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Attractive prison life encourages offenders to re-offend: Mathole Motshekga

“The improved quality of life in our correctional centres makes life in these centres more attractive than outside.”

And that‚ said Dr Mathole Motshekga‚ “works against rehabilitation and social reintegration as it motivates offenders to re-offend‚ in order to return to the comfort of the correctional centres”.

Motshekga’s comments were made during the Budget Vote of the Department of Correctional Services on Tuesday.

“We require more resources for rehabilitation and social reintegration to prevent recidivism. We should make life outside more attractive than inside the correctional centres.”

Not doing so “creates large numbers of awaiting trial detainees‚ overcrowding in the correctional centres and diminishes the prospects of rehabilitation and social reintegration of offenders”‚ said Motshekga‚ who chairs Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services.

Budgetary constraints – which see more than 81% of the department budgetary allocation going towards administration and incarceration programmes‚ and less than 10% to rehabilitation and social reintegration programmes – “mean that we have not made a significant shift from the prison to the correctional system”.

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