Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister, the Department of Correctional Services plays a crucial but often underappreciated role in the criminal justice system. For many people, the prisons are simply a dumping ground for people we don't want on our streets or in our neighbourhoods. That is why, for so long, our prisons simply warehoused offenders, released them and waited for them to re-offend.
The White Paper on Corrections changed the orientation of the department. The Department of Correctional Services is now expected to keep inmates, many of whom are violent sociopaths, in secure conditions, to correct their offending behaviour, to rehabilitate them and to reintegrate them back into a society that is reluctant to welcome ex-convicts into our homes and our workplaces.
This is an almost impossible mandate. Yet thousands of officials perform this task willingly, with dedication and in extremely dangerous conditions. Yes, there are some officials who are corrupt, and who exceed their authority, but the vast majority of officials go above and beyond the call of duty. To them we say: Thank you for everything that you do. [Applause.] Thanks must also go to those who support the department's core mandate, the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons, the national council, the research institutes and nongovernmental organisations.
Even so, it is sad but true that, at the moment, an offender is likely to emerge more criminalised from prison than when he or she was first admitted. That is because the cells are overcrowded, there are not enough rehabilitative staff for the volumes of inmates, and the design of the majority of prisons is not geared to rehabilitation. The consequence is that many inmates look to the prison gangs for protection and guidance; those that don't are brutalised in ways we don't talk about in polite society.
Because this is the case, the recidivism rate is depressingly high. The crimes for which readmitted offenders are convicted tend to be more serious than their first offences. Those serving mandatory minimum sentences increase by the year. Forty-seven percent of offenders are serving sentences of 10 years or more in prison. It is possible to break this vicious cycle, and the White Paper recognises what needs to be done. Unfortunately, the department is painfully slow in implementing what needs to be changed. It talks about a 30-year period for implementation of the White Paper.
New-generation prisons, first announced in 2002, are still to be built, while the commissioning date of the Kimberley prison, which the Minister referred to, the only one actually under construction, keeps being delayed. We need answers as to why this is the case.
More serious, in our view, is the fact that there is a profound disjuncture between the stated aims of the department with regard to rehabilitation and reintegration, and the resources that are allocated to programmes that would make this possible. This year, 3,22% of the budget is allocated to social reintegration, and 3,39% to development, compared to 33,43% allocated to security.
It does not take 30 years to realign a budget. This can happen over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period. But even now, we see no willingness to do so. The vast bulk of resources are allocated to security, to expensive fences and IT systems, and to increased bed capacity. Can we honestly say that we are doing much more at the moment than simply warehousing offenders?
We need to take a radical approach to overcoming these challenges. Building new prisons is necessary, but the design of these prisons must make it possible, no obligatory, for prisoners to work. The centrepiece of DA policy is that prisons work where prisoners work. As existing facilities are upgraded, they should be redesigned to provide classrooms and workshops. When we pay for expensive fences, these must surround agricultural ground in which prisoners should grow vegetables and raise livestock to feed themselves and the poor communities that live around them.
Moreover, where this is possible, teams of inmates should be taken out into the community, to paint schools, maintain cemeteries, clear alien vegetation, remove graffiti and pick up rubbish. The offenders must pay back to society what they have taken away from society. Making prisoners work has many advantages: it gives them back a degree of dignity; it can help to promote self-sufficiency and reduce costs; it can impart skills that can make reintegration easier; it keeps inmates busy and reduces the grip of the gangs; and it can make released offenders more welcome back in their communities. It is restorative justice in action.
At the moment, only 20 174 inmates work, out of an average daily sentenced population of 115 753. We are interested in what the Minister said about the research to be undertaken by the National Commissioner, but we will be watching this aspect very closely indeed.
But even this is less than ideal. We also need to try, to the extent possible and responsible, to reduce the inflow into prison. Not everybody who offends belongs in prison, and this applies in particular to young, first-time and nonviolent offenders. For appropriate offenders, suspended sentences linked to community service will be much more beneficial than incarceration, with the additional benefit of reducing overcrowding and reducing costs. Yet our prisons are full of inmates who are serving sentences for shoplifting and cell phone theft.
Magistrates will continue to be reluctant to hand down noncustodial sentences for as long as the Department of Correctional Services is not able to keep track of probationers. This requires resources shifting from corrections to social reintegration; it requires smart management; and it requires the co-operation of other spheres of government to create the work opportunities for those doing community service. It is also essential to have tracking or tagging devices with which we can monitor the movements of probationers and parolees.
Over the past five years, the Department of Correctional Services has failed to make much progress in these critical areas. It was presided over by a person whose relegation to the back benches is richly deserved. [Laughter.] During his watch, medical parole was given to Schabir Shaik in circumstances that undermined the credibility of the parole system as a whole. During his watch the Department of Correctional Services battled with successive qualified audits. It awarded controversial contracts in ways that are difficult to define in law. It allowed Annanias Mathe to walk out of one of the most secure prisons in the country. It failed to make the quantum leap that was required, and then fired the one man, Vernie Petersen, who had the courage and insight to point this out.