Big Brother for parolees

Ten thousand parolees will be tagged with electronic bracelets to help curb prison overcrowding in the next five years.

Speaking ahead of his department's budget vote in parliament, Correctional Services national commissioner Tom Moyane yesterday said that, as a result of the project launched last year, 132 inmates serving life sentences were being electronically monitored throughout South Africa.

"There have been zero incidents," he revealed.

By the end of the current financial year, 500 parolees are expected to be captured and monitored on the electronic system.

The implications of overcrowding in prisons, as well as the high cost of detaining prisoners, were key drivers in adopting tagging.

"To keep an inmate costs R9876 per month. This [system costs] R3379 per month. It's cost-effective.

"Besides, it will help the judiciary to apply their minds - they do not have to give custodial sentences but non-custodial [ones] because we can account for any offender at any time. It will also help with overcrowding," Moyane said.

Correctional Services Minister S'bu Ndebele said prisons only had bed capacity for 119000 inmates, but there are 152514 prisoners in jail.

There were 400 inmates serving life sentences in 1994 and that figure has increased to 11000 this year.

"It's a big problem. Part of the introduction of this electronic monitoring really would be at the hands of the judiciary [to pronounce on] so we are not clocking up the 119000 [spaces] we've got."

Ndebele also reiterated the government's commitment to rehabilitation through education.

He said 10393 offenders had registered for adult education and training. Also, the minister said, the offender labour programme's numbers were swelling.

Ndebele insisted that education was a non-negotiable and that no inmate would be allowed to exploit the system for free food, clothing and shelter.

"We actually want to say that no one has the right to be ignorant, particularly when we are paying R10000 a month. It's something we no longer want to leave hanging there," Ndebele said.

"You can't just sit there [while serving time in prison], [if you] can't read, write [and] count."