BuaNews (Tshwane)
20 July 2006
South African and British prison officials are to embark on exchange training programmes to ensure improved service delivery at their correctional centers.
This follows Correctional Services Minister Nqconde Balfour's four-day official visit to the United Kingdom to gain insight into systems and strategies employed by the UK government at their prisons.
Minister Balfour has been in the UK since Monday, where he met the under-secretary (Deputy Minister) for Criminal Justice and Offender Management Gerry Sutcliffe.
The two officials looked at how the criminal justice system and the capacity of correctional officials in their respective countries could be strengthened.
This included methods applied to reduce overcrowding and reducing the number of juveniles and the young children female offenders in prisons.
Mr Balfour and Mr Sutcliffe agreed on the need to establish a joint training exchange programme which will see correctional officials from both countries learning from training modules and curricula applied at training colleges in the two countries.
Details of the exchange programme will be worked out by senior correctional officials from both sides before a formal programme is presented to the respective ministers for adoption.
Minister Balfour visited the Wandsworth Prison in London, the largest and the most populated prison in the UK, which houses 1500 offenders.
He also visited the Feltham Juvenile Prison for young offenders.
He met with the deputy governors of the both prisons, discussing overcrowding, gangsterism, offender risk management and privileges, as well as parole and probation management.
Mr Balfour and Mr Sutcliffe discussed compatible strategies to ensure an effective criminal justice system able to deal with, among others, offender management programmes, preventing re-offending by paroled prisoners and reducing the number of children of female offenders in prisons.
They also discussed the development of diversion programmes for juveniles and petty offenders or low-risk offenders and the management of foreign nationals in prisons.
Minister Balfour said the visit "was an eye-opener which would enable the Department of Correctional Services to strengthen its systems and strategies relating to offender management, by implementing or piloting some of the best practices and models learnt from the UK prisons."
The two also agreed that the building of prisons was a short term strategy that needed to be complemented by a multi-pronged criminal justice system to reduce levels of crime and correct offending behaviour.
Britain currently faces huge overcrowding in prisons with an increasing offender population. This has necessitated the building of two new prisons.
Other key issues discussed included the review and management of Public Private Prison (PPPs) contracts, emphasising the importance of the state's responsibility to effectively oversee the safe custody and management of offenders.
The last leg of the Minister's visit will be a site visit to Altcourse Private Prison run by GSL, the company that also manages one of South Africa's two PPPs, the Mangaung Private Prison.
The Minister is expected to meet with GSL officials later today.
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