Pretoria - Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has called on South Africans to heed founding President Nelson Mandela’s call to join hands and transform inmates into worthy and respected citizens.
Today marks 24 years since the late President Mandela was released from prison after 27 years.
Addressing a Victim-Offender Dialogue (VOD) session at St. Albans Correctional Centre in the Eastern Cape, Ndebele said: “The experience of imprisonment was the most decisive shaper of Tata Nelson Mandela’s consciousness.
“In Mandela’s Way, his biographer Richard Stengel argues that prison was Mandela’s greatest teacher: ‘Nelson Mandela had many teachers in his life, but the greatest of them all was prison,” Ndebele said.
“We all need to join hands to rescue these inmates and transform them into worthy and respected citizens of our country [because] we owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves.”
The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) introduced the VOD programme in November 2012. Today, the department hosted the 96th session of the programme.
To date, 109 086 sentenced offenders, and 1 750 victims, have benefited from the programme. Over 1 000 correctional officials have been trained to facilitate the national roll-out. – SAnews.gov.za
