Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
Good Morning
Welcome to our briefing which precedes the delivery of the budget vote for Correctional Services later today. Department of Correctional Services (DCS) continues to perform its role in the criminal justice system and contribute to government’s pursuit of public safety. The National Development Plan, which is our country’s Vision 2030, requires that the criminal justice system must ensure that all people in South Africa are and feel safe. Our role is to reduce the number of remand detainees and children in correctional centres, develop meaningful programmes that would effectively rehabilitate inmates, empower them with skills to survive in the outside world, and reduce the levels of recidivism.
Corrections is an integral part of the Integrated Criminal Justice System value chain, and the fight against crime. Under the Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services, coordination of the criminal justice partners has improved and continues to impact positively on the work of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). Collaboration between criminal justice partners has resulted in continued down management of remand detainees from 47,192 in March 2012 to 42,901 in March 2015.
The number of sentenced and remand children has decreased drastically. In 2009/10 financial year, 497 children were awaiting trial while 538 children were sentenced as compared to 129 awaiting trial and 243 sentenced in 2013/14 financial year. We will build on these achievements to improve the efficacy of the country’s criminal justice system.
The current parole dispensation has been in operation for about ten years, and has lately faced a number of court challenges relating to processes, procedures and human resources constraints such as appointment of members of the Correctional Supervision and Parole Boards (CSPBs).
These developments have necessitated a review of the parole system to strengthen:
A. The recruitment and retention of highly skilled professionals to boost the capacity of the CSPBs like criminologists and psychologists.
B. Victim, and community participation and empowerment, with a more proactive stance to ensure their involvement in parole hearings.
C. Partnerships with institutions of higher learning to assist in developing a scientifically proven risk assessment tool, which is offence specific, to support decision-making processes of the CSPBs. These include Unisa and University of Johannesburg
D. Capacity building programmes for CSPBs, and introducing mandatory programmes that cover, among others, interviewing techniques, motivational interviewing skills, restorative justice and victim support services.
Positive signals are emerging when considering parolee and probationer compliance levels in South Africa. Of the current 71,623 daily average community corrections caseload, 51,634 are parolees and 18,545 are probationers whose compliance levels are at 98% and 95.92% respectively. Key to these improved levels of compliance has been the establishment of community corrections satellite offices as well as service points managed in collaboration with stakeholders. All these interventions are helping to build credibility and public trust in the system, with even greater prospects of more non-custodial sentencing by the judiciary. As a result, we anticipate phenomenal growth in community corrections caseloads, to over 107,000 by the end of the current administration.
The department will establish a dedicated National Restorative Justice Office, with a presence in every correctional centre. We will pilot this in July this year. A “Train the Trainer” programme will be conducted by the Restorative Justice for All, a UK-based international institution, in September 2015, as part of gearing Correctional Services for a full rollout of the new model of restorative justice in January 2016. Other key deliverables include a comprehensive database of victims, a national awareness programme and a victim empowerment campaign. We will engage other partners in the criminal justice system as part of the Integrated Justice System.
A cardinal indicator of success in correcting offending behaviour and rehabilitation of offenders is their successful and sustainable reintegration into their communities. In numerous interactions with former offenders, who have remained law-abiding citizens for years, the matter of criminal records and their detrimental effect on successful social reintegration has consistently been raised.
Given the fact that the 2008 amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act, which came into effect in May 2009, has effectively seen its sixth year this month, it is, perhaps, time to open a dialogue on a possible further amendment that will give more offenders a second chance in life. Our focus will remain on those who committed minor, and non-violent, crimes. The idea is not to compromise public safety, but to enhance it. In this regard, I will be convening a national consultative conference on criminal records this year.
To advance our cause of crime prevention, correctional centres will adopt a particular community and share their expertise in food production that they have developed over the years. They will teach communities modern and advanced models for food production, and expose unemployed youth to technical skills such as furniture making, motor vehicle repairs and construction. Each management area must ensure that its centres are an integral part of the Integrated Development Plans of municipalities and provincial administrations, joining “War Rooms” on poverty and under development.
I have worked together with the Minister of Health to align our efforts of addressing the country’s disease burden, which is as much a responsibility of Correctional Services as other key role-players in our society. President Jacob Zuma declared a three-year intensive campaign to eliminate TB, which is rated as the leading cause of death from natural causes in South Africa.
A joint operation of the Department of Health, Aurum, CaSiPo, TB/HIV Association, the US Centre for Disease Control, PEPFAR, the Global Fund and the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is currently underway to assess over 20 correctional centres for their suitability to effectively fight the TB scourge.
We have pledged to work in tandem with every role-player to ensure that the “90-90-90” target is achieved by screening inmates, placing them on treatment and improving the TB cure rate in our facilities within three years, building on our current TB cure rate of 83%. The strategy to fight TB includes a continued rollout of the Gene-Expert and digital x-ray machines as well as sms-printers, which deliver fast and reliable diagnosis and results to enable speedy interventions. Even on the HIV and AIDS front, there are demonstrable positive results as 79% of inmates in our care have undergone counselling and testing.
In November 2014, I established a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to revitalise and conclude the outstanding matter of political prisoners. The task team has taken stock of the scope of work, starting with the restorative justice elements of the programme, which included victim and family consultations as well as engaging NGOs and political parties. The known applicants are in different categories, and include those who have completed their sentences, those placed on parole and those still incarcerated. The work of the task team will be completed in due course and the Ministry, working with the Presidency, will accordingly provide the people of South Africa an update.
Public confidence and trust in the country’s correctional system is critical. Phase one of the installation of body cavity scanners will be rolled out this year to help eliminate the smuggling of contraband into our facilities. Kgosi Mampuru II, Johannesburg, St. Albans, Durban-Westville, Groenpunt and Barberton will be covered during the 2015/16 financial year. Further rollout will take place during the MTEF period.
From Government’s appointment of the Jali Commission of enquiry to the rating of DCS among the top three institutions of government with appropriate capacity to deal with the scourge of corruption, DCS is making notable progress on this front. The department continues to build on its achievements of the first two decades of freedom, by reaching a 95.91% conviction rate at its 49 disciplinary hearings against officials fingered for fraud and corruption.
The department dismissed 19 officials after these hearings most of which were concluded within three and six months, despite delays caused by officials who try every means to avoid facing disciplinary processes. Three of the 47 officials found guilty resigned, while 13 received sanctions including suspension without salary as alternative to dismissal and 11 received final written warnings. Twenty-four workshops on corruption prevention were concluded nationally attended by 900 officials.
A turnaround strategy is being consulted with various key players to turn the tide, covering the restructuring of the finance branch, tightening asset management, and improving internal control measures in order to resolve audit qualification on assets in 2015/16 and achieve a clean audit within this term. Expenditure on consultants has been reduced by 55%, from R170.5 million in 2009/10 to R76.8 million in 2013/14 which translates to R93.8 million reduction.
The department’s stance of ‘zero tolerance of corruption” is well known. Over the past few years, Correctional Services has been rated as the third best institution of government with appropriate working capacity to deal with the corruption.
Furthermore, more efforts will be made over this year to operationalise the policy imperatives of the White Paper on Corrections that was promulgated in 2005. The Deputy Minister will elaborate more on this aspect during his presentation later this afternoon.
In addition, Deputy Minister Thabang Makwetla will also highlight our plan and interventions to improve infrastructure roll out, increase bed capacity, and strengthen in-house project supervision thereof.
As DCS, we will continue to do everything possible to ensure that the people of South Africa are and feel safe.
Thank you.
Enquiries:
Mthunzi Mhaga
Ministerial Spokesperson
Cell: 083 641 8141
