Marion Edmunds
PARLIAMENT sidestepped human rights organisations and the public last week when it quietly approved the renewal of the controversial Correctional Services Amendment Act without providing for comment on its clauses.
The Act, introduced by then African National Congress MP Carl Niehaus in a private member’s Bill last year, was intended as a stopgap measure to provide safeguards for juveniles awaiting trial or sentencing.
Its lifespan was one year and the government committed itself to building secure detention centres for children. But it hasn’t built one since the Act was passed. There are still no secure care places for young prisoners between the age of 14 and 18.
Limpho Hani, chair of the Correctional Services Portfolio Committee – which pilots correctional services legislation through Parliament – said this week that it was not her fault the Bill was not discussed before its extension was approved last week.
“I have only one answer to all your questions,” she said, “this is a welfare matter so the buck stops with the Welfare Ministry and with the portfolio committee on welfare.”
Essentially, Hani was putting her ANC colleague, Cas Saloojee, chair of the welfare committee, in the hot seat. However, he is adamant that the motion was not his responsibility either.
“It is true that the Welfare Department is responsible for implementing the Bill, so far as setting up the places of safety goes, but the legislation is the responsibility of the correctional services committee, not welfare,” he said.
“If the secure places for juveniles were up and running now, then there would have been no need for the extension of this Bill.”
Last year’s stopgap Act came after a repeal of legislation in 1995 had led to uniform early release of juvenile offenders, sparking a public outcry. Niehaus was trying to protect young offenders from the prison system in anticipation of their eventually moving, at about this time, to “secure care facilities” where they could await trial in an environment suitable for young people.
The inter-ministerial committee of youth at risk said last week that the first of these facilities, Noorgesigt in Soweto, was near completion.
KwaZulu-Natal is expecting to get its centre in January next year; the Northern Province facility is yet to be set up; Northern Cape is aiming for September this year, but construction is still to start; and the Free State is looking at the end of the year.
Mpumulanga says its centre is in the pipeline; the North-West province is in the planning stage; and the Eastern Cape is hoping to open its centre next June. The Western Cape is building a secure care centre in Beaufort West, four hours’ drive from the city where it is most needed, Cape Town.
Pushing through the Bill for a second time without public hearings has deprived several non-governmental organisations of the opportunity to raise issues of concern.
Senior researcher at the child rights project at the University of the Western Cape, Julia Sloth-Nielsen, who has been monitoring the situation on behalf of the government, said it was a pity there had not been an opportunity for discussion, particularly as so many parliamentarians had become involved in the issue of juvenile detention.
Sloth-Nielsen has just declined to sign a contract with the government to monitor juvenile detention further because the contract stipulates that the post is conditional on her not making public any information that could be detrimental to the minister of welfare or her department.
Sloth-Nielsen said that monitoring – and making observations public – was crucial and without it, the numbers of children in prisons increased.
“Eight hundred children are in prison, some of them convicted but none sentenced yet, and this is up from 600 at the end of December. The numbers are going up and 75% are in three prisons: Pollsmoor in Cape Town, St Albans in Port Elizabeth and Durban-Westville in KwaZulu-Natal.
“The situation in Durban-Westville is deteriorating with staff having to cope with about 200 children. Staff don’t feel they can control the children who show enormous disrespect. It is a very dangerous situation,” she said.