The past two years has seen a ”discernible increase” in the number of youths involved in both violent and organised crime, Parliament’s social development portfolio committee heard on Wednesday.
The task of rehabilitating these young offenders should not be seen as the responsibility of the department of correctional services alone, its chief deputy commissioner, Jenni Schreiner, told MPs.
There had been a ”discernible increase in youth involvement in crime over the past couple of years, and particularly in the involvement of young men”.
”Furthermore, there has been an increase in the involvement of youth in violent crime and organised crime.”
Schreiner said contributing towards this was a range of ”social factors”.
These included the impact of the rapid transition to democracy, and more relaxed parental, school and institutional environments.
Other factors were a lack of recreational activities in many communities, high levels of unemployment, and a legacy of violence that many South Africans had experienced as young children.
The DCS defines ”youths” as people aged from 14 to 25. Of serious concern, Schreiner said, was the long-term impact of the increase among youths of involvement in crime, particularly serious crime.
These offenders would return to society from prisons and community correction facilities, and it was the department’s challenge to ensure they went back as good citizens.
”We are very aware of the inadequacies of the prison and community correctional service to prevent recidivism among our youth.
”We also remain convinced that correction of offending behaviour in youth cannot be successful if the responsibility is borne by DCS alone,” Schreiner said.
”Crime prevention, in which corrections has a central part, is a joint government-community responsibility.
”This informs the manner in which the department approaches our central task of rehabilitation, or correction of offending behaviour.”
The department faced four major challenges before it could truly be a ”correctional service”.
These were retraining members to understand their function as service providers to offenders; corruption and crime within prisons and the department; overcrowding; and, grounding the department in a correctional philosophy, Schreiner said.
Deputy commissioner Jabu Sishuba said that at the end of July this year there were 2157 unsentenced and
1 803 sentenced prisoners under the age of 18 in custody.
While some were in the 13 youth development centres, which had a capacity of 6 045, others were held in prisons, separate from adult offenders, Sishuba said. – Sapa