Chairperson, hon Tolo, both inmates were transferred immediately from eMthonjeni Youth Centre in Baviaanspoort to C-Max facility in Pretoria. A case of rape, murder and assault was opened against both inmates.
The reply to the second part of the question is that the case against one of the inmates was withdrawn by the National Prosecuting Authority owing to a lack of evidence. The other inmate will appear in the High Court in August this year. We do know what is going to happen there. If he gets sentenced, we will move him to Kokstad super C-Max.
Ke a leboga Modulasetulo. Mohlomphegi Tona ya Ditirelo t?a Tshokollo ya Bagolegwa, karabo ya gago e tloge e re thabi?a. Pot?i?o ke gore, ka ge bothata bjo bo diregile ngwagolola, elego ka 2005, a e ka ba le kopane le bothata kae moo le t?erego nako go tla go re sedimo?a bjalo ka Palamente goba set?haba? (Translation of Sepedi paragraph follows.)
[Bishop L J TOLO: Thank you, Chairperson. The hon Minister of Correctional Services, we are pleased with your response. But the question is: What was the problem that it took you so long to bring the response to Parliament or to the public because the problem occurred back in 2005?]
I am sorry, Chairperson, the Minister of Finance is really heckling me today. He wants to speak on my behalf. I am not sure why I deserve this attention from him but he seems to like me too much today.
Bishop Tolo, we haven't had a chance to come back to the portfolio committee to report on this particular case. But we have to work with other cases that you have asked us, as the portfolio committee, to work on. This particular case was one of the most painful, because I had to attend to it that Sunday afternoon. We have been following this up with the National Prosecuting Authority. We have been saying to them: "Please, speed up the case so that it can be closed and we can move on and look at other centres."
What happened there is that one of those two inmates actually did us a disservice by attacking those nurses - people who were there to assist inmates and to make sure that they get the necessary medical attention. That has caused us quite a lot of no good. But I hope that the officials, wherever they are in all 243 centres in the country, will always be vigilant when they work in a correctional centre, because they are working with people who can do anything at any given time.
I am also appealing to offenders, whether they belong to numbers or gangsters, not to do that, because at the end of the day they are causing a problem for themselves with further charges. Also, these are some of the offenders, I think, we are not naive enough to believe will change. Some of them will not change; they will just continue doing the kinds of things that they are doing. We are appealing to offenders to really try their best to participate in programmes and not get involved in all these criminal activities.
Chairperson, I should like to thank the hon Minister for his reply. I am sure that he appreciates that female officials who work particularly in high security centres are uniquely vulnerable in that environment. It is very often said by male officials that they have to look after themselves and also after their female colleagues in those circumstances. So, what I would like to know is what additional steps the Minister is contemplating to improve security, particularly for female staff working in correctional centres? Specifically, if those female officials were in any way attacked, what assistance was given to them to recover from the trauma that they suffered?
Chairperson, we do risk-profiling of offenders, whether they are awaiting trial or they are sentenced offenders. As they come into our centres, we have what we call the offender rehabilitation path, where we check on all the sentences and everything that they have been sent to us for and make sure that we classify them correctly. That is the first thing. We have to classify them correctly and make sure that they are in a maximum security centre if they need to go there.
The second thing is that we have an anti-gang strategy that we are employing to try and crush the gangs which are operating in our prisons. That is something that we are all geared to with my officials, to make sure that we clean up on those. But those gangsters who don't seem to want to change or are totally cheeky and silly, we put aside and get officials who can look after them, because we cannot change them.
We are also declassifying certain maximum centres so that we know how much danger people will be exposed to in that maximum centre, and how many females will we put in there. My heart still goes out to those nurses, hon member. We have given their families support. There is also a settlement that we have reached with them. But, together with all the other officials, I take my hat off to those brave men and women who work under these difficult circumstances in our prisons.
Chairperson, hon Minister, these criminals who committed these crimes in prisons had already been sentenced and had been told whatever sentence they had to serve. Now that they have committed new crimes, what further sentence will you bestow on these people?
MaMkhize, when offenders that are sentenced do commit these further offences, we do not take the law into our own hands. If there has been a criminal offence that has been committed, we let the police know and they have to go through the courts again to receive their further sentences for that.
Therefore, it is not up to us to sentence them; we do not give sentences. It is the duty of the judiciary and magistrates to do that, and we respect them for that. But, at least, we know that once they get further charges it adds to the years that they still have to stay in prison.
And we don't make prison life very, very comfortable for all prisoners that are inside. We are trying our best to make sure that privileges are limited. Once you commit a crime, we try to use the incentive-based system so that, through incentives, you go up from being a phase-1 offender to another phase. We are trying to encourage them to get out of prison rather than staying in prison.
Chairperson, can the hon Minister tell us what example is made of these people? Besides the fact that they are going to be tried, etc, what example is made of people who do things like these to members of staff that are assisting them in the prison system? How do other inmates get to know what you are going to do about such a situation?
Hon Seaton, you really are putting me in trouble now. But I do know for a fact that, first of all, we get the police to charge them. Secondly, we ask the judge - because we have the Inspecting Judge - if this particular offender who has created this havoc can be isolated. We can't just isolate them without getting that permission.
Also, concerning the issue of putting them in handcuffs and in footcuffs, we have to ask the judge. I don't want a situation where my members take the law into their own hands. That's not what we want. But we want to make sure that we send a strong message to offenders that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated at all.
Therefore, they go through the courts and get sentenced and we send them to wherever we have to send them. But there should be no assault from anybody for whatever crime has been committed; we can't afford that. We've to run these prisons in a much more humane way, as much as we can.