MPs address overcrowding in prisons, parole hearings and state of correctional facilities

On Wednesday during the Budget Vote debates, Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Michael Masutha, told MPs that the prison population has decreased by 31 000 from 187 036 in 2004 to 157 170 by the end of March 2014 - a 16% reduction in ten years largely as a result of replacing Minimum sentencing with alternative sentencing.

However, the Minister admitted that South Africa is still facing the problem of overcrowding in prisons. “Part of the solution is the construction of 5 900 additional bed spaces by 2019,” Masutha said.

Speaking at a press conference before his budget vote speech, Masuthu explained that the Department of Correctional Services would be spending approximately R10 million to set up video-conferencing facilities in order for families of victims to participate in parole hearings.

While the Minister was not willing to comment on the details of the recent denial of parole for Apartheid police commander Eugene de Kok, it would not have escaped anyone’s notice that the reason given for not granting him parole is that the families of his victims had not been consulted. Presently in South Africa, victims and victims’ families are participating in less than 5% of parole hearings.

In his speech the Minister said, “In November 2014 we expect to launch a video-conferencing system in all 53 Correctional Supervision and Parole Board offices in South Africa. This innovation is intended to help reduce the barriers of participation in the parole hearings like physical distance and language barriers to our efforts of centralising victims in the determination of offender parole hearings.”

Responding to the Minister, Freedom Front Plus MP Groenewald said that applications for parole, including that of Eugene de Kok, should be judged on merit and must not be based on “political decisions. Groenewald added that De Kok “is clearly a political prisoner” and has been failed by the previous regime led by then president FW de Klerk.

James Selfe, the DA’s Shadow Minister of Correctional Services, began his speech by voicing concern that because the Departments of Justice and Correctional Services had been clustered, it would negatively impact on the work of MPs. “I worry that, because of the complexities of the work of the Justice Department, the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services will not be able to spend the time and effort required for proper oversight of the correctional centres. I fear that correctional services will become the step-child in the relationship,” Selfe said.

Selfe went on to say that of the 243 correctional centres in South Africa that accommodate approximately 156 000 inmates, many were “old and dilapidated” and did not lend themselves to rehabilitation.

“The test of any system of correctional services must be whether an inmate emerges a better person from prison than when he or she was admitted. The sad truth is that… South Africa fails that test. Our inmates emerge, on the whole, more criminalised than when they were sentenced.” Selfe argued.

He added that the re-offending rate was somewhere between 70 and 90%.

The DA’s Marius Redelinghuys said the Department spends the bulk of its budget, approximately 62% on incarceration and that “the administration of the Ministry and Department alone gets more money than the programmes for care, rehabilitation and reintegration combined.”

He added that over and above overcrowding our prisons are faced with high levels of gangsterism, violence, rape, TB, HIV and AIDS, bribery and corruption.