Imprisonment not working: Ndebele

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Retribution through imprisonment has not deterred crime, Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said on Thursday.

"Since retribution is narrowly focused on 'moral reprobation or outrage against criminal conduct', it fails to adequately reform offending behaviour and to repair harm experienced by victims of crime," he said in a speech prepared for delivery.

"In order for societies to succeed in the fight against crime and eliminate reoffending, victims of crime, offenders, families, and communities need to be active agents."

They had to be heard in determining the sanctions against offenders and how offenders could be assisted in righting their wrongs.

Ndebele was speaking at an African Correctional Services (ACSA) Ministerial Consultative Forum in Pretoria.

Ndelebe said ACSA had to work together to influence courts to use restorative justice and alternative sentencing.

He said Mozambique and Zimbabwe had given more attention to this than South Africa.

"Perhaps, this partly answers the question why South African prisons remain over-populated and far higher than Africa's most populous country Nigeria," Ndebele said.

Over the years, courts had emphasised that a prison sentence was a severe form of punishment which should be imposed only as a last resort and when no other form of punishment would do.

He said there had been concerted efforts to shift from more traditional methods of dealing with crime and offenders to a more restorative form of justice.

South Africa had the highest number of inmates in Africa.

"As at 28 March 2014, we had 157,170 people in custody.

"Of these, 113,458 were sentenced offenders and 43,712 were remand detainees," Ndebele said.

It cost taxpayers around R9,876.35 per month for each inmate.

However, since 2004, the inmate population had been reduced by 31,000 resulting in a saving of more than R1.4 billion to the fiscus, he said.

"Working together, there is a lot we, as ACSA, can achieve for the noble calling of corrections in our continent," Ndebele said.

"We must be the architects of a sustainable correctional system in the continent."


Source : Sapa /gq/hdw/jje/jk
Date : 03 Apr 2014 14:28
 
Don't tell SANRAL! They'll have nothing left to threaten us with!
 
It's not working, you moron, because.....

1) Prison warders are corrupt and will trade stuff to the prisoners or bring them stuff from their families.
2) Prisoners have access to drugs, cellphones and other contraband.
3) Life in prison is not really a hard life for them.
4) They are exposed to other hardened criminals and learn more tricks of the trade from them.
5) They get released far too early and most of them serve barely a third of their sentences.
6) The damn president keeps releasing a while bunch of the "petty offenders" every few years.
7) Too many high profile prisoners are getting easy breaks or released on fake "medical grounds"
8) Too many prisoners are just plain escaping.
9) There is no real rehabilitation program in place.

etc....
The entire system is a stuff up.
 
Doesn't help squat when prison is actually the university for the criminal...
 
Ndelebe said ACSA had to work together to influence courts to use restorative justice and alternative sentencing.

He said Mozambique and Zimbabwe had given more attention to this than South Africa.

"Perhaps, this partly answers the question why South African prisons remain over-populated and far higher than Africa's most populous country Nigeria," Ndebele said.
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:D :D
:wtf:
My sack !! .. I think I might have torn something internally I laughed so hard at this shyte. Our prisons are 5-star holiday spa's compared to Chikurubi & Cadeia Central

... maybe this tool should go take a weekend break in one of the prisons over there and then he'll have a real understanding of why imprisonment works so much better than here
 
Simple fact.

A person goes in a criminal and comes out worse on the other side.
 
Garyvdh said:
It cost taxpayers around R9,876.35 per month for each inmate.
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That's more than most people in this country earn, per month. Perhaps if we concentrated on, I don't know, improving the economy, legislation and stability of the country, more people could better their circumstances and avoid the tempation of crime?
 
Worth a read:

Prison

Here is a reprint of an article I did last year on our prisons system. It may close a few gaps in knowledge for those who do not know how the system works nor have ever visited the inside of a prison in person.

Even if I had been to C-Max prison in Kokstad, I couldn’t tell you. Every visitor, policeman, politician or other official signs a sworn statement that they can never reveal what they see there. Google it and you will find exactly two photos. Both pictures are taken from far away so there is not much chance of you getting any information about it that way.
Wikipedia have three lines about the facility in Pretoria. The most exciting thing they say is “Prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours of each day out and specialized equipment, such as electric shields, are used by the prison guards.”

What I can tell you is this: The area of the Prison where the inmates are kept is underground. The inmates get thirty minutes of sunlight a week. And when I mean sunlight, they are in a walled cell at ground level with a cage top where they can see the sky only. No trees, no leaves, just sky. If a pigeon flies over when you happen to be looking up, you are lucky. It is too far away from anything of significance for you to hear cars, cows or people. If inmates cause trouble or are disobedient, wave your sky time goodbye.
Movement is controlled by three warders per section. I can’t tell you how but human contact is kept to an absolute minimum. There are no privileges. No DSTV or leather couches. There is a cell, a steel bowl for toilet and water, a rack, a blanket and you.
If the air-conditioning fails it’s going to get ugly. Think “mine shaft”.

If you want books to read, you earn that right. If you want visitors, you earn that right. Underground there is no radio signal, so a small personal FM is out of the question anyway.
But this is where we keep about 50 000 of our most dangerous criminals. Most are in for life or multiple life terms (if that were possible). The chances of ever being released, let alone Parole are as good as you growing a third ear. Nearly 100% of those prisoners will die underground of old age.

If you were lucky enough to be placed at a Medium prison, such as Westville, things are slightly better, but in other ways, not so. “Cells” consist of large rooms, painted a pale vomit-yellow colour, housing between 20 and 50 inmates of similar age and crime conviction. You don’t put murderers and shoplifters together. There are internal gangs which run the cell and section hierarchy as to the best beds, extra blankets, toilet and washing privileges. You as the new boy fit in the bottom, so you are nobody and get nothing. Regardless of your race or who what sort of important person you thought you were in the world. Inside those walls you are nobody. And there are enough inmates to make sure you know that. Welcome to “General Population”.

Furniture is reduced to triple bunk beds. Some just get the floor. Mattresses are bare foam (so that weapons and contraband cannot be easily concealed) and your bedding consists of a grey dog blanket. Cleanliness and thread bareness varies. It is in nobody’s interest to give a brand new convict a nice duvet and pillows smelling like OMO. Windows in the cell are narrow slats about 20 cm wide with thick steel bars. They are above eye level so only if you are on a top bunk you can see out. The view is normally another face brick wall a few meters away. For the few minutes direct sunshine peeps down your particular hole it slightly warms the bare concrete floor.
In some cells, a smaller than laptop size TV is housed inside a steel cage above the door. The extremely grainy picture can only just be recognised as SABC 1. If you are lucky there is a bit of sound, but unless there is absolute silence in your cell, you can’t hear anything. It is switched on and off remotely. You have no control. Some cells I visited had static to watch. A warder told me he lost the key to the cage so can’t adjust the set. Again, it is in nobody’s interest to arrange the comforts of home for you, because you think you are special.

The cell entrance is a barred gate and then a steel door on the outside. If your group has been good the door is left open during the day and a bit of fresh air gets in. Bath and toilet are in a concrete sink and steel bowl. For each cell there are two to three toilet bowls and two to three showers. That’s if the water got switched on. Cold water mind you. The lights are on usually at twilight. So you are either in pitch dark or light.

Food arrives by trolley. You get your plastic plate and cup from under your mattress and line up. You get tea and a couple slices of bread in the morning. Lunch is normally pap and something resembling a condom full of dirty polony. Cold. Supper is pap again and maybe some anchovies or mince. Cold.

Exercise time is conducted in a bare walled concrete yard. You do not see grass.
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Continued:
Depending on how long you’ve been there and if you have earned the privilege, you may be allowed in the library. But not all day. You do not get to wander around freely like you see on American TV. You are in your cell or under control outside your cell. (If you are outside your cell you sit on your haunches in a line. If you walk you are instructed to walk.) There are no basketball courts, or cricket nets. If you have earned the privilege of getting a phone card you can make a call, that’s if you can find a free phone in working order. Telkom don’t rush to prisons to do repairs. If you damage or break a phone, your survival is counted in minutes.

There are no couches or chairs. You sit on your bed or on the floor. Space is at a premium so you keep out of the way of the bosses in your cell. Or else. You keep the cell clean yourself. Or else. You get out of the shower, off the toilet, away from the basin for a senior prisoner immediately. Or else.

If you walk from one place to another you do so in silence. If a warder or policeman approaches you, you get out of the way. If a senior prisoner or gang member approaches you, you get out of the way. Or else. You stop and wait outside of a door on your haunches. You do not just walk into an office or a room. You must be told to enter.

Warders do a count and sick call each day. If you are sick you may get to see a doctor. You are taken from your cell, under control, and to the sick bay. A State Doctor will dispense medicine in highly controlled doses. And then you will return to your cell. When you get TB you get to go to the Prison Hospital, which is a cell the size of a small office with a tiny slit of a window and a bed in it. It’s as close to isolation you can get.
That is the same cell the Police will come inspect your body when you die.

And that was your first day. Another 1800 something to go. (Just for a 5 year sentence)

After a period of time, determined by the head warder, you may be moved to different sections of the prison. Depending on your offence, risk, behaviour etc, you may get into smaller cells with less people. If you have earned trust you will be put on a work party. Various workshops do different jobs such as maintenance.

If you come towards the end of your prescribed sentence and are not a threat to anyone you may get to work on an “outside” work detail. You are still in the confines of the prison but you get to do some gardening in the fresh air. You see grass, trees, and if you are just at the right angle some houses far in the distance.

Not two weeks or two months, but only when you have served at least half of your custodial sentence are you ELIGIBLE for Parole. It does not mean you “get it”. It means you can apply. Just like Bail, there are many factors to consider awarding Parole. Are you a danger to yourself or anyone else? Is it likely you will commit another crime? Do you have a home to go to? Will you have work? Who will support you? What will be the conditions of your parole? Maybe you have to spend weekends back in prison. These factors get investigated and decided upon by a Parole Board. Not every prisoner who is awarded parole “gets it”. Again at the end of your sentence before you are released back into society the same set of questions are asked. The doors of the prison are not just flung open and people fly out, and I don’t care what you read in the paper. There are many other avenues such as Correctional Supervision that keep offenders from committing another crime.

Visiting the Prison and visiting the mortuary had the same effect on me. The smell. It lingers on your clothing and skin. You can wash your hands twenty times but there is still that whiff of yuk. It’s like skydiving. You’ve either experienced it or you haven’t.

Suspend all your beliefs about what you think it is like in a South African Prison. “Rights” are something you thought you had before you did what you did to get you in there. It is not so much about mediaeval torture. It is about the deprivation and refusal of privileges and the separation of offenders from the community they have committed crime against. Do I think that the term “Correctional Services” is appropriate? Our previous Police Commissioner said in a speech I attended that he did not know anyone who was “corrected” by prison. What alternatives he had in mind I’d better not voice. There are a class of criminal for whom prison is an inconvenient interruption to their careers. Whether that be shoplifting or carjacking. They are what they are. (The death penalty is another discussion altogether. The article about which I will put out tomorrow.)

Me? I’ve seen the inside of the prison enough times opening cases, signing off skeletal or stabbed up dead bodies, checking cells that are wall to wall blood after a riot or a fight.
Despite what you think or what you believe, you won’t get me in a cell there for one day.
I’d rather die.
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https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=689236744468126&id=177582682300204

I do agree with the minister, the prisons are broken places only making worse criminals.
 
What I can tell you is this: The area of the Prison where the inmates are kept is underground. The inmates get thirty minutes of sunlight a week. And when I mean sunlight, they are in a walled cell at ground level with a cage top where they can see the sky only. No trees, no leaves, just sky. If a pigeon flies over when you happen to be looking up, you are lucky. It is too far away from anything of significance for you to hear cars, cows or people. If inmates cause trouble or are disobedient, wave your sky time goodbye.
Movement is controlled by three warders per section. I can’t tell you how but human contact is kept to an absolute minimum. There are no privileges. No DSTV or leather couches. There is a cell, a steel bowl for toilet and water, a rack, a blanket and you.
If the air-conditioning fails it’s going to get ugly. Think “mine shaft”.
Click to expand...

Time to build some more of these and take away the luxury of the aircon. Reserve it for anyone guilty of murder or rape and it for second time offenders. Simple give people one chance to reform after a first crime and then tough luck, if you can't live in civilized society, you can stay here.
 
Well Julias did lay a charge against Zooma didn't he?

And they already exhusted the medical reasons with Shaik.
 
Do not give a s&!t about what happens to criminals in prison.

Your people, Minister diphat, re-named it "correctional services", not us.

What we as citizens want are these people removed from society(even if only temporary) so that we stand a change
of waking up alive every morning. Stop focusing on the "poor criminals" and do your frackin job.
 
Your people, Minister diphat, re-named it "correctional services", not us.
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We have no more jails, teachers or pupils.

But we do have correctional centres that don't correct, educators that don't educate and learners that don't learn.
 
If I misappropriated R200, 000, 000 (200 Million Rand)...

Hell ... if I misappropriated R2000 ... I would be (in my moer en binne in die tronk).

Zoomster will somehow be excempted.
 
Remember kids this is the ANC campaigning. Hell what could 120 000 votes buy them?

A fun fact that my grandfather told me is that we have 120 000 prisoners, we have had up to 630 000 murders alone in south africa the last 20-25 years. (around 360 000 if you trust anything the anc goverment says)

around 20% of the total of the current population are serving sentences handed down by the apartheid goverment.

Anyone want to take a guess at the rate of crime in south africa at the moment? How many cases get a prosecution? How many people in jail are actually there for murder?

I think that the murder solve rate will be 5%? I also can guess that half of that total are people that were railroaded?
 
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