The South African penal system has failed and as a result crime remains out of control. This is the harsh and uncomfortable reality that is plaguing society, and the country’s haunting crime statistics attest to that.
One reason for this is the lack of rehabilitation opportunities available to offenders. The allure of falling back in old ways can be too appealing, but there is also a fundamental misunderstanding of the systematised obstacles criminal offenders face when reintroduced into society.
“South Africa has a very bad record, not only in terms of not affording ex-offenders employment opportunities on their release from prison, but also in view of the harsh stigmatising conditions that await them,” explains conflict criminologist Dr Casper Lӧtter, a postdoctoral research fellow at the North-West University (NWU).
According to him, all cultures manage crime through shame, but he notes that the USA and South Africa have particularly harsh and stigmatising shaming cultures.
“We routinely stigmatise, discriminate against and marginalise offenders in mainstream culture. As a result, ex-offenders seek cover from this shame in the arms of criminal subcultures and they cement themselves into a life of crime.
“It is little wonder that South Africa has one of the highest rates of recidivism, or re-offending, in the world. Conditions in the USA have become marginally better with the introduction of the First Step Act, the fact that prisons there employ ex-offenders and a general awareness of as well as activism against what has become known as the prison-industrial complex,” says Dr Lӧtter. (Among other things, the First Step Act makes use of rehabilitation incentives to allow for earlier release.)
Dr Lӧtter suggests that the Department of Correctional Services should look to Nordic nations, where concerted efforts are made to provide in ex-offenders' basic human needs to dissuade them from future crime.
“The Department of Correctional Services could also make a difference by showing that ex-offenders are employable by employing suitable ex-offender candidates themselves.”
He also proposes another solution: “South Africa’s harsh stigmatising and shaming culture, a high unemployment rate and the fact that incarceration is our dominant sentencing tool are our main problems. One way to make inroads into our harsh stigmatising and shaming culture is to make stigmatising a hate crime, with significant civil and criminal penalties attached to this.
“More to the point, South Africans need to see that this shaming culture holds dangerous implications for public safety and unsustainable crime and recidivism rates. By law, criminal records may be expunged after 10 years on application and payment of a fee,” he adds.
“I argue that this is not nearly enough. In view of the significant barriers that ex-offenders face in an effort to resettle, records should be automatically expunged after five years without the need to apply and without the need to pay a fine. South Africans need to understand that helping ex-offenders reintegrate, insofar as this is possible, is very much in our own interests, as this will forestall future crime.”
Whatever the right solution, incisive and decisive action is required to stem the tide of crime.
