Automatic Fingerprinting Identification System: briefing

Meeting report

CORRECTIONAL SERVICES PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE

Inmate Tracking System Project
Integrated Justice System Fingerprint Process

SUMMARY
The Committee was told that the automated fingerprint system would be used in the integrated justice system consisting of the Department of Correctional Services, Social Development, Safety and Security, and Justice. This system will allow the Department to track prisoners electronically without using the old manual system. This system is meant for verification primarily within the processes of admission, releases and releases to court, roll calls, visitations as well as movement management of prisoners where their identification is required. Focussing on rehabilitation during the time of imprisonment was also emphasised.

MINUTES
Presentation by Minister Ben Skosana
Ben Skosana: Minister of Correctional Services, told the Committee that the integrated criminal justice system approach, envisaged in terms of the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), has necessitated a review of the strategic role played by correctional services in crime prevention. Their main business function is to incorporate rehabilitation as opposed to merely providing safe custody. The critical role of correctional services is therefore to assist in significantly reducing recidivism through its rehabilitation programs and to focus on restorative justice. The Ministry would be joining the world in the commemoration and celebration of the restorative justice week during 18 -25 November 2001. This will culminate in a launch of the "restorative justice programme" on 26 November 2001. He invited everybody to join in this historic event.

Presentation by Mr MA Esmeraldo
Mr Esmeraldo: Chief Deputy Commissioner: Operational Support, said the automated fingerprint system has been adopted in the Departments of Correctional Services, Justice, Safety and Security and Social Development. He explained that fingerprint biometrics verification is an automated technology designed to replace the manual verification systems used throughout the criminal justice process. Within the Department of Correctional Services, fingerprint biometrics verification will primarily be used within the processes of admissions, releases, releases to court, roll calls, and visitations, as well as any movement management of prisoners where their identification is required. It is a study of measurable biological characteristics, referring to authentication techniques that rely on measurable physical characteristics that can be automatically checked.

Presentation by Ms Jabu Sishuba
Ms J Sishuba said they are trying to strike a balance between rehabilitation and safe custody. To be effective rehabilitation must incorporate all the aspects of prisoner's life. The prisoners themselves must assume responsibility for their lives under the guidance of a skilled staff. Rehabilitation creates in the offender the capacity for social participation and responsibility, it also offers opportunities that would make crime free society a practical option. They also believe that it will create an environment that allows for self-discipline, social independence, ongoing family and community support as well as reintegration into the society. Ms Sishuba added that they have gone out of their way to ask prisoners as well as the community on what do they expect out of rehabilitation.

DISCUSSION
An ANC member asked whether the inmate tracking system would be used by the Departments of Correctional Services, Social Development, Police, Justice and whether this would form part of the holistic approach that Mr Esmeraldo mentioned earlier. How is the tendering process of the pilot projects going to work?

Mr Esmeraldo explained that this is an integrated justice system project comprising the four departments. In terms of the biometrics technology there is an agreement that this technology would be used in all the departments. It will be put in the database once and the departments would be able to interact with the database in terms of getting the fingerprints as well as photos.

The project on inmate tracking will be tested in a pilot project within Correctional Services. The police and the Department of Social Development would be part of the assessment team. It would then be installed at police stations where the prisoners are kept and the security care centres of the Department of Social Development.

Mr D Bloem (ANC) said rehabilitation must begin somewhere, it should first start at the warders and the staff because they need to be rehabilitated themselves. Recently two prisoners were found with cell phones as well as a big amount of money and an ATM card. The question is who gave those prisoners cell phones and money?

Ms Sishuba agreed that officials also need to be rehabilitated and the Department has not really looked into this area. She said it is important as well to look at the effect of working in prison on prison officials. During her visits to some prisons she noticed that prisoners do not respect the warders.

She said it is also important to acknowledge that maybe 60% of their current staff worked in the Department before 1994 when the situation in prison was very hostile. Now the officials are expected to change suddenly without the Department putting measures in place to assist them in changing from the old paradigm. She said the Department is trying to introduce an employee assistance programme that is aimed at orientating old staff members to the new paradigm. This is about attitude change and adjusting to the new environment.

Another problem could be the salary of officials. Some prisoners are millionaires and a staff member earning a low salary can easily be tempted. With respect to cell phones she suggested that there be a rule disallowing cell phones in prisons. The Department should also consider incentives to make sure that people are not tempted.

Mr A Mthi, the newly appointed commissioner confirmed that incidents did take place, having also been informed by the provincial commissioner whilst he was in the Free State. One inmate had a cell phone and a sum of one thousand rands and an ATM slip for that day, which shows that he drew money on the same day. This inmate has not gone outside on this day and he had no visitor, so it was quite obvious that this was an inside job. He told the Committee that the matter is under investigation and they have adopted a system of suspension without pay and zero tolerance to any official found involved in these actions.

Mr S Swart (ACDP) commended the Minister and the Department on their commitment on restorative justice and added that his party stands very strongly on the restorative justice approach. The Justice Portfolio Committee has passed the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill, which is aimed at addressing the problems in prisons such as overcrowding.

Mr M Mzizi (IFP) asked what would happen to the automated fingerprints system if the computers are offline on a particular when prisoners have to go to court, how are the prisoners going to be identified. Is there any mechanism in place for such a situation?

Mr Esmeraldo said first of all they can use the manual system if there is a power failure. Secondly the Department has stand-by generators in all the prisons that could work for two hours in case of an electricity failure.

Mr Mzizi asked how the Department rehabilitates hardened criminals.

Ms Sishuba replied that this is a specialised field, one needs to understand criminality and to address the causal factors to be able to work in this area. Literature says there is no criminal who has not lost self-respect, so it is important to look at how to restore that self-respect. Highly trained people are needed to do that. She made an example of a notorious Mr Mofokeng who served 32 years and is amongst the few hardened criminals of the sixties who have been rehabilitated. People like Mr Mofokeng are utilised in the departmental workshops to educate about the dangers of being a criminal. The community should also assist the Department in strengthening the rehabilitation programme.

The meeting was adjourned.

Appendix 1:
PRESENTATION BY THE MINISTER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES,
MR BEN M SKOSANA MP

TO THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON CORRECTIONAL SERVICES
ON REHABILITATION AND THE AUTOMATED FINGER PRINTING SYSTEM
Cape Town, 25 October 2001

Chairperson
Honourable Members

I wish to thank the Chairperson and Honourable Members for affording me the opportunity to outline my vision on how, as Correctional Services, we intend to improve our service delivery and continue to make a meaningful contribution towards meeting the challenges confronting the criminal justice system.

To address the need of the Committee, I will afford officials of the Department the opportunity to appraise you on current developments relating to our efforts to enhance our rehabilitation programmes and to introduce an Automated Finger Printing System as part of the Integrated Justice System Project (IJS) to improve the overall efficiency of the criminal justice system.

As a Department, we are currently faced with tremendous opportunities to set ourselves on a radically new course that will make a significant impact on the fight against crime in our country.

The integrated criminal justice system approach envisaged in terms of the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) has necessitated a review of the strategic role played by Correctional Services in crime prevention. We now understand our main business function to incorporate rehabilitation as opposed to merely providing safe custody. In this regard, the critical role of Correctional Services is therefore to assist in significantly reducing recidivism through its rehabilitation programmes and focus on Restorative Justice.

We will be joining the world in the commemoration and celebration of the Restorative Justice Week during 18-25 November 2001. This will culminate in a launch of the "Restorative Justice Programme" in Correctional Service on 26 November 2001. We invite everybody to join us in this historic event.

The department will involve the community and the victims of crime in the rehabilitation process and encourage everyone's participation in the enhancement of our rehabilitation programmes. It will develop and implement strategies for restoring relationships between the perpetrators of crime and their victims as well as with the community, in line with the principles of "restorative justice". This approach is meant to involve all the parties in the healing and restoration process before mediation can take place.

Thus, the focus is now on transforming our prisons from being so-called "universities of crime" into effective rehabilitation centres that produce individuals who are trained in market-related skills and capable of successful re-integration into our communities as law-abiding citizens.

Correctional Services will therefore now put rehabilitation at the centre of all its activities. We have as a result identified the enhancement of rehabilitation programmes as the key fundamental starting point in implementing this major policy shift.

We have identified Unit Management as the missing ingredient in the South African prison reform process. The implementation of Unit Management is already taking place in 40 of our 235 prisons country wide as a pilot project. We have set ourselves a target of implementing Unit Management in 70% of our prisons by 2005. However, all new facilities will purposefully be designed to be operated on the principles of Unit Management.

As a result, new prison design concepts, referred to internationally as "New Generation" designs, have been introduced in corrections so as to achieve the full benefits of Unit Management.

The New Generation prison concept is therefore an architectural solution to meet the objectives of Unit Management. Therefore, the New Generation design concept is based upon smaller prisoner housing units grouped together in clusters that ensure safe custody and control while enabling a multi-skilled unit staff to be actively involved in rehabilitation programmes and the direct supervision of inmates.

The smaller prisoner group size allows the unit officers to work more closely with the prisoner to assist him/her in their rehabilitative efforts. Furthermore, the unit officers are in a position to closely monitor the prisoner's progress and deal with any unexpected or potential problem areas that the prisoner could face during his/her rehabilitation process.

The ability to create world-class low cost and low maintenance New Generation facilities is a goal that we have recently recognised must be central to our building programme as it is clear that at the current cost of construction we will never be able to afford the resources needed to catch up with our growing prisoner population to eliminate the massive overcrowding that prevents us from effectively implementing rehabilitation programmes and incarcerating offenders under humane conditions.

The current APOPS projects have not yet proven whether they would be viable options to consider in future financing and operation of prisons. The partnership is still at its infancy stage as the Nangaung Prison only took a percentage of its bed capacity when it opened in July 2001. The Kutama-Senthumule Prison near Louis Trichardt is still under construction; therefore not much can be said about its success in dealing with rehabilitation. We are however hopeful that these prisons will serve the purpose for which they were established.

Overcrowding in prisons remains a major threat to the stability and proper functioning of the criminal justice system. The effects of over-crowding are evident on the dilapidating structures, health conditions of prisoners and staff morale. However, we have decided as a Department that there will be a reprioritisation of capital funds to focus on the renovation and maintenance of major centres severely affected by overcrowding. A task team has been established to focus on health conditions in prisons such as Pollsmoor.

As the Department on the receiving end of this problem facing the criminal justice system, we are constantly searching for practical and durable solutions to overcome it.

The Department's recent strategic planning initiatives have developed a two-pronged strategy of expansion and reduction to deal with overcrowding, which will be implemented in the forthcoming Medium Term Expenditure Framework period.

In terms of the expansion strategy, we intend to dramatically increase the accommodation capacity of the system by an additional 30 000 beds. This will be achieved by building low life-cycle-cost prison facilities for medium and low risk prisoner categories, who constitute the majority of the country's prison population. These facilities will be strategically situated around the country in the areas most affected by overcrowding. This building programme will be supported by the development of facility design prototypes based on economical and practical design solutions, which take into account our unique situation as a developing country.

Pursuant to the Cabinet resolution of the Cabinet Lekgotla of 22 and 23 January 2001, requiring departments to intensify the fight against all manifestations of corruption in the Public Service, we intend to establish an independent investigative unit for the Department of Correctional Services.

The President has established a Judicial Commission of Enquiry led by Judge Jali to investigate allegations of mal-administration, crime and corruption in prisons with a specific focus on the big centres such as Durban-Westville, Ncome, Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg, Leeuwkop, St Albans an Pollsmoor. The Commission is due to start with its investigations soon as the management of the department recently had a meeting with the Secretariat of the Commission.

It is also our intention to instill a culture of good governance within the Department in line with the objectives of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999, 50 as to ensure the cost-effective utilisation of resources. In order to achieve this objective, we will be relying on the following proactive strategies:


· The development of a "risk management" and "fraud prevention" plan.

· Conducting regular audits to evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of internal controls.

· The development and implementation of an integrated annually based priority-driven audit and inspection monitoring schedule based on the newly developed departmental Fraud Prevention Plan.

· Building the necessary capacity and skills levels in the internal audit and inspectorate components.

We are also not heedless of our responsibilities as a state department to contribute meaningfully to the Government's poverty alleviation and rural development efforts. We intend to deploy prisoner-generated goods and services, including prison labour, for poverty and disaster relief and rural development. The establishment of formal links with non-governmental and community based organisations involved in poverty alleviation for the distribution of prisoner-generated goods and services will form a significant part of our participation.

Finally, we will also be embarking on a formal policy-drafting exercise to develop a Green Paper on Correctional Services.

The Green Paper process will provide us a holistic approach towards policy formulation, which is much needed in the transformation of our correctional system. It will be inspired by practical considerations rather than theory alone and will deliver a framework capable of being transformed into administrative practices supported by relevant structures whilst operating within existing budgetary and human resources constraints and other inherent limitations.

The Green Paper will lead to the drafting of a White Paper on Correctional Services which must respond to the present needs and circumstances of the Department whilst being sufficiently durable and long-term focused to justify the financial and administrative cost of establishing, maintaining and implementing any structures or legislation set in place in its pursuance. This process was delayed by the change of leadership in the Department, however I am pleased to announce that Commissioner Mti has already established a team to take this process forward.

The implementation of these strategies will be supported by an intensive human resource development programme to improve the skills levels of our front-line staff. The successful implementation of these strategies also presupposes the existence of an effective performance evaluation system to ensure the desired outputs by ensuring that managers are properly held accountable.

God bless you. I thank you.