It’s part of a sentence, the bridge between jail and return to the community, Thomas Moyane explains.
Johannesburg - Media reports casting doubt on our country’s parole system clearly highlight that parole is not properly understood.
Parole is used internationally to place offenders under supervision in the community. It refers to a period when an offender, who has served the prescribed minimum detention period of his or her sentence in a correctional centre, is conditionally released to serve the remainder in the community under supervision of the Department of Correctional Services.
Therefore, parole is not the end of a sentence. As correction is a societal responsibility and not just the responsibility of Correctional Services, the community forms an integral part of the rehabilitation of offenders on parole in helping to reintegrate them as law-abiding citizens.
Correctional Services jails offenders according to orders of the court.
Currently, in addition to the 152 550 inmates in correctional centres, 63 240 offenders are outside, living in their communities. Of the 63 240 offenders, 48 323 are on parole, 14 917 are probationers (convicted offenders serving non-custodial sentences) and an additional 1 719 are awaiting-trial detainees.
An average of 3 827 parole applications are approved each month.
Recommendations for parole placements in respect of inmates sentenced to imprisonment for two years and less are, in terms of Section 42 (2) (e) of the Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998, submitted by the Case Management Committee to the head of a correctional centre for decision.
The Correctional Supervision and Parole Board, after having considered a profile report on an inmate serving a determinate sentence exceeding 24 months, is responsible for the approval of parole placement.
Therefore, the parole policy provides for credible members of communities to chair the parole boards which have been allocated decision-making authority.
Parole can be described as the culmination of various events and factors after an offender is convicted of a crime.
The process is a sequence of three steps: recommendation by the Case Management Committee; revocation or approval by the parole board; and supervision by the community corrections branch of the Correctional Services Department.
The compilation of a profile report of an offender, the selection and making of a decision to place a suitable offender on parole and the effective supervision of a parolee in the community all form part of the parole process.
In the case of life imprisonment, the Minister of Correctional Services takes the final decision to grant parole or not in line with Section 65 (5) and (6) of the Correctional Services Act (Act 8 of 1959).
Parole applications for lifers are first considered by the Case Management Committee and thereafter by the parole board.
The National Council on Correctional Services, chaired by Judge Siraj Desai and comprising other professionals including judges, magistrates, attorneys, clinical psychologists, social workers, medical doctors, academics and officials, then reviews these parole applications, including recommendations from the Case Management Committee and parole board, for recommendation to the minister.
Upon receipt of advice and recommendations from the National Council on Correctional Services, the minister exercises due consideration.
On November 26, the Pretoria High Court ordered that Cornelius Johannes van Wyk be placed under day parole from January 1.
Van Wyk murdered three people in October 1991 in Makhado, when he was 20 and part of the ultra-right-wing National Socialist Partisans. He and an accomplice, now dead, shot and slit the throats of domestic worker Makwarela Dobani, her husband Wilson and householder Maria Roux while robbing them of guns.
On September 5, 1994, he was convicted and sentenced to three life terms on 11 counts including three of murder, two of unlawful possession of firearms, theft of a motor vehicle, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances, and two of housebreaking with intent to steal and robbery.
Paul van Vuuren, an inmate at Pretoria Central Correctional Centre for 21 years, has been fighting for the past six years for parole. On November 13, 1992, he was convicted of murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, theft and possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition and sentenced to death.
On September 20, 2000, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison and antedated to November 13, 1992.
Van Vuuren took the minister of correctional services to the Constitutional Court in 2010. The subsequent precedent-setting ruling changed the way inmates sentenced to life before October 1, 2004, must be considered for parole.
In line with the Van Wyk judgment, all offenders sentenced to life imprisonment before October 1, 2004, must be considered for parole after serving a minimum of 13 years and four months.
Those sentenced to life after September 30, 2004, may not be placed on parole until they have served at least 25 years according to Section 73 (iv) of the Correctional Services Act (Act 111 of 1998).
On January 10, Riku Nortje, Correctional Services’s 2011 top university student who had been sentenced to life in 1996, was released on parole after serving 16 years at Leeuwkop Correctional Centre.
He started serving his sentence aged 21, having attended school to Grade 10. Upon his release, he had a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Unisa. He graduated with distinction in 2011. Between 2001 and 2005, he studied towards a bachelor’s degree in computer sciences and maths and graduated with distinction. In 2006, he moved on to study for a BSc Honours in computer sciences and graduated with distinction in 2009.
The Department of Correctional Services is mandated by law to manage and maintain a system of parole applicable to sentenced offenders.
Parole is not a right and is subject to specific conditions which an offender must comply with.
Our progressive parole system allows for independent decision-making through the participation of various role-players, including victims, communities, the SAPS and the Department of Justice.
Offenders released on parole are closely monitored. Those electronically monitored can be tracked anywhere and any time, thereby promoting the safety and security of citizens.
Through the Victim-Offender Dialogues, Correctional Services aims to strengthen rehabilitation and re-integration programmes.
The trilogy of victim, offender and community is paramount.
* Thomas Moyane is national commissioner at the Department of Correctional Services.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
The Star