Correction challenges:

A new manager for South Africa's prisons

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Published in Nedbank ISS Crime Index
Volume 4 2000
Number 4, July - August

In early May, Lulamile Mbete was appointed the National Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services. A former priest, he has also been Chief Personnel Manager for Pick ‘n Pay and Acting Director-General of Gauteng Province. Commissioner Mbete faces serious challenges and his performance is likely to be judged by the way he deals with three major issues: drastically overcrowded prisons, the spread of HIV/AIDS and budgetary constraints.

Overcrowded prisons

South Africa has 236 prisons built to accommodate 100384 prisoners. In early April the prison population stood at 172271, that is, the prisons were over-populated by 71.6%.

The primary cause of this over-population is the burgeoning number of unsentenced or awaiting trial prisoners (Figure 1).

In the past 64 months the total number of sentenced prisoners grew by 15726 or 17%. The number of prisoners awaiting trial grew by 39699 or 164%. These figures can be attributed to a range of factors including weak investigations by the police, the tightening of South Africa’s bail laws, inexperience and weak management systems in the prosecution service and poor case management by the courts.

Further, these numbers are likely to grow substantially as the police’s new three-year strategy — which focuses on large-scale arrests — begins to take effect.

The problem for Commissioner Mbete is that he has responsibility for other people’s functions. Legally, awaiting trial prisoners are the management responsibility of the Department of Justice — but he has to house them. He and his new senior management team identified a number of interventions which, apart from the construction of seven new prisons, and beginning an eighth in the next three years, include:

clearing the prisons of juveniles and handing them into the care of the Department of Welfare and Population Development;



placing prisoners awaiting trial for petty offences in clearance houses, or simply releasing those who cannot afford to pay very small amounts set for bail;



expediting decisions on prosecutions for awaiting trial prisoners, especially those in which the state’s case is not clear;



making greater use of the community correction and electronic monitoring systems; and,



allowing more accused out on their own recognisance.

Further, eight prisons are currently being renovated and it is expected that they will all be ready for occupation in October 2000.

Even with this, the department has to plan for continued overcrowding. According to the department’s 2000 National Expenditure Survey, it expects overcrowding, "despite the new planned prisons … to average 77% by 2002". This is because departmental projections put the total prison population at 207000 by 2002. To counter this the department intends to manage the prison population down to 150000 over the next three years.

HIV/AIDS

While the Department of Correctional Services is able to set goals for managing the number of prisoners down over the next three years, this is impossible to do for prisoners living with HIV/AIDS. This is because, apart from case-by-case monitoring, the department has no means of knowing how many prisoners are infected. Indeed, the department is expressly prohibited from knowing. This follows a court finding against the department in a case that would have enabled testing prisoners for HIV/AIDS.

What the department does know is that diagnosed cases of HIV-positive prisoners have increased by 33.2% over the past four years (Table 1).

However, the inability to map the real scale of the problem means that informed planning is impossible. It is therefore not possible for Commissioner Mbete to approach HIV/AIDS as any other dangerous or terminal disease and deal with it in a manner appropriate in a prison environment. For example, a recent outbreak of meningitis in Pollsmoor resulted in the immediate segregation of the affected prisoners in a quarantined section. Should this logic not also apply to those with HIV/AIDS?

One can only hope that some level of pragmatism prevails because, as the department notes: "Caring for prisoners is expected to become more expensive, as the incidence of HIV/AIDS and other transmissible diseases is likely to increase with continued overcrowding of facilities." The amount to be spent this year on prisoner care, which includes nutrition and medical care, amounts to R582 million. This provides an average of R3377 per prisoner per year and accounts for just over 10% of the department’s overall budget. Just how much more expensive prisoner care is likely to become is now anybody’s guess.

Budgetary constraints

The Department of Correctional Services received an 11.4% increase in its budget for the 2000/2001 financial year, taking its total budget to R5.78 billion.

However, a total of R4.13 billion or 71.3% of the department’s budget will be spent on the costs of its 34735 staff.

Given the growth in prisoner numbers, which can be expected to increase, the department will need to operate more efficiently. A thorough restructuring of the department will be one of the more obvious means to acquire greater efficiency. This is because, as in other government departments, staff activities are heavily loaded in administrative functions rather than actual line delivery functions.

Should the department decide to go this route and ensure that more staff work in the prisons, it will be good news for those, like the head of Bethal prison in Mpumalanga, who battle with a warder to prisoner ratio of 1:70.

Another means of enhancing cost efficiency will be to reduce the costs of overtime. The department is currently negotiating with the Department of Public Service and Administration and the unions about instituting a 7-day working week.

Conclusion

These are the critical areas Commissioner Mbete will need to focus on. They will not be easy to deal with and what is likely to be even more difficult for him will be to seek greater government investment in crime prevention. As the government’s crime reduction approach now focusses almost wholly on policing and law enforcement there has been a concomitant dwindling of attention on the developmental aspects of crime prevention aimed at reducing the occurrence of crime and, therefore the number of offenders.

Eric Pelser
Institute for Security Studies

Source documents:

Department of Correctional Services, Presentation to the National Council of Provinces, June 6, 2000.

Department of Correctional Services. 2000 National Expenditure Survey.