South African Catholic Bishops Conference
Parliamentary Liaison Office

Submission to the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services on the Correctional Services Budget Vote April 2005

As always, the Catholic Bishops' Conference welcomes the opportunity to engage with the Corrections
Services Portfolio Committee, and to offer some brief observations on aspects of prisons policy, as out in the documents relating to Vote 20.

At the beginning of March this year, an international conference was held at the Vatican on the theme of 'the human rights of prisoners'. In his opening address, Cardinal Renato Martino stressed that being imprisoned never separates the individual from God's love and, therefore, from the human dignity that derives from and is rooted in this love.

He went on to note that the principle that "prisoners have the right to be considered as a person should animate policies and law, social institutions of prevention and prison regulations, and the work done in prisons by offices of civil society." However, he added, "there are in the world many situations of imprisonment and methods of detention that are even pre-juridical, in the sense that they do not including the most elementary care for the. rights of the person." In a message to the conference. Pope John Paul drew attention to the need to "respect of the permanent human dignity of the individual who has violated the law, so that he continues to feel part of society and committed to be reintegrated into it.

Over the past few years it has been increasingly clear that the Department of Correctional Services identified the human dignity, personal development and social reintegration of prisoners as key value' in its overall mission. No doubt these values have not always been translated into reality, but we an confident that the commitment is there. If the plans and programmes set out under this budget vote an adhered to and implemented, the human dignity of our prisoners and the security of our citizens will be significantly enhanced,

New Correctional Centres. According to the infrastructure Budget, just over RI.5billion is to be spent over the next three financial years on four new correctional centres. We understand that there is an immediate need for more prisons, without which present levels of overcrowding will continue However, the building of an additional prison is also an admission of defeat, it signals that crime is on the increase and, therefore, that the root causes of crime are still present. This impression is strengthened if we consider the projected increase in sentenced inmates, from 137000 m 2004 to 160 000 in 2007/8, an increase of nearly 17% in a three-year period. We are fast approaching the point where one out of every two hundred South Africans will be a prisoner, This cannot be allowed to continue, and simply building more prisons will do very little to address the problem, even if it is popular among those who think that 'being tough' is the answer to crime.

3. Conclusion
In rough terms it is going to cost about R48 000 to keep one prisoner in prison for the 2005/6 financial year. That figure is due to rise to about R53 000 by 2007/8 What would happen if one-tenth of this amount was devoted to additional programmes aimed at keeping people out of prison? It is not difficult to identify the individuals and groups who are most likely to end up serving a jail term: those who drop out of school early, victims of abusive and broken homes; those who have a family member, especially a father or father-figure, with a prison record; teenagers and young men who are vulnerable to the gang and drug culture in certain areas.

In the past dispensation little or no attention was paid to these members of the community, largely because they were not white, and therefore did not count. It was sufficient to abandon them to the ghetto and then build prisons to deal with them when, inevitably, they committed serious crimes. Surely the time is long past for a new attitude, with far more emphasis on intervening before people commit crimes. If this does not happen, the hard work and noble intentions of the Department of Correctional Services will be continually frustrated by growing numbers of prisoners and the need to build more and more jails.

We believe that it is possible to bring about a reduction in the numbers of our people who end up going to jail. We look forward to the day when this Committee has to approve a Correctional Services Budget that is reducing, rather than growing, by 8°/o per year.

For further information, please contact
Adv. Mike Potheir
Research Co-ordinator