Thank you, Chairperson. Minister and colleagues, I would like to thank the Minister for a very full report, delivered in that fetching outfit of hers. There is, however, one question that I think she might like to answer at the end of her speech, and that concerns an inmate, Sifiso Zulu. Is Mr Zulu in prison, or is he in hospital? In other words, is he performing a Schabir Shaik sentence or an ordinary one? [Laughter.]
Let me start by agreeing with the hon Smith that if imprisonment has any purpose at all, it must be to rehabilitate offenders. For that reason the White Paper correctly places rehabilitation at the centre of the department's mission.
Does the department in fact rehabilitate offenders? The answer is that we simply don't know, and the department is only now starting to measure this. The evidence suggests that an overwhelming number of inmates in our prisons reoffend in a depressingly short time after their release and this suggests that rehabilitation is not, in fact, working.
This is for the following reasons. Most prisons are overcrowded; there are no sentence plans and, therefore, no rehabilitative programmes for offenders serving less than two years; there are not enough social workers, psychologists and educators; there are not enough inmates working in production workshops or on agricultural projects; and there is also high absenteeism among officials.
The consequence of that is that in many facilities it is the gangs that are in charge of the prisons after lock-up - and in many cases for the whole day as well. The result is that prisons have become the universities of real crime. Most offenders - the hon Smith is right - emerge from prison cleverer, more hardened and more vicious than when they were admitted.
This situation has hardly changed for years. It's certainly not got any better since the White Paper was adopted. The levels of overcrowding remain largely unchanged and have to be dealt with by a special remission of sentences. The levels of reoffending remain unchanged. The excuses advanced by the department about why things can't change remain unchanged.
Minister, there are many dedicated and courageous officials in your department, but there are too many others who are lazy, resistant to transforming the department and deeply corrupt. These are the officials who work with the gangs and allow dangerous offenders to escape. These are the officials who conspire to prevent the insourcing of catering services, thus forcing the department to extend the Bosasa contract. These are the officials who provide scanty and evasive answers to parliamentary questions and portfolio committee inquiries.
Unless these officials change their approach, it will not be possible to rehabilitate inmates and break the cycle of reoffending. The problem is that many officials, and the unions to which they belong, put their narrow self-interests ahead of the interests of the country. The brutal truth is that many officials do not feel a sense of accountability.
How do we turn this situation around? Most fundamentally, we need to understand that crime begins with families. Crime begins when children drop out of school and with the breakdown in the structure of society and of communities. Crime is rooted in poverty and deprivation and hopelessness.
That is why the DA government in the Western Cape has created 174 Mass Participation, Opportunity and Development Centres. This scheme allows youths to stay at certain schools after school hours to play sport or complete their homework under supervision, and to have access to social workers. That is why the Western Cape has the Chrysalis Academy, which provides intervention programmes to youth at risk. These strategies seek to prevent crime at its source.
Even with the best interventions there will still be vicious sociopaths in any society, who belong in prison. But in our case there are tens of thousands of people clogging up our correctional centres who do not belong there. These are the people convicted of petty offences, who have no fixed address, or who cannot afford bail or fines - often set at less than R1 000 - and have to serve prison time instead. The government's approach to this has been to give an across-the-board remission of sentence to 14 651 inmates. Giving a blanket remission of sentences sends out the wrong message. It trivialises the sentences of the courts, it is an insult to victims of crime and it undermines the deterrent effect of imprisonment. There are much better ways of reducing prison overcrowding and enhancing the rehabilitation of offenders.
Firstly, we need to divert as many young, nonviolent and first-time offenders out of the criminal justice system as possible. Valuable work is already being done on this, but more resources need to be made available to nongovernmental organisations to enable them to provide diversion courses on a wider and more sustained basis.
Secondly, and here I agree again with the hon Smith, we must develop a system of noncustodial sentences of community service. Such sentences should be disagreeable, so as to constitute a real deterrent. Offenders should work in hospitals, hospices and morgues; they should paint schools and clear graveyards; they should visibly pay back to society what they have taken from it.
However, magistrates will only feel confident of handing down sentences of community service if they are satisfied that the offenders will perform that service and that they will be properly supervised. This means that the roll-out of the inmate tracking devices must be accelerated - I am very pleased with what the Minister said - and that the Community Corrections Branch must be properly resourced and managed. At the moment, that is not happening.
Thirdly, we must work systematically towards the negotiation of prison transfer agreements, starting with other Southern African Development Community countries. Last year, there were nearly 5 000 sentenced foreign nationals in our prisons and a further nearly 4 000 foreign nationals were remanded in custody. By contrast, at the same time there were only 965 South Africans serving sentences in foreign states. Transferring foreign nationals to their countries of origin would save about R2,2 million per day and ease overcrowding. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
Fourthly, all inmates must either attend educational programmes or work, or preferably do both. [Interjections.] Offenders must make their own clothes, maintain their own facilities, grow their own food and, very importantly, cook it as well. Prisons only work when prisoners work, but at the moment too many prisoners lie on their beds and watch television, in between being served meals provided by companies who fleece the taxpayer. No wonder offenders reoffend. [Interjections.]
Fifthly, we must isolate first-time offenders who are serving relatively short sentences from repeat offenders and those serving longer sentences. I was pleased to hear what the Minister had to say in this regard. I know that there are some gang leaders who are able to recruit newly convicted inmates in the trucks coming from the courts. If we are serious about rehabilitation, we must try to minimise the stranglehold of the gangs to the greatest extent possible.
Sixthly, we must provide proper rehabilitative services, in partnership with the private sector and NGOs. There are serious skills shortages in the department, but there are many South Africans who are keen to volunteer their skills and we must make it easy for them to do so.
Finally - and here again I agree with the hon Smith - we need to re-examine the issue of criminal records, which very often prevent released offenders from obtaining employment and which drive up the rates of reoffending. We should look at "second-chance" legislation such as what has been enacted in the United States, which allows criminal records to be expunged if the offender adheres to parole conditions.
Minister, these are some of the ways in which we can relieve overcrowding responsibly and improve the chances of rehabilitation. We accept that some of these matters concern the cluster, but you introduced your speech by saying that you were committed to an integrated approach to dealing with these problems. We want to see you in the forefront, leading the charge, in making these things happen. I thank you. [Applause.]