful
results.
Minister Balfourâs visit, from Monday to Thursday, 17 - 20 July 2006,
included site tours and inspection of the Wandsworth Prison in London, the
largest and the most populated prison in the UK which houses 1500 offenders and
the Feltham Juvenile Prison for young offenders. This also encompassed
engagement with the Deputy Governors of both prisons on the state of affairs
regarding overcrowding, gangsterism in prisons, offender risk management and
offender privileges, as well as parole and probation management.
The key highlight of the visit was the meeting with the Under Secretary
(Deputy Minister) for Criminal Justice and Offender Management Hon Gerry
Sutcliffe on Tuesday, 18 July 2006.
The climax of the meeting was the common agreement on the need to establish
a joint training exchange programme which will see correctional officials from
both countries learning best practices in terms of benefiting from training
modules and curricula applied in the training colleges in the two countries.
Modalities of the exchange programme will be worked out by senior South Africa
and United Kingdom correctional officials before a formal programme is
presented to the Ministers of both countries for adoption.
The two also discussed synergetic strategies to ensure an effective criminal
justice system that is able to deal with, amongst other issues, the
following:
* Offender management programmes and prevention of re-offending of prisoners
on parole.
* Reduction of children of female offenders in prisons.
* Development of diversion programmes for juveniles and petty offenders or low
risk offenders.
* Management of foreign nationals in prisons.
Minister Balfour says the visit âwas an eye opener which will enable the
Department of Correctional Services to strengthen its systems and strategies
relating to offender management, by implementing or piloting some of the best
practices and models learnt from the UK prisonsâ. Minister Balfour and Hon
Sutcliffe also shared a common understanding that the building of prisons is a
short term strategy which needs to be complemented by a multi pronged criminal
justice system to reduce levels of crime and correct offending behaviour.
Britain currently faces huge overcrowding in prisons with an increasing
offender population. This has necessitated the building of two new prisons.
Other key issues discussed with Hon Sutcliffe included the review and
management of Public Private Prisons (PPPs) contracts, emphasising on the
importance of the stateâs responsibility to effectively oversee the safe
custody and management of offenders in PPPs as well as ensuring flexibility in
the PPP contracts through negotiating the duration of contracts based on the
benchmarking of the performance of the companies managing these prisons, so as
to ensure value for money.
The last leg of the visit by the Minister includes a site visit to Hygiene
Management Programme (HMP) Altcourse Private Prison run by GSL, the company
that also manages one of South Africaâs two PPPs, Mangaung Private Prison. The
Minister will also meet with GSL officials, on Thursday, 20 July 2006.
For details:
Luphumzo Kebeni
Cell: 082 453 2244
Issued by: Ministry of Correctional Services
19 July 2006
