The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has revised its vision, mission, values, strategic goals and strategic objectives in line with its new business approach.
The new business management approach addresses challenges, in order to accelerate service delivery.
The core functions of DCS is to enhance public safety, and effective criminal justice, through effective management of remand detention; reduce re-offending through offender management and rehabilitation; and social reintegration through management of non-custodial sentences and parole.
The new mission is: contributing to a just, peaceful and safer South Africa through effective and humane incarceration of inmates, rehabilitation and social reintegration of offenders. The new values include: security, development, integrity, effectiveness, accountability, equity and justice and ubuntu.
The realignment, contained in the DCS 2013/14 to 2017/18 Strategic Plan and 2013/14 Annual Performance Plan, spells out plans to enhance public safety through effective management of remand processes, the provision of secure, and humane conditions, for incarcerated offenders, effective rehabilitation programmes to offenders as well as assisting offenders to reconnect with their communities, and families, as law-abiding citizens.
Earlier this year, Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele instructed DCS to implement a turn-around strategy. Addressing the opening session of a three-day DCS Lekgotla in KwaZulu-Natal on 16 January 2013, attended by the Minister, Deputy Minister, National Commissioner (Director-General) and 14 Chief Deputy Commissioners (Deputy Directors-General), including Regional Commissioners, Minister Ndebele said: “As we enter 2013, we must have a clear road map for DCS. Let us commit ourselves towards ensuring that the morale of the Correctional Official is high. It will be higher if we are able to communicate our policies, and plans, comprehensively at all levels. No official should feel that they are not being heard. They should know that they will be listened to, as they make use of legitimate channels of communication. Incarceration should not signify civic death. Inmates are also people who have constitutional rights, though curtailed. We should be able to re-socialize offenders by restoring their self-respect, which will enhance their respect for other people and, therefore, create a new human being,” the Minister said.
To ensure successful implementation of resolutions from the lekgotla, last month (25 March 2013) over 250 correctional officials comprising heads of centres, area coordinators, area commissioners and other senior managers were briefed on the latest Strategic and Annual Performance Plans in Boksburg.
Addressing these officials, Correctional Services Regional Commissioner of Gauteng, Mr. Zach Modise, explained that the National Management Committee (Natmanco) decided that the Strategic Plan and Annual Performance Plan must be refined so that they clearly focus on the core business of the department. “This entailed redefining the department’s strategic objectives, streamlining the desired outcomes and reviewing the performance indicators. The department’s new vision and mission were now more to the point, understandable and achievable. All our plans must be properly aligned. These plans must feed into individual performance agreements and work plans of all managers and officials. It is important that managers’ plan based on the capacity they have because lack of performance will not be tolerated. All managers must ensure compliance. All managers must continuously engage with both employees and offenders,” said Mr Modise.
Meanwhile, Correctional Services National Commissioner, and Chairperson of the African Correctional Services Association (ACSA), Mr. Tom Moyane, has called upon Heads of Correctional Facilities in Africa to give adequate attention to humane incarceration. Addressing the ACSA Executive Committee meeting in Livingstone, Zambia on 20 March 2013, Moyane said: “We have an agenda that seeks to give the public peace of mind that we are doing our best. We need to take into account that correctional services and prisons inherited facilities that were not conducive to humane incarceration. We must transform these institutions and provide the assurance that offenders’ defiant behaviour can be corrected. African countries need to work together to address the issue of overcrowding,” Moyane said.
Enquiries:
Logan Maistry
Cell: 083 644 4050
