to reduce crime
21 February 2007
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is hosting a two-day conference
that will bring together prosecutors and other partners in the Criminal Justice
System to discuss Restorative Justice and Community Prosecution. The South
African Criminal Justice System (CJS) has come under increasing pressure to
find innovative ways to deal with the high rates of crime, and the NPA is
currently exploring these two new models with the hope that they will make a
difference.
The Community Prosecution programme is a proactive crime-prevention measure,
that seeks to unite the NPA with relevant partners at community level to foster
creative, flexible and community driven initiatives to prevent crime and
improve public safety. After some research and consultation, this project began
in 2006 with a launch of nine pilot sites across the country. The conference
will among other things, discuss at length; preliminary findings coming out of
these pilot projects.
While traditional prosecution remains the mandate of the NPA, the community
prosecution model explores alternatives that encompass a shift from the
traditional way of prosecuting, which only deals with the aftermath of crime.
Its focus is on ensuring that a prosecutor is placed in a particular community,
to build meaningful relationships with community members and initiate crime
prevention measures. Such measures would try and deal with problems such as
vandalism, drug dealing, prostitution, illegal shebeens, public drinking and
disorderly conduct etc. In cases where such crimes have been committed,
community courts are then used to deal with these matters, thus reducing the
pressure and backlogs from the main courts.
Restorative Justice is another model we are currently exploring. Its main
focus is ensuring that crime is dealt with in a holistic manner, taking into
account the victim, perpetrator and the community. The main aim here, is to
ensure there is sufficient punishment for the crime, rehabilitation of the
offender and that the victim is somehow compensated for the effects of the
crime. This approach tries to avoid sending petty offenders to jail, where they
might become hardened criminals by employing alternative therapeutic and
rehabilitative measures on the offender. It is important to note that
Restorative Justice can be applied at all stages of the criminal justice
process and not only at the sentencing stage. It can also be used as a parallel
process and can be put to work long after the criminal trial is finalised and
the offender imprisoned.
The conference kicked off with an address by the Minister of Justice and
Constitutional Development, Bridgette Mabandla at the Gala Dinner last night.
In her address, Mabandla commended the NPA for undertaking these initiatives.
"I will be relying on the outcomes of this conference to guide me in my work,"
she said. National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Vusi Pikoli says
one of the most important challenges of the conference is that it must ensure
that all the partners in the CJS, have a common understanding around these
models and how they are to be implemented.
Guest Speakers (biographies in the programme enclosed) include:
* Judge Fred McElrea will present the New Zealand perspective
* Judge Wanda Dallas, on the United States� perspective
* Julius Lang, Director of Technical Assistance for the Centre of Court
Excellence, New York, USA - will present on the global perspective
* Mike Batley, Restorative Justice Centre
* Adv Pieter du Rand - Chief Director: Court Services at Department of Justice
and Constitutional Development
* Hema Hargovan � Lecturer: Criminology, Criminal Justice and Victimology
Issued by: National Prosecuting Authority
21 February 2007
Source: National Prosecuting Authority (http://www.npa.gov.za/)
