The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has kicked off Corrections Week to promote awareness and understanding of South Africa’s corrections system.

The week is commemorated during September every year.

This year, the week is commemorated under the theme: ‘Celebrating 30 Years of Freedom and Democracy Towards Shaping the Future of Corrections’.

The department said the country’s transformation since the fall of Apartheid 30 years ago is intertwined with that of corrections.

‘Since 1994, DCS has significantly reformed the correctional system, including playing a major role in the renaming of the United Nations [UN] Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners to the ‘Nelson Mandela Rules’, by the UN General Assembly in December 2015, which is assisting South Africa to speed up transformation towards a people’s developmental correctional system that is consistent with various principles and guidelines.

‘Remarkable success has also been achieved in implementation of the DCS Strategic Framewor
k on Self-Sufficiency and Sustainability [SFSS]. Such notable strides bear witness to the reality that offenders can, indeed, be rehabilitated. Using the SFSS, amongst others, as a springboard, DCS has a strong case for its cause of successful offender rehabilitation and, consequently, fruitful social reintegration,’ the department said.

Corrections week is based on the notions that:

rehabilitation, and not punishment, works in correcting offending behaviour and

family, community and societal involvement is critical in all of the rehabilitative and social reintegration work that DCS implements on a daily basis.

‘The backbone of Corrections Week activities, therefore, is the willingness of DCS to provide opportunities for citizens to witness the value of education, skills development and training, spiritual care, arts and culture, life skills programmes as well as community corrections in preparing an offender for life out of incarceration.

‘The involvement of offenders in caring for their community, in
taking responsibility for their fellow offenders and their families, are stepping-stones to the reintegration of these individuals into a society equipped to strengthen the moral fibre of society,’ the department said.

As the department works to rehabilitate offenders, community participation in the process is vital.

‘Relationships between DCS and the community, community-based organisations, NGOs and faith-based organisations are inherent to the successful achievement of the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, as well as ensuring a victim-centric correctional system.

‘To this end, the participation of the community in ensuring that victims of crime have a voice, and in strengthening and enhancing the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, is crucial,’ the department said.

The department called on South Africans to join hands in order to fight crime and restore dignity to all.

‘Over the last 30 years, Correctional Services has restored the dignity of millions of offenders and changed t
heir lives for the better. Together let us continue to build a South Africa where the values of human dignity, non-racialism, non-sexism and the rule of law remain paramount.

‘Let us extend our social net to the most vulnerable in our midst and help build a more inclusive society,’ the department said.

Corrections Week runs from 15 to 21 September.

Source: South African Government News Agency