Ministers and Deputy Ministers
Senior managers from our sister departments
Acting National Commissioner
Chief Deputy Commissioners and Department of Correctional Services management here today
Our partners from the Non-Governmental Organisational sector and broader civil society
Colleagues
Ladies and gentlemen
We meet here today to discuss a matter that has long needed this kind of attention. In my first days after appointment as Minister of Correctional Services, one of the things I prioritised was the matter of visits to various regions in our country in a bid to better familiarise myself with the operational realities of delivering services offered by the department.
An area that was consistently raised in these interactions was that of the effective and efficient functioning of the parole boards as originally intended. Indeed many of the representatives of these boards reflected with a degree of trepidation on the state of the parole boards and areas for improvement. I am hopeful that this session will also assist us and our partners to better interrogate whether the parole boards are achieving the purpose for which they were established.
Having reflected on this basic issue, we would then have to identify areas of immediate improvement, we have to be able to say how we can make the system work better. At its 52nd National Conference in Polokwane (December 2007), the ANC noted that:
* the number of awaiting trial detainees is still high and in particular for minor offences
* correcting offending behaviour is the responsibility of society as a whole.
The conference then resolved that:
* a comprehensive remand system be developed
* alternative mechanism be introduced for dealing with offenders other than incarceration for deserving cases
* encourage community participation in parole boards and corrections, rehabilitation and reintegration initiatives.
It is this last resolution that I would like us to deal with more intensely. The matter of community participation is core to the legitimacy of the parole boards and I would like us to reflect with seriousness on this aspect.
Ironically, it is round about exactly this time last year (at least according to public records) that the CDC: Corrections did a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services. The presentation was entitled: policy options on parole system in South Africa. This presentation, amongst other things, reflected briefly on international practice of parole and some of the shortcomings of the parole system in South Africa. I am very interested in knowing whether we have made any significant movement in this regard one year later.
In our reflections we must take note of the fact that this administration is faced with the reality of a recession that forces us to carefully test the practicality of the solutions we want to adopt. The circumstances we face are such that we cannot throw money at the problems we have, purely because there is no money to throw at anything. Many of you will remember that we started this year with R500 million deficits. We are constantly challenged to find creative solutions to the everyday hurdles we all face and I trust that there is enough collective creative energy to rise to this challenge over the next two days.
I also hope that we will also once and for all address the matter of reported backlogs in dealing with parole applications and the nature and extent of this backlog. I previously led the Department of Home Affairs and this department was constantly haunted by litigation owing to backlogs in the processing of applications in the immigration branch. I am, therefore, aware of the impact administrative backlogs have on the lives of people and I want us to confront this matter boldly with the understanding that we must resolve it.
I am sure that as we speak to the matter of the backlogs, whether these backlogs are real or not, we will inevitably look at the value chain of the parole process. This process begins with the proper functioning of case managers and the case management committees. Our processes must effectively deal with the need for quality and quantity of the system.
Let me turn now to the subject of the independence of the parole boards. This is a matter that is constantly raised and has been raised again in the recent interactions the Chairpersons of the parole boards with the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services in the past week or so. What exactly is our understanding of this independence? Is it structural independence? Is it independence of decision making processes? Is it a combination of both? We must define this relationship because we cannot continue to speak with different voices, indeed even when there are differences, we must be clear about what this differences are and the basis for such differences. This is part of the process of finding solutions.
At a strategic level, we must all agree that parole, as a legal dispensation, happens in a dynamic socio-legal paradigm. For us to best ensure the effectiveness of parole, we must have a deep appreciation of the society we function in. I was quite disturbed when an editorial in the Business Day of Friday, 11 September insinuated that the parole function effectively undermines the judiciary in that it reverses sentencing decisions made by the judiciary. Clearly there is a lot of educating that the criminal justice cluster needs to do.
It is for this reason that I impressed on the need for our sister departments to join us. Reports that I received in the regions pointed to poor attendance (in some regions) of parole board meetings by the South African Police Services (SAPS) and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJCD). We must, at some point in our deliberations, find time to reflect on this aspect and what it means to us. I do hope that representatives from these departments will give us insight into their challenges and perspectives.
Another matter of importance to me is that of ensuring that we always look at the bigger picture of our socio-political landscape as I stated earlier. One of the key issues that were raised in the instructive decisions of Polokwane which serves as the cornerstone of the ANC manifesto is that of dealing with recidivism. I want our presentations here to provide some analytical perspective on whether our decisions are contributing to the perceived recidivism or not.
In doing so we must also be able to reflect on the effectiveness of the programs we offer and which are such an important factor in the parole granting decisions we make. We must also reflect on whether we are investing enough energy, time and resources in partnerships with our various communities. I am not very convinced that we as Department of Correctional Services have a thorough appreciation of the communities we deal with. I hope I am wrong. In the same breath I must say there is much more that can be done in our victim’s empowerment programs. Without these, our broader objectives of social re-integration as outlined in our White Paper on Corrections will remain empty and unachievable dreams.
It is very important for me that we ensure that we achieve several things through this interaction. The first of these is that we should all be prepared to listen to each other without being defensive. The next matter that I want us to achieve is that of frank and honest engagement throughout our deliberations. Our engagements must be as critical as they are constructive. I also want us to emerge out of this summit with a shared understanding of our different roles and responsibilities in the parole process. Let us all remember that we deal here with matters of life and death concerning people. We cannot afford to gamble with the lives of both the offenders and the communities we release them to.
Ladies and gentlemen, on 4 September 2009 I hosted a roundtable on health care in correctional services. We discussed a broad range of what the department needs to do better and differently in order to improve health care provision. One of the issues that came out of these very engaging discussions was the matter of medical parole. I am pleased that the program does make provision for this matter to receive attention as well. I made an undertaking in my budget speech that this matter would receive attention and I intend reporting back to the Portfolio Committee and to Parliament within this financial year on this matter.
The area of medical parole is one of several policy areas that I have prioritised and I am sure it will illicit much public debate. My opinion is that such public debate, if done in good faith, can only make this policy evolution better.
On this note then ladies and gentlemen, let me thank you for your attention and wish you all the best over then next two days. There were those that felt that we should keep this interaction to a few chosen individuals but I have insisted that the legitimacy of this interaction rests on us opening it us as much a practically possible. I am confident that working together over the next few days, we can indeed do more and better improve our correctional supervision and parole board function.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
16 September 2009
