Cape Town - Since the launch of Operation Fiela, prison numbers in the Western Cape had grown in their thousands – and positively so, said the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) on Friday.
“Since we began Operation Fiela, our numbers in prisons have been increasing,” said regional commissioner Delekile Klaas.
The current number of prisoners in the province totalled more than 29 300 of which 19 000 were sentenced offenders. This was an increase on 2014’s prison population of approximately 26 000.
This, said Klass, was a win for DCS and the police. “When police are doing their jobs, our prisons have higher numbers.”
Klaas was delivering his address at the Goodwood Centre of Excellence to an audience of supporters of non-profit organisation, NICRO.
NICRO, with its decades-long relationship with the DCS and prisons through their rehabilitation work, was hosting a “breakfast behind bars” at the prison.
Klaas said despite the increase in prison numbers, levels of crime remained “unacceptably high” and that the province’s gang problem continued to present multiple problems. However, he made the call for partnerships, saying that once organised, communities could effectively tackle crime.
“We are living in a society where young people are bold enough to tell us they are gangsters and who they had to kill to get where they are,” said Klaas, “We need to show them that what they think is living is in fact, not life.”
Someone who decided to change his way of life was reformed inmate, Savatori Southgate, the keynote speaker at the breakfast.
Southgate, a former member of the 26s prison gang, was arrested in the early 2000s and sentenced to five years. When he was released on parole, the urge to go back to old, criminal ways was too tempting. Fortunately, support structures managed to get him to the Hope Again Recovery Home in Mitchell’s Plain where he studied Theology, graduating with a two-year diploma.
Now Southgate is a corporate consultant at Damelin college, and a proud father and husband. However, he admitted that the temptation to go back to gang life could rear its head, particularly when others insisted on seeing him as a criminal.
“It is so tempting to go back to that lifestyle,” said Southgate.
“But, it takes a man to do what I am doing. To get up and work for my family and to hold my daughter’s hand when she is going through a tough time.”
African News Agency
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