Chairperson,

With the very limited time allocated to me, I wish to dedicate my input on this Budget to issues related to the rehabilitation of inmates and their reintegration into the community.

The first important issue is the Social Reintegration Programme.

This issue becomes more crucial when we look at the age of our youth who are in these correctional centres. Some leave school very early. They spend more time in than out of these facilities. The question is how do we reintegrate them into society?

For the most part, once released, they are too old to go back to school.

They are unemployable, yet at the same time they regard themselves as grown up. We appreciate the efforts made by departmental officials on the offender rehabilitation path. The key issue is education and participation in sports which could help in the improvement of the skills levels of offenders and enhancement of opportunities for their employability in partnership with external service providers.

Chairperson,

One would like to see the sustainability of this programme. The question is do we have enough funds to enhance this programme and enough trained officers for monitoring?

The other thing is the monitoring devices in the correctional centres. I suggest that there should be monitoring machines installed in all cells so that all unauthorised movement of any person would trigger an alarm and alert prison officials to such movement. This will reduce escapes, and prevent an incident like the latest Mathe escape attempt.

The other issue that we must not forget is the Juvenile Centres where we keep the younger offenders. I know this will have to involve other departments such as Social Welfare. This issue has lost focus. We did have such centres, namely Van Ryndeep in Benoni and many others. These centres have been closed.

These centres must be re-opened in order to keep young offenders out of the normal correctional centres and also to reduce the risk of placing some of the offenders who have committed serious offences in the custody of grannies or guardians.

I thank you.  

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
Mr MA Mzizi MP 
083 440 5951