prison privatisation in south africa issues, challenges and ...

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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS END NOTES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research and publication of this monograph has been funded by the European Union and USAID, the Ford Foundation, Standard Bank and the US Embassy as part of the Criminal Justice Monitor project. The research would not have been complete without the generous assistance of: The Department of Correctional Services. The Department of Public Works. The managing directors of Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts and of South African Custodial Services. The management and staff at the new private Bloemfontein prison. Various dedicated and helpful academics and prison researchers in South Africa. Judge J. J. Fagan, Inspecting Judge for prisons. PREFACE There is little doubt that the most serious problem facing those responsible for South Africa’s prison system is overcrowding. South Africa’s prisons were designed to accommodate 100,668 inmates. Currently they struggle to house 172,271 prisoners. Overcrowding exacerbates the problems which face prison administrators worldwide: gangs, violence, sexual assault, public health problems and escape attempts. As such it makes managing a prison difficult, and reducing the chances of re-offending almost impossible. To make matters worse, South Africa’s prisons are also under-staffed, badly designed and structurally crumbling. Faced with these challenges and the budgetary limitations in the criminal justice sector, the Department of Correctional Services has identified the privatisation of prisons as one solution. This is a strategy that has been adopted by governments around the world in response to an increasing prison population and the lack of available funds.
As part of the Criminal Justice Monitor which tracks performance and strategy in the criminal justice system, the ISS commissioned this monograph to assist among others the policy makers and practitioners in the Departments of Correctional Services, Public Works and Finance to understand the pros and cons of prison privatisation and the inherent challenges of such a strategy. Privatisation is being practised in several countries and South Africans have the opportunity to learn from these experiences. The aim of this monograph is to present an overview of the main issues in the privatisation debate and draw lessons for South Africa’s privatisation process. It is not difficult to see the benefit of privatisation in this country. As the author, KC Goyer points out, "Private prisons will necessarily be an improvement on public prisons because it would be almost impossible to perform any worse". Nevertheless, there are important considerations of cost and accountability that will need to be carefully monitored by those responsible for imprisonment in South Africa. Antoinette Louw Head of the Crime and Justice Programme Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The prison system in South Africa faces many challenges, several of which are associated with a lack of available resources to meet the increasing demand for correctional services. The key challenges identified by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) are overcrowding and funding. The Department has turned to the private sector for assistance, and has signed contracts for two prisons to be designed, constructed, financed and managed by a consortium of private companies. Internationally, private prisons have seen mixed results. Many of the incidents which take place at private prisons are similar to those which occur at state facilities. Often the criticisms levelled at private prisons could equally apply to state operated facilities as well. Because of problems with comparability, it is extremely difficult to determine whether private prisons save on costs. In South Africa, it is impossible to ascertain whether a private prison will be cheaper than the public prison, because the standard of care offered by private prisons is entirely unmatched in the public sector. In the United States, private prisons in general have neither outperformed nor under performed their public counterparts. In Australia, many of the private prisons have experienced serious problems, but the flexibility of their contracts has enabled the government to respond appropriately. The South African prison privatisation programme is closely modelled after that of the United Kingdom, which appears to have most successfully incorporated the private sector into its prison service. The first private prison in Africa has recently opened in Bloemfontein, and the second will open in Louis Trichardt early next year. Although the financing arrangements have essentially tied the South African government’s hands in terms of monitoring the operations of these prisons, the professionalism and reforms offered by private companies appear to have far surpassed the
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Page 5 and 6: and a discussion of the current sta
Page 7 and 8: stabilising in 1995. An analysis of
Page 9 and 10: Delays in the processing of cases b
Page 11 and 12: Public health While issues of secur
Page 13 and 14: than five fold since 1995, and cont
Page 15 and 16: Prisons in South Africa are over-cr
Page 17 and 18: The arguments for and against priva
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Page 25 and 26: ehalf. With the government guarante
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Page 29 and 30: 9. By creating an alternative, priv
Page 31 and 32: services. The call was for the gove
Page 33 and 34: The American Civil Liberties Union
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Page 37 and 38: senior management team was united b
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Page 41 and 42: of BCC, which is providing 10% of t
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Page 45 and 46: inextricably with the private priso
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9. Ibid. 10. As quoted in Logan, op
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