Criminal experts uncertain if 'Station Strangler' will relapse

The state has been warned to keep Norman Afzal Simons, dubbed the "Station Strangler", on its radar after his pending release from prison where he served 28 years.

Simons was said to be behind the murder of 22 boys whose bodies were found buried in shallow graves around the Cape Flats in Cape Town between 1986 and 1994. The boys were reportedly found face-down with their hands tied behind their backs, and according to reports, there were signs they had been sodomised.

Simons, who was a schoolteacher at the time, was convicted for the murder and abduction of one of the boys, Elroy van Rooyen, in 1995 and is set to be freed this month after he got paroled. 

But has he been rehabilitated?

Speaking to Sowetan on Tuesday, a professor in criminology and forensic studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Nirmala Gopal, said any individual can reform or be rehabilitated.

"However, one would need to scrutinise this individual’s history both within and outside of prison. If during his time in prison, he has shown sufficient remorse and apologised to the families of the victims and demonstrated behavior traits suggesting that he has transformed, then we could say rehabilitation was possible for him," she said.

Gopal said it would also be up to the psychologists in prison to ensure that the psychometric tests that he (Simons) undertook indicate that he has been rehabilitated.

She added that while SA correctional services have rehabilitation programmes, to date, evidence has pointed to ineffective programmes as many inmates return to prison because they re-offend once they are released.

"My thinking is that rehabilitation programmes should be tailored to suit the needs of the individual offender. If this is undertaken, the likelihood of success will be better than the current status quo.

"There should be better monitoring and independent evaluation of the rehabilitation programmes for improvement purposes. It might be advisable for the DCS [department of correctional services] to focus on one critical aspect at a time concerning rehabilitating inmates."

Prof Christiaan Bezuidenhout, a criminologist at the University of Pretoria, said that there were lot of parolees who commit crimes once they are out of prison.  

"The one thing we cannot predict about human behaviour is whether they will act the same way again. The Station Strangler has been there for a long time, maybe he will say to himself, 'I don't want to go to that place again' and try and control himself."

He said SA's rehabilitation programme was too generic in its approach.

He said for people who show repetitive behaviour such as serial rapists, serial murderers and psychopaths, rehabilitation would not be effective if it is not intense and aligned with that case or that problem.

He said if a parolee is a person with a personality issue such as a psychopath or antisocial personality disorder, it is highly unlikely that they have changed completely.

"You cannot predict that. When they see the trigger then they relapse. The question that society is asking right now is, will he [Simons] relapse? We don't know. He would probably be put on the sex register; he was a teacher before, so will they allow him close to children?

"Let's say he [Simons] ends up in a situation with young boys and he is alone with them, he must remove himself from there because he knows that is the trigger now. That is how you do self-regulation and say 'I am in the wrong place; it is going to happen. I must leave or I am going back to prison'," said Bezuidenhout.

"He's been in prison for a long time, I don't think he would want to go back. The hierarchy in prison – if you were a child molester or you hurt children, your status in prison is lower than gangsters. You are also assaulted, there is a lot of things that happen to you," he added.