The Department of Correctional Services has taken out a R27 500 newspaper advert in which it defends itself against claims that it has given certain prisoners preferential treatment.
”Do not shout from the sidelines, submit evidence of wrongdoing to the minister, the inspecting judge and the Parole Review Board for corrective action,” the advert states.
The department has faced criticism recently over its handling of the incarceration of fraud convicts Tony Yengeni and Schabir Shaik.
They are not mentioned by name in the more than quarter-page advertisement carried on page 11 of the Star newspaper on Thursday.
”Recent allegations of preferential treatment of some offenders are probably due to being uninformed or motivated by other factors,” the department notes in the advert headed ”Correctional Supervision & Parole System”.
”In 2006 alone, 4 696 people were sentenced to serve one sixth [of their sentences] in custody … 3 518 of these offenders were placed under correctional supervision without any big fanfare.”
Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour had repeatedly assured South Africans the department was committed to implementing court decisions ”without fear or favour”.
Explaining sentencing procedures, the department wrote that prisoners could receive anything from supervised community service, to brief custody before placement in communities under supervision, or jail terms.
They could also receive a ”half a sentence” before those thought ”deserving” were considered for release on parole.
The releases were decided by 52 independent correctional supervision and parole boards. Their decisions were based on case management committees’s recommendations made after a mandatory portion of sentences had been served.
Those sentenced to community service or those placed on parole were conditionally released and monitored until their sentences expired.
”Objections to decisions … can be lodged with the Parole Review Board that has at least three Supreme Court judges.”
The department claimed in the advertisement that a ”recent wave of reporting and commentary” had shown the department’s challenges over public awareness and understanding of its core mandate and system.
On overcrowding it wrote that 33 prisoners a day were moved between prisons to address the problem, with 11 900 inmates shifted last year.
The department could not immediately be reached for comment. – Sapa