Pretoria – Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha says the prison population has declined from 187 036 inmates in 2004, to 157 170 by the end of March this year.
Presenting his department’s Budget Vote in Parliament today, Minister Masutha said the incarceration rate had gone from 403 to 292 inmates per 100 000 population in the same period.
The minister said to further reduce prison overcrowding, the department is working on improving diversion programmes, alternative sentencing and building additional bed spaces. It is also working on the better management of the parole system and promoting social reintegration of offenders into communities, and reducing the chances of re-offending.
Minister Masutha said his department aims to build 5 900 additional bed spaces by 2019, and broaden the use of electronic monitoring of inmates and their placement in community corrections.
In March this year, the department finished a ground-breaking policy framework on the management of remand detainees, with the passing of the White Paper on Remand Detention in South Africa.
The policy seeks to close the gap left by the White Paper on Corrections passed in 2005, as well as the amendment made to the Correctional Services Act.
“Through continued transformation of the country’s remand detention system, South Africa is now urging closer to the ideal international target of 25% of all inmates being remand detainees,” Minister Masutha said.
Violence behind bars
He said of concern to him were reports of violence and gang related incidents among offenders, as well as attacks on officials.
“We have set up a high level national task team to investigate these incidents, assess our security systems and make recommendations on the type, scale and scope of intervention to arrest and reverse them,” he said.
The task team has already begun its work at St Albans Correctional Centre in Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, where there have been continued incidents of violence. – SAnews.gov.za
