Hon Chairperson, the plough-back campaign has many successful events and projects which have enhanced the development aspirations of local communities. This has brought about closer relations between offenders, victims and communities, thereby facilitating the healing process that the programmes, in part, aim to achieve.
The following programmes, for example, have been introduced as a means to enhance social reintegration of offenders.
Firstly, with the Adopt-a-School programme, the different skills of offenders are being utilised in disadvantaged communities to renovate dilapidated schools, clean schoolyards and establish food gardens.
Secondly, in the cleaning campaigns, the offenders are used to clean community parks, buildings and graveyards without any compensation. School repairs and cleaning programmes are undertaken by parolees, probationers and ex-offenders in most of the regions in the country.
In the Western Cape Region, parolees and ex-offenders have cleaned and repaired schools in Cape Town, namely in the West Bank area and in the Southern Cape in George and Mossel Bay areas.
Thirdly, in building campaigns offenders were utilised to build houses for the victims of crime. This has led to restoration, reparation and acceptance of offenders by victims in many of these instances.
Fourthly, in campaigns for employability of offenders, prospective employers were lobbied to employ parolees and probationers, despite their criminal records and the stigmatisation that follows as a result of past offenders' behaviour and the stigma that is associated with it.
Lastly, in the school-tours campaign, the offenders, by becoming ambassadors against crime, are used to motivate pupils to abstain from committing crimes. These tours expose pupils to the environment of correctional centres which serve as a deterrent to crime. Thank you.