Prisons

The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services notes with extreme concern that overcrowding continues to be a major and, seemingly, insurmountable challenge. Although the DCS can not control the number of persons sentenced or remanded, it has a measure of control over the speedy delivery of infrastructure projects, over the handling of maintenance work, over the application of the bail protocol at centre-level, over the use of interventions such as the electronic management system, and ensuring an equal spread of the inmate population across its centres. The Committee recommends that all quarterly reports should include updates with regards to the implementation of interventions that can alleviate some of the pressures associated with overcrowding, as well as efforts underway to down-manage the inmate population.

The Committee believes that correctional centres should become centres of expertise targeting young offenders, in particular, for skills programmes that will assist in making them law-abiding and productive citizens, and arrest the rate of recidivism. Efforts to better utilise the DCS’s production workshops and agricultural land would allow for greater participation in skills development programmes. The proceeds from the sale of goods manufactured and harvested could be used to increase the DCS’s self-sufficiency and ability provide support services to ex-offenders upon their release. The Committee again emphasises that the DCS should partner with nongovernmental, community- and faith-based organisations to deliver halfway houses and associated services in support of those exoffenders and parolees who require such support.