Chairperson, we are naturally in support of the budget that has been presented.
The Department of Correctional Services needs to meet four minimum requirements to make correctional sentences compatible with the constitutional democracy as we understand it. Firstly, prisoners' rights, as listed in the Constitution and in the Correctional Services Act, dare not be violated. This requires a human rights-based approach to prison management. Secondly, accountability in respect to prisons rests within the executive. Accountability at the horizontal level refers to the institution and practices created by the state to hold governments accountable. Vertically, accountability is directed to the electorate, the media, civil society and international treaty bodies.
Thirdly, the functioning of prisons must be done in a transparent manner. This means that those affected by decisions of officials in the prison system and other stakeholders with an interest or mandate in respect of prisons must have access not only to basic facts and figures, but also to gain insight into the mechanisms and processes of decision-making. A consequence of this is that officials in the prison system and related sectors have a duty to perform with integrity, visibly, predictably and understandably.
Fourthly, policy development, law reform, strategic plans and operational decision-making must be based on knowledge. When research has identified the characteristics of programmes that are ineffective, these should then naturally be avoided. In building a prison system compatible with a constitutional democracy, services rendered to prisoners must be based on knowledge and evidence. Rendering services based on a common sense and gut feel perception of what is working or any other notion devoid of empirical proof is tantamount to effectively denying prisoners their right to development.
It is important that achievements of the correctional system be measured in a manner that reflects on public safety. On a monthly basis, an estimated 5 000 sentenced offenders are released from our correctional centres. Almost 70% of them serve sentences of less than two years, effectively having been excluded from having a sentence plan and the services that the plan should give rise to. The effect is that the correctional system is returning to society thousands of offenders who had not accessed services that should have prepared them to lead a constructive and crime-free life in the future. After serving a sentence of imprisonment, they seem to be worse off.
This requires a critical examination of the following question: How does the Department of Correctional Services contribute to public safety? That is what my comrade, Comrade Ngwenya, said earlier. How does it give effect to the call by our President that all people in South Africa should feel and be safe when access to services to prepare them for a better life had eluded almost 70% of released offenders, leading to the appalling levels of recidivism? Then we cannot help but conclude that the Department of Correctional Services has been unable to make a substantial, sustainable and positive contribution to public safety.
Correctional services cannot be regarded as warehouses where human beings are stored. They must be institutions of excellence, where the lives of these human beings must change so that upon release they can become useful citizens.
Over the past year, prison overcrowding has been highlighted. Whilst it is generally accepted that we cannot build ourselves out of overcrowding, there are plans afoot to construct several large prisons across the country, whilst 5 159 additional bed spaces are currently under design and at construction stage at a number of existing prisons in various parts of the country, at an astronomical projected cost of R9,175 billion over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period, which also includes additional facilities at various prisons.
From the overcrowding debate, at least two issues emerge. Firstly, the size of any prison population is determined by policy. Over the past decade, many countries have demonstrated that a change in policy can contribute to a reduction in prison overcrowding, and many of the colleagues here have referred to that.
Over the past five years, unsentenced detainees, and not the sentenced offender population, have contributed substantially to the size of the prison population in South Africa. In fact, since 2004, the number of sentenced prisoner admissions has dropped by 45%, contributing to the declining need for accommodation for sentenced prisoners.
The sentenced population has been growing steadily, and more than half of this group have already been in custody for longer than three months. It has also been established that half of this group will find their cases withdrawn or struck off the roll, rendering their detention unmeaningful or without purpose. Yet, it added between 25 000 to 30 000 people to the prison population.
Secondly, the majority of sentence submissions are those of offenders serving sentences of two years and less. Sentence plans have eluded them, and the purpose of their imprisonment raises questions. We face two options to address the problem. The first one is to provide education, corrections and development services to these offenders to give meaning to their imprisonment and therefore contribute to public safety. The second one is to prevent their imprisonment by providing for effective noncustodial sentences as both the Criminal Procedure Act and the Correctional Services Act provide for a plethora of noncustodial sentencing options - also referred to by many speakers - particularly correctional supervision.
It is generally accepted that as a result of poor management on the part of the Department of Correctional Services, the judiciary seems to have lost faith and confidence in correctional supervision as a sentencing option. The Supreme Court of Appeal expressed itself as follows in case 36(3) of 2005:
When correctional supervision was introduced, courts embraced it enthusiastically as a real sentencing option, something that will have a substantial effect on the prison population in this country. As time went on, courts became more sceptical. But I am now completely disillusioned.
These were the words of Judge Harms.
The department has, over several years, promised the re-engineering of community corrections, but without tangible results forthcoming. This causes a serious challenge to the entire Justice, Crime Prevention and Security, JCPS, cluster which, in collaboration with civil society formations and other interested groups, maps the way forward.
Following the visit to the United States and the United Kingdom in 1997 the then Minister of Correctional Services concluded and said that wherever the private sector got involved, they have delivered a better service at less cost to the taxpayers. This is questionable.
Government's rationale in support of private prisons is that they cost less than it will cost the Department of Correctional Services per prisoner per day. If this was true, why do our state prisons cost so much and still fail to achieve?
Over the years the Department of Correctional Services' budget and expenditure patterns seem to have been framed on the basis of the daily costs incurred by the department for accommodating a prisoner by taking the annual budget and dividing it by the number of inmates. This approach is fatally flawed and does not reflect the accurate cost. It must undergo intense scrutiny, bearing in mind that over 60% of the annual budget goes towards compensation of employees. About 60% of them annually earn in excess of R230 000 per annum.
I would like to emphasise what the hon chairperson said earlier. The new state-of-the-art facility in Kimberley of 3 000 bed spaces costs R961 million. Including everything, it costs R320 000 per bed space and, as at 26 March 2011, it had 2 496 inmates. As the chairperson has said, its operational cost for the year is R85,7 million, which works out to R77 per person per day if there are 3 000 inmates.
Against this, the cost of the 2 928 - bed Mangaung public-private partnership, PPP, facility for the same period was R259,24 million - that is, operational cost escalating annually at the fixed annual contribution of R101 million over a 15-year period, amounting to R1,52 billion. Last year the Kimberley correctional service facility cost us R600 million more.
Furthermore, the annual amount in terms of operational cost for the Kutama Sinthumule facility was R317 million, escalating annually at a fixed rate of R93 million, amounting to total construction contributions of R1,39 billion over a 15-year period.
It is important that the Department of Correctional Services considers these issues seriously and takes a holistic view of how our criminal justice system in its entirety operates before addressing the intolerable levels of overcrowding at some centres by avoiding long-term contractual obligations. We cannot create a debt for the coming generation.