The Minister of Correctional Services, Dr Pieter Groenewald, has advocated for alternative approaches to address overcrowding in the country's correctional services.
Speaking during a Parliamentary Questions for Oral Reply session for the Peace and Security cluster on Wednesday, the Minister said the Department of Correctional Services currently has some 107 000 beds available for inmates, with sentenced inmates already occupying at least 106 280 beds.
He said the main pressure stems from remand detainees — people held in custody while awaiting trial — who currently number 62 002. This has pushed overcrowding levels at correctional facilities to 58%.
“We have to accommodate all the people who are arrested and sent to correctional services. There are also other ways…the Criminal Procedures Act, where we can ask for a bail review, we do that. In the previous financial year, we referred 8 849 of these cases, but we were only successful for 1 278.
“We [also] have about 3 300 remand detainees who couldn’t afford bail of less than R1 000, but it is costing the state taxpayer R463 per day to keep them there,” he said.
Groenewald also referred to the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) Bail Fund initiative, which was led by former Inspecting Judge Edwin Cameron.
“The previous inspecting judge…started a bail fund and it became operational, where, for instance, a private fund has been established to pay this bail to get the people out. There are ways to do this, but I’m strongly in support of community service that should be part of sentencing in our courts,” he said.
Groenewald added that his department is in contact with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to explore alternatives to imprisonment where appropriate.
“Probation is one option and we are also in the process of using electronic bracelets to ensure that probationers can move along safely while protecting the community,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
