I can not imagine spending even half an hour in prison, let alone ten years. Why is it then, that first time prisoners more often than not find themselves back behind bars a second, third and fourth time, sometimes within weeks after their release? It is now widely acknowledged, not only in our country, that many prisons do not succeed in rehabilitating criminals, but instead achieve exactly the opposite. They encourage first time offenders - those who can still be saved from lives of desperation, to become serial offenders by creating a environment where prisoners have no choice but to join gangs to ensure their protection and survival.
This is a dreadful shame, especially when one objectively considers the desperation that leads people to crime in the first place. If we envisage the number of people in our country from dysfunctional homes with absent or no parental role models, some in desperate poverty, some the victims of substance abuse or neglect, is it not to be expected that youths will grow up seeking other roles models, the kinds you find in gangs?
Our prisons are bursting at the seams. The police are finally starting to dramatically increase arrest statistics, but there's nowhere to put the detainees anymore. The courts can't cope as awaiting trial prisoners become lost in the system, sometimes for months on end - at taxpayer's expense. Long term prisoners are released, reconditioned to commit even more spectacular and violent crimes. Meanwhile, the new crop of detainees languish, awaiting trial while their dependants suffer the consequences. It's a crazy roundabout, and will do very little to change the crime situation South Africans are faced with daily unless our collective thinking changes radically.
The reality is that the same response is likely to get the same result. You give a bad guy a smack or a sentance, it hurts for ten minutes, days or months. He emerges punished and humiliated, often angry, but unreformed. And he still has the very same problems he went in with. How do I feed my family without a job in a society that doesn't care about me? Well that's easy. I can either work for R120 per day as someone's gardener, back-breaking work at the best of times, or I can join a hijacking gang and get paid R3,500 for 2-hour's work and put my kids into private schools hoping I won't get caught or shot. What would you do?
It's now two double 07. The big stick finally got the boot in Y2K. They don't even use it in schools anymore. So why are most of the world's correctional services still stuck in the dark ages? A good question.
It's a question of deterrence. It is believed that if the punishment is harsh enough people will be discouraged from doing it. But this principle has never worked over the centuries, why should it work now? The only way it works is if we go to extremes, bring back the death penalty and start hacking off people's limbs for theft - that may well work, but is it civilized? It can be safely argued that crime is uncivilized, but that's the point. What are we trying to do - repair behaviour or encourage ongoing retribution?
Retribution is the flip side of the coin. If you've ever had a loved one murdered or raped, or yourself survived an attempt on your life, you would want to see justice done, although in reality, how can it ever be?
Crime is fuelled by two primary triggers, poverty and greed on the one hand (which are inextricably linked) and addiction (usually substance, but sometimes gambling too, linking it to greed) on the other. Mastermind criminals are well versed in creating and identifying soft targets, honing in on the greatest need of all, acceptance, (the need to belong). Many gang members attribute their membership of a gang almost soley on it being "the only place where I felt recognised, acknowledged and wanted."
As a nation, we will only permanently reverse the crime trend in South Africa by doing at very least the following simultaneaously:
In an increasingly regulated society, you can only survive if you have an identity, which requires certain prerequisites like an identity document, a means to secure an education, provide an income (and feed oneself) and secure a place to live. Those with these basic prerequisites reside in the mainstream. Everyone else is outside the mainstream. A case in point is the millions of refugees throughout the world. All they want is a place to live and belong and a means to eke out an existance, but despite their most innovative efforts they are denied even this.
Consider this: Unless people with means unite to find a solution to uplift those without means, the ones without means will forever be looking for ways to forcibly gain access to that which they are currently being denied. The ones with means therefore have much to lose, those without have nothing, so their risk profile is substantially better.
We need to shift our mindsets from prisons to effective rehabilitation centres, from retribution to upliftment, from cure to prevention, and from fear to love.
The time for quick fixes is over. In our new world of instant gratification only a long term strategy of determined and selfless engagement will turn us in to a truly successful nation. Those of us in the mainstream need to all collectively think differently, or face the consequences.
Paul du Toit
