Crime, crime prevention and corrections in SA

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Crime, crime prevention and corrections in SA

• Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on
  Corrections
• Anton du Plessis and Makubetse Sekhonyane
• 05 November 2005

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The Criminal Justice Monitor (CJM)

• An information portal that monitors trends and
  performance of the South African Police Service,
  the Department of Justice and Correctional
  Services.
• What is the Criminal Justice Monitor?
• The CJM is an independent source of information
  for both the public and the state on crime, the
  criminal justice system, and public opinion.
• Through its website, regular seminars, and
  written materials, it will engender intelligent
  public debate and inform policy makers.

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CJM (Cont)

• How does it work?
• The CJM involves three main streams of activity
• Compiling and analysing a regular flow of
  statistical information from all stages of the
  criminal justice process.
• The creation and monitoring of several Sentinel
  Sites in areas around the country, where data on
  criminal justice functioning can be gathered
  longitudinally.
• Continuous review of all relevant policy and
  legislation.

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CJM (Cont)

• How can the CJM help the Correctional Service?
• The CJM can assist in the setting of performance
  measurement indicators and targets. For example,
  the time use study will provide data vital to the
  creation of benchmarks.
• The CJM can assist in developing and updating the
  DCS Strategic Plan by providing information and
  analysis for the whole criminal justice system.
• The CJM can assist in continuously assessing
  public opinion of corrections and levels of
  client satisfaction, which will help inform and
  gauge service standards.

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Crime trends what the statistics show
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Crimes recorded by SAPS, 1994/95-2003/04
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Reporting of crime to the police, 2003
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Responses to crime
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How is the state responding?

• Past 5 years - focus on law enforcement
• Police Operation Crackdown
• Justice improving court efficiency focus on
  organised crime
• Corrections trying to cope with increasing
  numbers of inmates
• More recently - signs of move towards more
  preventive approach
• emphasis on rehabilitation of prisoners
• diversion of young offenders
• moral regeneration campaign

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South African Police Services
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Police the numbers issue
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Increasing police numbers

• One sworn cop for every 439 South Africans
• Plans to increase this by 40 500 by 2005
• One cop for every 373 citizens
• About 13 500 cops would need to be trained per
  year
• Basic training has been streamlined to meet
  demand
• Capacity exists for training only 8 000 per year
  - quality of field supervision mentoring new
  intake?

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Main policing challenges

• Quality and use of resources
• On paper, SAPS is not under-resourced
• Personnel vehicular coverage is more a matter
  of quality, distribution use, than numbers
  often basic skills equipment are lacking
• Operational supervision management of a huge
  organisation (130 000 in 2003)
• Training in use of force when making an arrest
• Improving perceptions and service delivery
• Monitoring and dealing with misconduct, torture,
  abuses
• Reducing corruption
• Better response times and visibility
• Focus on public contact situations

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Justice and Constitutional Development
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Cases processed by the prosecution, 1996-2002
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Average time accused are imprisoned awaiting
trial
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Challenges for the courts

• Battling to reduce backlogs - too many new cases
  are coming in
• Convictions as a proportion of cases referred to
  court are low (35 average in 2002) especially
  for serious violent crimes
• However, conviction rates of cases that go to
  trial are high (-80)
• Too many cases are withdrawn by courts
• Courts remain a bottleneck in the criminal
  justice process
• Rising numbers of awaiting trial prisoners
• Increase in the average period awaiting trial
  prisoners incarcerated

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Courts achievements

• Reduced turnaround time of cases, especially for
  sexual offences
• Increased the number of finalised trials
• Increased average court hours
• Scorpions and Asset Forfeiture continued to
  perform well
• Established over 50 sexual offences courts
• Appointed many maintenance officers
• Diverted over 30 000 child offenders

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Department of Correctional Services
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DCSs budget 2004/5 - 2006/7
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What are the resources?

• There are 239 prisons
• 137 Male prisons
• 72 men and women
• 8 Women prisons
• 13 Juvenile centres
• 20 farm prisns
• 2 private prisons
• The cell accommodation is at 114 000
• DCS employs 35 000 people (managers, admin and
  correctional officials
• Projected population in 2006/7 - 208 000 in a
  cell accommodation of 120 000

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What is the workload?

• ATDs increased by over 50 between 1994-2003
  sentenced by 42
• No. of children (lt18 years) in prison increased
  by 161 between June 1995 June 2002
• Undocumented migrants
• The increase in prisoners dying of natural death
• Lack/loss of specialised personnel (medical,
  psychologists etc)

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Corrections key issues

• Impact of police and courts on Corrections
• Reducing overcrowding
• Build extra prisons
• Use of alternatives to imprisonment
• Early releases
• Rehabilitation of prisoners
• Repeat offending
• Awaiting trial population/undocumented migrants
• Reintegration (Restorative justice, after care
  and supervision)

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International incarceration rates, 2002
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Resources vs workload in the prisons
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Challenges for prisons

• Reducing overcrowding
• Reducing levels of repeat offending
• Reducing corruption
• Rehabilitation
• Lobbying police and courts to adopt a more
  integrated approach to criminal justice
• Implementation of the new parole policy

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Challenges (Cont..)

• Care of offenders (health, physical and mental
  care) vs resources
• Aligning the white paper with the legislation
• Women with children in prisons
• Children in prisons (Child Justice Bill)
• The impact of minimum sentencing legislation and
  new sentencing jurisdiction of courts

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Achievements overall since 1994

• Many new policies and laws to deal with crime
• Crime prevention policing
• Organised crime
• Terrorism
• Sexual offences and domestic violence
• Firearms
• Childrens rights
• Corruption (the Jali commission, SIU)
• New parole policy

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Achievements overall since 1994 (cont)

• Mechanisms in place for oversight of policing
• Substantial organisational transformation in the
  CJS
• Many state and civil society partnerships to deal
  with crime and strengthen the CJS

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Thank you

• Institute for Security Studies
• http//www.iss.co.za