KHULISA SUBMISSION ON DCS BUDGET VOTE

 

INTRODUCTION

Khulisa is a non-profit organisation, established in 1997. The organisation functions nationally, has service points in five provinces and is expanding internationally. Khulisa believes that the key to a healthy South Africa lies in education, training and personal development that builds responsibility and discourages harmful behaviour.

 

Khulisa tackles crime holistically, working at all levels of the crime cycle – preventing crime, diverting youth from the criminal justice system, providing alternatives to imprisonment, fostering personal transformation for those who are in prison, and assisting with their transition back to society. Khulisa helps families and communities support victims who need healing and offenders who want to make amends.

 

Our organisation was established in 1997 when we commenced with the research and development of our behaviour change programmes at Leeuwkop Juvenile Correctional Facility in Johannesburg. The original base programme has been developed over the intervening years and has a documented high rate of success in terms of reducing recidivism amongst participants.

 

Although we have been invited to address the Portfolio Committee before, we have not previously been invited to comment on the department’s budget and for this privilege we extend our gratitude.

 

FORWARD BY THE HONOURABLE MINISTER

The Honourable Minister demonstrates a complete understanding of the needs within the Department for financial control and budgetary planning associated with the Department’s strategy planning.

 

Khulisa believes it provides a wealth of potential good news stories for the Department to embroider into its communication campaign. We take the liberty at this stage of drawing the Honourable Minister’s attention to our 10th anniversary celebrations, which we anticipate to be taking place at Leeuwkop Prison in September of this year. A proposal has already been submitted requesting permission to broadcast the event via satellite to gatherings of business people and community members, both locally and internationally.  This occasion will be used to highlight the results achieved during our period of delivery and will include many of the young founder members of our original programme, all of whom are now successful people.

 

As a result of the multiple restorative justice programmes that Khulisa has developed, many in partnership with various correctional facilities on a national level, our organisation has been nominated for an international restorative justice award.  We are currently in discussion to formerly introduce our rehabilitation programmes developed here to correctional facilities in both the UK and Cambodia and anticipate further extending our geographic scope to several countries in southern Africa.

 

The improvement of the Department’s public image through an effective communication campaign will not only help to align the public at large with the policies of the Department, but will also help fellow government departments, business and the community to understand both the importance and value of effective rehabilitation and reintegration.

 

PROGRAMME PERFORMANCE

The proposed Programme Performance Plan 2007/8 – 2011/12 is an extremely comprehensive document and meeting its goals on every count would be a tremendous success. One can’t help being skeptical that this can occur on all fronts but, in comparing this document with its forerunner, the Strategic Plan for 2004/5 – 2006/7, it is abundantly clear, even from the amount of detail in the plan, that the department has moved forward in leaps and bounds in terms of understanding and getting to grips with its problems and responsibilities across the board.

 

We wish the Honourable Minister and all in the Department every success in undertaking this ambitious programme and hold ourselves available to participate (and we confirm our true desire to participate) in whatever role the Department may require.

 

THE BUDGET

In Khulisa we have a strong “corporate” view of life. We run our organisation very much as a business and our approach to all things (with some small exceptions) is therefore from a business aspect.

 

Our first reaction to the overall budget, therefore, can be summed up in three words. “it’s not enough”.

 

The Department’s expenditure in the 2002/3 fiscal year was recorded as R7,027 billion.  Purely on an inflationary basis, expenditure five years later could be expected to be in the order of R9,25 billion. Yet the Department has undertaken major transformation in this period. Whilst not in name, in deed it has firmly set itself on the road to become a Department of Correctional Services, not a prisons service, and has done so with an average increase in its budget of only 3% per annum above inflation.

 

It is obvious to all that the desired performance cannot be achieved without the provision of additional services, in one form or another, and that these must involve additional costs. In any organisation, especially one as diverse and extensive as the Department, there will be inefficiencies in terms of cost and it can be seen that the Department is determined to deal with these and, indeed, is doing so (the stamping out of corruption in the Medical Aid Scheme is but one example) and perhaps this will contribute to alleviation of additional costs. Whether, however, it is fair or reasonable, even realistic, to expect that effective change can be wrought without a significant change in cost, needs some consideration.

 

As relatively uninformed outsiders, we would expect that such additional costs might be incurred in the following areas:

 

1.                   Inmate management – the implementation of Sentence Planning etc cannot hope to be implemented successfully without proper staffing, both in terms of quality and quantity as well as technology (integrated computer and data systems).

2.                   Change of Mindset – the change from a punitive regime to a rehabilitative regime must involve at least additional staff development costs, if not a certain amount of hiring and firing.

3.                   Initiatives and Activities – the importing of the initiatives and activities necessary to create a rehabilitative environment, even if these are undertaken by DCS staff, (which should not, in our view, be an immediate objective) will involve additional staff, training and development. NGO’s like Khulisa are both willing and able to assist the DCS in its rehabilitation efforts, but the Department must be prepared to assist with funding.

4.                   Unit Management – the whole philosophy of a rehabilitative environment requires a change in management structure in order to be successfully implemented and overseen. The introduction of Unit Management is one way, and currently the chosen way, to achieve this.

5.                   Facilities – to implement Unit Management may involve some restructuring of facilities to ease its passage but the introduction of rehabilitative activities, programmes and other initiatives will definitely require space that simply is not available in most establishments, particularly in view of the still extensive overcrowding. Imaginative use of, for instance, housing on correctional premises could help but costs will be incurred.

6.                   Post release – Community involvement in the rehabilitation/reintegration process is generally being recognized as a necessity to achieve reductions in recidivism and the subsequent reductions in crime. The cost of a successful implementation in this area is potentially very high and, as we understand it, will remain the responsibility of the Department.

 

These are just some of the obvious areas of increased costs apparent to us. The Departments overall budgets and the increases therein, as forecast, are only slightly more than forecast inflation. One cannot but ask the question, therefore, “is the Department, doing itself a huge injustice by publishing a plan that, realistically, cannot successfully be achieved within its budget?”

 

By reference to Page 378, we are able to determine where the Department sees its additional expenditure occurring:-

Programme 1 - Administration

One of the disappointing aspects, as it would be with any organisation, is to note an increase in admin costs slightly ahead of being proportional to increase in “turnover”. The main reason for this, it seems is increased information technology. This will surely benefit all areas of the Department and, in this technological age, expenditure in this area must be a forgivable sin, especially within the UN context and integrating the JCPS data bases for improved crime combat.

 

Programme 2 - Security

Security remains roughly in line with inflation and is an area outside our field of expertise. Accordingly, we have no comment other than to endorse the obvious – that it remains a main mandate of the Department.

 

Programme 3

Corrections – this is the heading under which the Department includes costs associated with Case Management and other White Paper issues. It is, therefore, an area in which substantial cost increase would be anticipated.

 

It is interesting to note, however, that the cost increases displayed are largely in the area of employment, with relatively minor increases, except for the current year (R150m), in “Goods and Services”. This latter is not explained.

 

Item C1.2.2 of the Performance Plan indicates the “implementation of quality assured correctional programmes by internal and external service providers”, to 23%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the offender population, year by year. Perhaps this R150m increase relates to these service providers (there would seem to be no other place for such provision)? If so then it is interesting to note that the Department does not foresee a further cost increase proportional to the anticipated increase in participants over the period. Should it be that this amount has been included for external service providers this would represent a major step forward that will bear fruit in terms of the White Paper.

 

One further point of interest is that expenditure for “programmes for implementing the White Paper” (P383) is attributed to inventory, which in itself is an interesting accounting procedure, and may represent an expenditure of some R50m over the medium term. This is an item in which we would obviously have great interest.

 

Programme 4 - Care

The budget here reflects the relatively small increase in services anticipated in section D 1.3 of the Performance Plan, which might be considered wholly inadequate in terms of the White Paper. In particular we note that the number of planned Social Work Sessions does not even allow for one single session per inmate per annum, for the foreseeable future. The critical shortage of social workers in DCS hampers its rehabilitation efforts. We believe consideration should be given to the creation of many more social workers posts and/or posts for auxiliary sole workers.

 

A further concern is the lack of additional provision for HIV/AIDS victims. The Department’s attention to awareness and education is to be commended but we would have some concern that the Department is going to be faced with additional costs, of a largely medical nature but perhaps impinging on accommodation considerations, since the cost effects of the pandemic are still on the increase.

 

Programme 5 - Development

This area should surely be seen as an integral part of the rehabilitation and reintegration process. It is sometimes difficult to decide where “”Correction” finishes and “Development” starts, particularly, perhaps, for us, because we rate our particular programmes as being both Correctional and Developmental.

 

Whilst Section E of the Performance Plan is somewhat mute on numbers and shows very limited growth in participants, the budget indicates that little growth can be expected in the medium term. This is consistent with the lack of facilities, which must be a significant limiting factor for the Department in implementation in this area.

 

We believe, however, that development is an important consideration and that due cognizance must be taken of any restriction that lack of investment, fixed or otherwise, in this area may place on the rehabilitation process.

 

There must be a huge argument for budget increases for Development and without significant additional resources being applied, it must be an area which will slow down the effectiveness of the Department’s move towards effective rehabilitation and social reintegration.

 

Programme 6 - Social Reintegration

If there is one single area of the whole process of Corrections in which we see deficiency in Departmental policy, this would be it.

 

Ten years of experience, albeit on a limited basis, in the rehabilitation and reintegration process has shown us that the preparation for release as well as the on-going support of ex-inmates post-release are most important factors in terms of reducing recidivism. To a large extent and for a large proportion of convicts, the processes that they participate in inside correctional facilities are of little meaning unless they are able to return to a “different” situation upon release.

 

There are probably as many ways of making things “different” as there are inmates, and believe us, we are beginning to feel as though we have tried them all! One thing for certain, this is not an activity that can be pursued by the Department alone. The community, represented by multi-faceted organisations, needs to join forces with the Department to find ways of creating reintegration support structures in order to reduce the risks of recidivism.

 

Whatever is done, and something has to be, it will require funding. What is being done now and has been done over the last five years or so is not effective in this respect, so something has to change. Yet it appears the budget has not included for, nor is there any mention in the Department’s activities as to any significant additional effort in this area.

 

The ultimate objective of the Department must be to reduce crime. Rehabilitation and reintegration are aimed at reducing recidivism as a means to this end. The Department has taken huge strides towards embracing this concept – please don’t let those efforts fail by neglecting one of the most important parts of the overall process.

 

We would urge the Honourable Minister to give urgent attention to this area, both in terms of activity and budget increase.

 

Programme 7 - Facilities

Again, an area well outside of our ambit and we need to restrict our comment accordingly. Three points however:-

 

a)                   We believe there are acute problems in implementing the White Paper philosophy at many establishments due to lack of facilities and overcrowding. We also believe that the upgrading of some establishments could be undertaken as a cost effective and fast track means to aid implementation.

b)                   We recognize that additional facilities are required, that any and all crime prevention measures are unlikely to bring down the Department’s population to a satisfactory level before a decade or more has passed.

c)                   With the desperate need for accommodation and better facilities, does the Department, in view of the improved information technology that will be available to it and the increased levels of management at facilities (which should provide opportunity for HQ staff reduction) really need to incur significant expenditure on a new HQ building? This may well be a reaction from the public, of course.

 

Finally, we take great comfort in the fact that our Minister was previously the Minister for Sport. His experience on both playing fields should set us in good stead for 2010! We greatly appreciate the opportunity to make our small voice heard before this illustrious gathering and thank the Chairman and the committee accordingly. I hope we haven’t upset the Department that should be our biggest client too much and assure them and the Honourable Minister personally that we remain dedicated to their cause.