(Subcommittee: Correctional Services) Community Corrections: DCS briefing; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Deputy Minister's opening remarks

Mr Patekile Holomisa, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, expressed gratitude on behalf of the Ministry and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) to the Portfolio Committee for ensuring that the interactions were helpful.

He expressed the need for the resources distributed to the DCS be reflective of the influx of offenders they receive. The DCS had a higher need for resources than the other departments in the security cluster. He appreciated the Committee’s concern with the fact that they were under-resourced, and yet they had such a difficult task to do. They had looked after people who had been rejected by their families and society and had been condemned by the justice system. It was important that they received more resources through the Treasury and the Portfolio Committee.

The DCS had been excited by the electronic monitoring system in their first days of office but had been unable to move forward with it at the time. He was happy that they were now getting assistance from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) because this would alleviate the workload of the officials.

Absconders in the Community Corrections system

The Chairperson welcomed the Members of the Portfolio Committee, the DCS, which was represented by Mr Makgothi Thobakgale, Acting National Commissioner, and Ms Anna Molepo, Chief Deputy Commissioner (CDC): Community Corrections.  

Ms Molepo briefed the Committee regarding the number of absconders within Community Corrections. She outlined the strategies and interventions implemented to address the challenge and gave details of its capacity to monitor parolees and probationers.

Prior to 1991, the DCS did not perform direct tracing, and this had contributed to a higher number of absconders during this period. In 1991, correctional and parole supervision had been phased in and the physical monitoring of parolees at their residences was intensified to have control over them. Even with the new system, the number of absconders continued to rise until 1994, when there was a new release policy with strict parole measures to ensure that offenders served their full sentences. This included the tracing of absconders to restore confidence in the parole system.

The Community Corrections caseload with the number of absconders per region was identified, which showed that the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) regions had the highest numbers of both archived and active absconders.

The Department had traced 1 416 absconders between April 2021 and March 2022.

The identified ideal officer-to-offender ratio was 1:30, but the Community Corrections' offices were sitting with ratios as high as 1:94 and 1:64 in the KZN and Gauteng regions respectively.

The DCS had secured 500 vehicles which would be distributed to Community Corrections offices to help monitor and trace parolees and probationers, and to ensure that they adhered to the conditions of their parole.

See presentation for further details

Discussion

Mr J Engelbrecht (DA) said he wanted a discussion on the positive contributions that could alleviate the problems with which the community corrections officers had to deal. The biggest problem which the community corrections system faced was a lack of resources, and special attention needed to be paid to the budget, as there would be cuts and no improvement would be seen until the 2023/24 financial years. There was a direct correlation between the effectiveness of the different offices and the workload. Those with more reasonable workload expectations showed more positive results.

The development of the electronic monitoring systems was very encouraging because these tamper-proof ankle bracelets eliminated the need for using limited resources to trace the parolees manually. They were sitting with the problem that a third of the people in the corrections system were identified as absconders. This did not look good. One needed to address the credibility and confidence of the parole system. After the Department had completed the development of the monitoring system, one could think of ways and means to alleviate the extreme overpopulation that was faced in prisons to some degree. One could divide offences into different levels and allow those who posed no real threat to society to carry out their sentence on the outside, using the ankle monitoring systems while carrying out community service tasks. This would give relief to the system and its employees. This suggestion would require a look at the problematic human resources (HR) structure in the face of more coming budget cuts.

There was a problem in terms of the public perception of the parole system and the DCS which must be changed. These issues need to be addressed in a way that did not set these people up for failure. The officer versus offender ratio needed a lot of work. The electronic monitoring system might provide a short-term fix to this problem. The main problem, however, lay with the budgetary constraints, and the Department might benefit from a conversation with National Treasury.  

Ms W Newhoudt-Druchen (ANC) expressed the need to get more clarity and understanding of the community corrections department. Had there been 17 000 archived absconders since 2004? Only 1 400 out of the total 32 000 absconders had been traced. Why was there such a low number of traced absconders? Why was the vacancy rate for funded positions so incredibly high, when the funds for these positions were available? Why were the funded positions not being filled? The officer-to-offender ratio was incredibly high, yet the funded positions were not filled. The Act talks about supervision committees, but the presentation today had not referred to this. Who sat on these committees, and what were the members' expertise? Were there supervision committees for every community centre in the country? In which financial year would the 500 vehicles that National Treasury would assist the Department with, be procured?

Ms A Ramolobeng (ANC) wanted to know what the plans were to increase the posts that were funded to improve the 1:58 officer to offender ratio? On the Barberton oversight, Members had noted that the community corrections officers were the fewest in the country, and their contracts were going to expire on 31 May. What were the plans for either getting new officers or extending the existing officers’ contracts, while still appointing additional officers? The Committee had also found that there were no social workers in the Barberton Community Corrections Centre -- was this unique to this centre, or were no social workers appointed in the centres nationwide?

Ms N Maseko-Jele (ANC) raised the issue of the funded vacancies. Management should take steps to fill these vacancies to see how far this would take the Department in fixing the officer to offender ratio. How did the DCS deal with the issue of parolees being rejected by their families? This might be adding to the issue of absconders because the offenders had nowhere to go. How was the Department handling the shortage of social workers? Did the number of funded vacancies include social worker vacancies? The presentation had indicated that there were lower rates of absconders in the Eastern Cape. Why were there fewer absconders in this province? What were the mechanisms that worked there? How could they be applied to the other provinces?

Mr W Horn (DA) asked about the role of halfway houses in the community corrections department. How many were there? What lessons had the Department learnt from the resistance that the setting up of these houses had caused? Was the department able to give information on the extent to which it sees absconders in the halfway house environment?

Responses

Acting National Commissioner Thobakgale referred to the issues at the Barberton office and its limited resources, and said they were facing serious challenges and were applying the resources in the best way possible.

Concerning the filling of positions, the Department -- like all other departments -- was balancing the filling of the positions with the human resource budgeting tool that Treasury had directed had to be used. In aligning the public sector's reach with the size of the budget, there was still a need to cut the posts which existed to fit within the human resource budgeting tool. To make sure that the Department did not exceed the limited budget on the compensation of employees (CoE), Treasury had put in place a temporary hold on the filling of posts in general, but they had set aside specific posts which they would continue to fill. These posts included social workers, psychologists and criminologists. The delay in the filling of the funded posts came from them trying to balance the budget so that they did not commit to the point that they did not meet the reduction requirements. They had decided to allow levels lower than head office some space in the filling of vacant positions so that they could speed up the process while staying within the budget. They would see an improvement through this.

On the issue of the structure of the Department, they were not looking at increasing the posts. They planned to reduce the number of posts at head office and merge some roles. This would help them to distribute resources better in the offices of community corrections and corrections facilities. They had estimated a figure of around R26 million that could be released through the reduction of over-capacity at the head office and regional levels. They would be able to release these funds to the field positions where they were most needed.

The Department augmented its capacity of social workers with auxiliary social workers to make sure that the basic tasks were performed and those who were experienced could deal with more demanding tasks.

They were working with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) in processing the extension to the Barberton office. During the oversight visit, they had indicated that they would be starting the construction of a community corrections office in the Barberton management area as an own resources project. This meant that they were going to use offender labour and their own professional and project management skills within the Department. This would help to reduce the burden of renting.

On the budget and resources and their limited nature, one could only appreciate the analysis given by the Members that the Department really needed funding to put it in a position where it could perform according to its mandate.  

The DCS was controlled like every other department in the security cluster of the government. They were responsible for rehabilitating most of those who came through departments such as the South African Police Service (SAPS), who end up in the corrections system and the parole system. They had argued that their establishment could not be controlled like any other department. It should instead be controlled by an analysis of statistics on the level of crime and the content of the crimes that were committed, as well as the depth of the need to keep communities safe.

Mr Thobakgale referred to the statistics of Gauteng and KZN and said the number of absconders correlated with the statistics of the crimes that were committed in the country. In highly commercialised and industrialised areas, the level of crime was higher. The DCS worked to intensify the work they did in those areas. The number of 1 416 traced absconders had been listed as an achievement because it reflected the work they were able to do within this financial year, as they had declared the tracing of absconders a priority. They were hopeful that if they continued at this level, they would be able to bring down the number significantly. They monitored these numbers through the national coordinating committee meeting.

The DCS wanted to be very strict about reducing the number of absconders. This seeming low number of 1 416 also reflected the challenges they faced with their limited capacity. Tracing absconders were also critical, making it a point for the Department to deal with the issue of those who did not comply and those that violated their parole conditions. If they could make progress in tracing absconders, they would also be making a point to parolees so that they did not violate parole conditions. They were also creating a work ethic that was agile and alert in terms of the work that was done by parole officers.

Ms Molepo said halfway houses were used to place offenders without monitorable addresses, and those who were due for parole placement. There were three halfway houses in operation. They had partnered with non-profit organisations (NPOs) to manage halfway houses and integration of parolees and probationers who lacked support systems. To date, they had reintegrated 721 parolees and probationers back into their communities.

Responding to the question on the statistics of the archived absconders, she confirmed that there were 17 211 absconders to date.

The supervision committee referred to the committee that was responsible for monitoring and evaluating the correctional sentence plan in all community corrections offices. It was made up of monitoring officials and the unit leader, which was the head of the community corrections office. They were responsible for monitoring the implementation of correctional service plans for the parolees.

The 500 vehicles that were mentioned in the presentation were for the current 2021/22 financial year. They had already been procured and were ready for distribution.

Follow up discussion

Ms Newhoudt-Druchen asked who received the learnerships which had been mentioned in the presentation -- was it the officials, the community corrections officers or the inmates?

Mr Engelbrecht said that the data integration and the information technology (IT) system in the Department would eventually lead to the avoidance of using manpower and resources to trace people who had ended up back in the prison system or had died. He added that a discussion should be had with National Treasury in connection with the reduction of the budgets because this seemed to prevent the Department from fulfilling its constitutional mandate.

Ms Maseko-Jele reiterated her question on the issue of parolees being rejected by their families, and how the Department dealt with this.

Responses

Mr Thobakgale said that IT and data integration integrity was one of the challenges that had been identified and were being dealt with. The Department's statistics needed to be checked against those that were in the corrections facilities. They were hopeful that the modernisation of the systems would achieve the level of data integration required.

The learnerships involved those who had gone through the learnerships to become corrections officials, and who were then distributed between corrections facilities and community corrections offices.

The National Treasury issue was the Department's plea to the Members, as they hoped that this analysis would find its way to other structures. The awareness would provide the necessary support so that they could motivate National Treasury to increase the budget for correctional facilities and community corrections offices. Their next step to ensuring that they could intensify their work was to increase monitoring of expenditure and identify and investigate where unnecessary expenses were being incurred.

Ms Molepo responded to the follow-up question on rejection by families. The Department did offer community corrections reintegration programmes. Social integration started as soon as the offender had been incarcerated. Family consultations began at this point so that when the offenders were ready to be released, the family would be ready to receive them. In the case of those families who accept the parolees in the beginning but then reject them after some time, the parolee would go back to the centre because of the loss of the support system. The community corrections officials would continue to conduct the family consultations and look for other caregivers until it was confirmed that there were other families that could take the parolees, or if the family was ready to take the parolees back.

Committee minutes

The minutes for the Committee's meetings on 11 and 18 March were considered and adopted.

The meeting was adjourned.