Thank you very much, Mr Fritz. I don't know what the predictions will be or how to forecast the coming in of new people, because the business challenge we have as the Department of Correctional Services is that, as you release people, more people come into our centres.
At the point when we joined the Department of Correctional Services, we had plus-minus 67 000 awaiting-trial detainees. That was in May. There are many awaiting-trial detainees who have since left our centres, but the numbers are not being reduced, as you are aware.
Much as we are applying all these procedures of trying to alleviate the load and relieve correctional services of people who are awaiting-trial detainees, there is, unfortunately, an increase in violent crimes committed by some people; and the courts obviously decide not to grant bail to persons who have been involved in very serious and violent crimes. They don't grant them bail. We have to live with the reality that we will continue to have that problem.
Lastly, I have been saying, Mr Fritz and hon members, that building more facilities, building more prisons, is not the solution to the challenges of our society. What is of importance is for us to prevent our children from committing crime. That is what we need to address, because if you look at the number of awaiting-trial detainees and even the number of people who are incarcerated at the centres, 70% of those are young people who range in age from 17 to 35 years.
We cannot have an entire generation of people being incarcerated in prisons. There is something which we have to do as a society. We have to take responsibility for what is currently going on in the country, and we have to come to an indaba and discuss what has gone wrong for us to be having these kinds of numbers at our centres and that are also made up of mainly young people. Thank you. [Time expired.]