House Chair, as we consider the Correctional Services budget vote, the ACDP believes that in addition to punitive and the deterrent role that incarceration plays, it must play a rehabilitative role so that offenders can be reintegrated into society as illustrated by Mr Hendricks today.
Correctional Services is a receiving department in the criminal justice sphere and, as crime levels increase and more offenders are prosecuted, so does the pressure on Correctional Services.
This has resulted in severe overcrowding at many of the centres that affects rehabilitation. Ineffective rehabilitation contributes to reoffending. It also places the safety and security of both inmates and officials at risk.
The ACDP has long supported restorative justice principles where the offender is not a danger to society such as in property crimes. In such cases, compensation can be paid to victims instead of incarceration based on the principle of restitution. Offenders can then be rehabilitated to lead responsible lives as opposed to imprisonment where offenders are often raped and abused into a lifetime of crime.
Another way of addressing overcrowding is to reduce the number of awaiting trial detainees as we’ve said many times before. Many of these are not guilty of the crimes they are charged with. The challenge is, of course, severe delays in the criminal justice system where criminal trials take years to finalise—this contributing to overcrowding. Speeoffenderdier finalisation of trials will go a long way to solve this problem.
The ACDP is also concerned about the measures, including the bail protocol—section 49G of the Correctional Services Act and section 631 and 63A of the Criminal Procedure Act—which we believe are not being used optimally.
Many such awaiting trial detainees have less than R300 bail but cannot even afford that amount, while it costs R460 per person per day to incarcerate those persons. We once found a remand detainee with a bail of R100. This does not make sense, and we support the independent pilot bail project to resolve this issue.
And, of course, bail is beyond the control of the Minister or Commissioner and is in the hands of the judiciary, and we strongly recommend discussions in this regard.
We also believe that a way of reducing overcrowding is to deport foreign nationals who are sentenced here to serve their sentences in home countries. We found Mr Wessels’ recommendations to amend section 73 of the Correctional Services Act as well as the Criminal Procedure Act to allow judges and magistrates to deport sentenced foreigners helpful in this regard. These amendments require urgent attention, possibly even a committee bill to expedite these amendments.
Thank you Honourable Chair.
