Pretoria - The recent court appearances of four convicted prisoners, arrested for allegedly running an extortion scam from their prison cells in Gauteng, speak to the depth of corruption within correctional facilities and the ineffectiveness of rehabilitation programmes.
While the Department of Correctional Services has remained mum on the recent arrests and growing concern regarding the trend of contraband existing within its facilities, a criminal expert said the situation was truly as bad as it appeared.
Dr Mahlogonolo Thobane, a criminologist and senior lecturer in the College of Law at Unisa, said the problem of inmates having access to contraband while incarcerated affected most – if not all, correctional facilities across the country.
Thobane said although everyone knew that inmates were not supposed to have access to illegal goods, most people knew they had cellphones and were even active on social media platforms.
The criminal expert said the main reason the problem had continued unabated through the years was due to the unavoidable issue of corruption of correctional facilities’ personnel, as deals and an exchange of money took place within facilities.
Second, she said the issue spoke to the lack of adequate and targeted rehabilitation programmes for both male and female inmates.
“As much as we want to be proud that incarceration is promoting rehabilitation, in theory, the truth of the matter is that rehabilitation in our centres is just not taking place.
“It’s not that rehabilitation is not taking place at all, but when it does happen it’s more of a personal decision. We are currently using a blanket approach of one size fits all in these facilities, but many of these programmes do not speak to what led people into the life of crime. As a result of this, incarceration then becomes a temporary pause in an inmate’s criminal career.”
Thobane said she realised the shortcomings of rehabilitation programmes following interviews with 40 inmates incarcerated for cash-in-transit robberies.
According to Thobane, inmates often highlighted how they would be roped in for anger management classes which did not speak to the reason why they got involved in these crimes.
“They will tell you that they did not have anger management issues and actually participated in the crime because they simply wanted money. So taking these classes does not address the real issues, so most admit that they will not change and simply end up seeing incarceration as an interruption to their criminal career, and once done they will resume.
“Another problem is that instead of beginning with these programmes at the start of the incarceration many start when they become aware they are to appear before the parole board. They enrol in these programmes to fill their file with the necessary checkmarks.”
Thobane said ensuring rehabilitation programmes were as personal as possible and rooting out corruption within the system were key in making sure that incarceration had real benefits for inmates and society.
Lenn Roy Jovner, Siphiso Joel Matome, Joshwin Alex Cox and James Andrew Scheepers appeared briefly in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court last Monday to face charges of extortion, impersonating a police officer, money laundering, forgery and uttering.
The men, who were incarcerated at the Odi and Baviaanspoort correctional facilities in Mabopane, north of Pretoria, are facing charges related to soliciting money from multiple men who had sought the service of sex workers from an online agency.
Spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Philani Nkwalase said the Hawks investigation revealed that the syndicate of inmates used cellphones to create profiles of unsuspecting police officers, using the combination of both their names and photos taken from social media profiles.
The case against was postponed to September 22.
Pretoria News