Office of the Inspecting Judge's Annual Report: briefing

Meeting report

CORRECTIONAL SERVICES PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
14 September 2004
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTING JUDGE'S ANNUAL REPORT: BRIEFING

Chairperson: Mr D Bloem (ANC)

Documents handed out
Annual Report 2003/2004: Prisons and Prisoners
Portfolio Committee Report on Correctional Services

SUMMARY
The Inspecting Judge Fagan presented his recommendations. Judges' and Magistrates' sentencing discretion would be in the best interests of solving the prison overcrowding problem. Progress was also being made to reduce the number of awaiting trial prisoners. The general feeling of the Committee was that reducing long sentences would be the solution to prison overcrowding - this could send the wrong message to criminals. The Committee felt that important information had been left out of the report. For instance, the policy around HIV/AIDS treatment in prisons were not being applied.

MINUTES
Annual Report on Prisons and Prisoners
Judge Fagan presented statistics on the general conditions in prisons. The number of awaiting trial prisoners had been reduced. However, the number of sentenced prisoners was increasing, thus not relieving the overcrowding. The Judge asked the Committee to use its influence to block implementation of the Minimum Sentence Act as he felt it would become the main cause of overcrowding. He recommended that the Minimum Sentence Legislation should not be extended. They should halve the length of sentences being served in prisons, and the other half of the sentence should be served on parole .The law dictating that prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment should serve at least 25 years, should be amended to reduce this number of years.

Discussion
Mr N Fihla (ANC) thanked the Judge for his previous recommendations as these had proved important to the Committee. Parliament lawmaking was informed by public hearings and was thus influenced by public attitudes. He was concerned that these new recommendations seemed so similar to the previous recommendations.

The Judge answered that his role was not to adhere to public sentiment, but to rather stick to his principles - longer sentences would not deter crime. The public was beginning to understand his policy. He had done what he could to implement his recommendations, but his office had no enforcement powers.

Mr L Tolo (ANC) asked if the Ministry's response to his recommendations had been positive. How could they justify holding a prisoner with a long sentence without offering him the chance to be productive or rehabilitated?

The Judge answered that it was only in his power to make recommendations. It seemed these recommendations had been taken seriously as the awaiting trial prison population was decreasing. He would use his influence to provide further education to inmates.

Mr M Phala (ANC) said that the Annual Report mistakenly referred to 'unsentenced detainees' instead of 'unsentenced prisoners'. He asked if awaiting trial prisoners would be separated according to age group. He suggested that the Judge recommend the promotion of division. The Judge agreed that children should be separated from adults, but this was not always possible.

Mr Frits stated that in cases were children were mixed with adults, immediate separation was demanded. He asked that the Committee recognise that statistics could be misleading as these figures would change all the time.

The Chair asked for a report on the intervention that had been made by the inspectors. He asked if there was any particular requests regarding juveniles?

Mr Molefe (ANC) asked if it was fair that the Department would be held responsible to all the problems, as other Departments had been involved. He asked about the role of the Independent Prison Visitors (IPVs) and suggested that their power be increased. He also enquired whether the SETAs could play a role in training the IPV's. He further enquired about the intervention strategy to remove children born in prison.

Mr Shaku agreed that interaction between departments was needed. The role of the IPVs was to gather complaints from prisoners and to intervene where possible. They could also initiate the set complaints procedure stipulated in the Act.

Mr Morris agreed that more training should be given to IPV's and stated that plans with universities were currently being formed to provide the required training to IPVs. He stated that urgent complaints were reported directly via electronic means by the IPVs to their legal department.

Mr Frits mentioned that the IPV's would be an important source of information to their office.

Ms L Chikunga (ANC) asked why there had not been recommendations on health care included in the report. He also enquired about the statement in the report that there was a policy document on HIV/AIDS yet it did not state whether it was implemented. She expressed concern with the lack of power of the Judges office. She was not comfortable with the criticisms that the Minimum Sentence Act interfered the judges discretion in general as the reason for the act would be to limit the discretionary power of the Judges. This decision was based on South Africa's history were race issues led to imbalances with sentencing in courts.

Ms van der Merve stated that prisoners were entitled to have had received the same primary health care as if they were free and that one or two primary health care nurses would be on site. Also the prisons would be visited by the District Surgeon who would deal with complaints the nurses could not deal with. She stated that most of the health care complaints received by them were easy to deal with by IPV facilitation. She answered that the departments HIV policy was that the department would provide treatment for the secondary illness resulting from AIDS. She stated that the prison condition were generally not good for the health of prisoners.

Judge Fagan added that the problem with Magistrates was one of education and stated that Magistrates had attended workshops to sensitise them to gender and race issues

Mr S Mahote (ANC) asked what the roles of the various NGOs were other than research?

Mr Morris stated that the NGO's had done valuable work in terms of over crowding. He stated also that the NGOs did marvellous work to influence public opinion and also helped the IPVs on the ground

Mr S Moatshe (ANC) asked for an explanation as to the discrepancy on page 16 of the report in terms of natural death and unnatural death. He asked also why terminally ill prisoners were not released to their family's custody. He also asked which four prisons were closed, for how long they would be closed and also which prisons were not overcrowded. He asked if the usual problems existed there also.

Mr Morris stated that the statistics differentiated between natural and unnatural deaths. It concerned him that medical releases were not keeping up with natural deaths in prison. He stated also that it was difficult to release awaiting trial prisoners in cases mentioned above as these prisoners could only be released by the Magistrates concerned.

The Chair asked for clarity on the 36 deaths that occurred in prisons not categorised in the stats.

Mr Raga stated that a provision in the Criminal Procedure Act allowed for that released of awaiting trial prisoners on medical grounds. The onus would be placed on the Head of the prison to approach the Magistrate concerned to suggest medical release. The statistics however did not reflect that this was being done.

Mr Morris answered that the information around the deaths not categorised was available and would be made available to the Committee later that day.

The Chair stated that these statistics were important to the Committee as in South Africa's history prisoners disappeared without a trace previously in prisons.

The Judge promised that the statistics referred to by Mr Moatshe would be made available to the Committee.

Mr Molefe asked if the productive skill of prisoners would be put to use in prisons? He asked if market related skills would be taught to prisoners to prepare them for release. He suggested that perhaps the parties present should interact during the Parliamentary break to strategise on educating the communities. He asked also what had informed the decision to form partnerships with American and British companies in the cases of private prisons. He enquired about the power of Correction Officials with regard to regulating the amount of prisoners sent to their prisons.

The Judge agreed that market related skills should be developed in prisons and stated that prisoner skills were being utilised were possible. He stated that overcrowding hampered this notion. The Judge agreed that the suggested interaction should occur. He answered also that the private prison were formed with local partnerships and added that international expertise was helpful. Prison official had no say in the size of their prison population.


Ms Chikunga asked why there had not been any recommendations in the report despite the fact that there had been so many complaints on the heath care issue. She stated that Ms van der Merwe had stated that nurses trained in primary health care were in prisons that this was not the case when she had visited the prisons. This she stated she would have expected details on this in the report. She asked if the Judges office had a responsibility to report the prison condition to the public.

The Judge agreed that the reality around HIV was that policy was not reflected in reality. He agreed also that the country was experiencing a shortage of nurses and that that affected prisons and hospitals equally.

Mr Fihla suggested that the Laws on minimum sentences were passed to avoid wealthy people manipulating the Law. Judge Fagan answered that he believed that the best way to avoid wealthy people from manipulating the system was to employ the best Magistrates and Prosecutors

Mr Moatshe explained that he required the requested statistics to compare private and public prison which operated at capacity levels.

The Judge agreed that such a comparison would be helpful.

The Chair stated that leniency would not be the solution to overcrowding as it would send the wrong message to criminals.

The Judge reiterated that sentencing should not be regulated as many factors should be considered while sentencing.

The Chair enquired why there was no mention of prison rape in his report. He also asked about the investigation of assaults by officials on prisoners.

Mr Morris stated that the requested information would be made available to the Committee. He stated that statistics of prison rape were hard to report on as the shame involved meant that few of these cases were reported.

The Chair asked if rapes had previously been reported to them.

Ms van der Merwe answered that she could not recall any cases in the last year.

The meeting was adjourned.