PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON CORRECTIONAL SERVICES UPDATE SINCE 2003-06-10
Mr Mashimbye may recall calling the overcrowding "a potentially explosive situation". That has been averted, but we must not stop. We should not rest until we are down to about 120 000 prisoners in all whilst our eventual aim should be half that number. (120 000 on a population of 45m means 2.6 prisoners per 1 000 inhabitants – still among the worst countries in the world. More than three-fifths of countries worldwide have rates below 1.5 per 1 000).
For that thanks are due to:
The Minister of Correctional Services;
Members of Parliament and of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services;
The Media – TV, radio, articles;
The National Council on Correctional Services;
Judges’ visits to prisons;
Inspectors’ visits;
Regional Co-ordinators and Independent Prison Visitors (IPVs)
2.2 Actions taken by:
The Cabinet in approving the earlier release on parole of 7 121 prisoners;
The National Director of Public Prosecutions by instructing prosecutors to review cases of non-affordable bail; and prosecutors throughout the country for doing so;
Magistrates in reducing bail and imposing affordable bail; also making more use of alternatives to incarceration in sentencing; (The Lower Court Management Committee who is the representative of the Regional Court Presidents and Chief Magistrates has established a Sub-Committee: Awaiting Trial Prisoners. Its main objective is to reduce the number of awaiting trial prisoners from the then 58 528 to 20 000.)
Prosecutors and Attorneys including the public defenders of the Legal Aid Board promoting plea bargaining;
SAPS by reducing unnecessary arrests and expediting investigations and trials;
Heads of Prison by closer co-operation with SAPS, prosecutors and magistrates especially through the Justice Forums;
DCS’ task team on reducing overcrowding with interdepartmental membership.
3.1 An optimistic forecast is warranted based on the improvement of the last few months and the reasons behind such improvement. Continued awareness of the miseries associated with overcrowding and the practical steps that can be taken to combat it, is required. (See annexures pp.7 -11).
3.2 Releases of selected ATs unable to pay their bail as well as a
general amnesty of certain categories of prisoners next year, are
still on the cards.
Remedying the situation by amending the legislation will probably have to wait until later. In the mean time judges and magistrates can be urged to be mindful of the consequences and be especially careful in applying the legislation.
4. Terminally ill prisoners:
There has been a rapid escalation in the number of natural deaths in prison.
During 1995 the natural death rate among prisoners was 1.65
deaths per 1 000 prisoners, last year it was 7.75 deaths per 1 000
prisoners.
The continued escalation in natural deaths at the current rate of 34%
per annum will mean that about 15 000 prisoners could die in the
next 5 years.
The current early release policy for terminally ill prisoners will have to be reconsidered. Although legislation does provide for the early release of terminally ill sentenced prisoners, it excludes unsentenced prisoners.
The application of this option of early release on parole has decreased. In 1996 about 20% of terminally ill prisoners were released compared to the only about 6% last year. Last year was however considerably better than the year before.
See graph in annexure p.12
Encouragement to release more terminally ill prisoners is called for.
(The successful application of Colin Stanfield in the Cape High Court
on 4 August 2003 might assist in that regard).
5. Profile of our prisoners:
60% of our prisoners are under the age of 30 years. Almost 90% are
under the age of 40 years.
See pie chart annexure p.13
Compare that to our unemployment statistics (September 2002) which
show the following:
Males 15 – 24 years – 15.1 % ( 731 000) of the unemployed
25 – 34 years – 16.2% (781 000) of the unemployed
35 – 44 years – 7.1 % (345 000) of the unemployed
38.4%
Should we not invest more in job creation rather than in more
Incarceration ?
6. IPVs
6.1 The new pay scale, up from R38.65 per hour (as it has been since 1999) to R50.41 per hour has been implemented.
6.2 Nominations have been called for in the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal and the Free State for the appointment of Independent Prison Visitors to replace the current ones who have come to the end of their two years’ fixed term contract. In the process we have facilitated 74 Public Meetings and have consulted with about 4 131 members of the public including community organisations.
7. Dealing with complaints from prisoners
As per the request of the Portfolio Committee we have implemented the revised categories of complaints from prisoners with effect from 1 July 2003. A statistical analysis of the number and nature of complaints received by our IPVs is making it easier for us to identify problem areas and direct our limited resource to those areas. From the attached list page 14 members will see that the IPVs received 19 236 complaints from prisoners during this period. The problem areas seem to be complaints about transfers followed by complaints about health care, complaints about appeals and lack of contact with families. The prisons from which the most complaints within these categories were received are also listed.
8. Implementation of Plea Bargaining.
8.1 Subsequent to the visit of the members of the Portfolio Committee to Johannesburg Medium A prison we can report a drastic reduction in
the prison total at the said prison. From 8 048 in April 2003 to 7 085 on 15 September 2003. This was made possible by the release of prisoners with a bail of R1000.00 and less by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the initiative taken by the Senior Prosecutor at the Soweto Court in implementation of Plea Bargaining. Since 11 August 2003 they have successfully dealt with 113 cases through plea bargaining. This is a "saving" of about 5 months in court time.