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Correctional Facilities Worsen

Dear Editor

The DA is deeply concerned by the dire state of South Africa’s correctional system, as exposed in the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) presentation to the NCOP this week.

The DA calls for more binding powers to be availed to the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services, so that their oversight work can lead to meaningful change. The JICS derives its powers from the Correctional Services Act of 1998, but the Department is in the process of devising and drafting a new JICS Bill to give more independence to the Inspectorate, and must give more binding powers to the Inspectorate – the DA does not believe that this process is moving fast enough.

To speed up the capacitation and empowerment of the JICS, the DA will move to expedite the JICS Bill by writing to Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald, asking him to oversee a speeding up of this process.

The unacceptable decline of correctional facilities includes:

  • Several correctional facilities, including Geluk and Swellendam, remain indefinitely closed, worsening overcrowding,
  • Unnatural deaths in prisons have risen from 101 in the previous year to 123 in 2023/24, with Gauteng recording the highest number,
  • Dysfunctional parole boards,
  • Filthy prison conditions,
  • Escalating violence in prisons.

The DA will no longer accept that the Judicial Inspectorate remains underfunded, lacks executive authority, and its recommendations are not binding – because they are being ignored by the Department of Correctional Services.

Further compounding the crisis is the ongoing delay of the roll-out of the “e-Correction” system, which was meant to modernize prison management, but has instead become yet another example of Department failure.

The DA demands urgent action for the long-overdue implementation of the e-Correction system to be fast-tracked.

The DA will relentlessly fight for accountability, order, and a correctional system that actually upholds justice and delivers rehabilitation.

Regards

Ofentse Mokae MP
DA Member of the Select Committee on Security and Justice

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