Cape Town — Some of the country's severely overcrowded prisons might soon be allowed to refuse further admissions, Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour said yesterday.

Introducing his budget vote, Balfour said that the building of more prisons - four new ones are in the pipeline - would not solve the problem.

He said sentences designed to promote rehabilitation should be considered instead.

Deputy Correctional Services Minister Cheryl Gillwald said it was "worrisome" that SA's sentencing trends were markedly different to progressive and comparable jurisdictions internationally.

Gillwald said that the number of prisoners serving sentences of longer than 10 years had quadrupled from 10000 to 40000 in the last nine years.

"Our propensity to resort to imprisonment as a primary response to crime is illustrated by the alarming statistic that four out of every 1000 South Africans are prisoners.

"Two thirds of the world's countries have imprisonment rates of less than 1,5 per 1000," she said.

Gillwald urged that a restorative justice model be developed that combined an appropriate sentencing framework with alternative mechanisms such as community service, parole and probation.