Published by the government of Zimbabwe
3 July 2008
opinion
Harare — ONCE again, intolerable overcrowding in Zimbabwe's prisons has led the President to proclaim an amnesty that will reduce the sentences for many categories of non-violent criminals.
Among those to benefit from the pardon are female prisoners convicted of infanticide, abortion or termination of pregnancy; prisoners sentenced to terms of 36 months or below who had served at least a quarter of their sentences by June this year; the terminally-ill and those above 60 years.
We hope that the thousands of criminals who benefit will take advantage of the cut in their sentences and tread the straight and narrow path on their release.
But the underlying problem will not be solved.
Previous amnesties, giving remission of sentence to low-level criminals, have reduced prison populations, but after a couple of years the numbers build up to intolerable levels again.
As we have reported in the past, temporary acts of mercy help, but a long-term solution is needed.
One long-term solution introduced several years ago was community service. This has proved to be a viable option for magistrates sentencing petty, non-violent criminals.
Our prison population would have been significantly larger were it not for this development.
But something more is needed.
There appears to be two possibilities.
The first is to build more prisons.
Zimbabwe's population has grown faster than the prison building programme, and with increased urbanisation there has been a higher percentage of crime.
A second option would be to make permanent a procedure for remitting sentences.
Such a scheme would normally involve releasing prisoners on parole.
Parole does not mean that a sentence is cut.
Rather, it means that a prisoner who shows that he or she has made sterling efforts towards rehabilitation is allowed to serve a portion of their sentences outside the walls of jail.
Parole prisoners have to keep the police notified of their whereabouts. They have to obey certain strict conditions. Any deviation from these conditions means that they go back behind bars, for the remainder of the sentence.
Such a system does not require a method of assessing prisoners individually and does require the presence of officers to monitor those outside prison.
But generally it is far cheaper to pay for this extra manpower than to build more prisons.
Besides the cost factor, there are other major advantages in the parole system. There is a very strong incentive for all prisoners to show that they do deserve to leave their cells.
A general amnesty releases the unreformed along with the reformed; parole boards would try to release only those who are reformed.
Secondly, parole gives a prisoner a strong incentive to "go straight" once outside the walls of his jail. Knowing that any criminal activity whatsoever will result in an automatic return to prison acts as a powerful incentive to be very law abiding.
We therefore urge the Ministry of Justice to give serious consideration to the introduction of such a system.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Herald. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
