Latest / Drive with John Perlman / Overcrowding in prisons at breaking point

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Overcrowding in prisons at breaking point · Drive with John Perlman

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  Speaker 1: You're with John Pullman on 702. Let's walk the talk.
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  Speaker 2: 18 minutes past four on 702 Drive. Let's focus our
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  Speaker 2: attention on this now. Presentation to Parliament indicates that our
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  Speaker 2: correctional facilities are facing massive overcrowding. We had an inmate
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  Speaker 2: population of around 170,000 at the end of March. We
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  Speaker 2: have an approved bed capacity of for these facilities for
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  Speaker 2: the prisons of 107,000. I'm rounding those figures. This is all,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, flowing out of the department's 2025-2026 annual report. Now,
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  Speaker 2: what the department said, which I thought was interesting, was
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  Speaker 2: that they have actually been trying to increase the bed
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  Speaker 2: capacity of the prisons. However, it seems like they're getting
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  Speaker 2: fuller at a rate where this is simply not keeping pace.
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  Speaker 2: We can't build our way out of this problem. As
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  Speaker 2: I said a little bit earlier, I'm not sure we
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  Speaker 2: can spend our way out of it as well. Are
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  Speaker 2: there policy or practice changes that need to be implemented
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  Speaker 2: as a way of dealing with this? My next guest
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  Speaker 2: is co-author of a document called, or book rather, called
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  Speaker 2: Behind Prison Walls, Unlocking a Safer South Africa. Rebecca Gore,
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  Speaker 2: very good afternoon to you. Thanks for giving us your
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  Speaker 2: time today. The figures confirm, I'm sure, what you and
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  Speaker 2: others have warned about before and what you already know.
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  Speaker 2: Are there people in prison who perhaps shouldn't be there
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  Speaker 2: or certainly shouldn't be there for as long as they are?
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  Speaker 2: Good afternoon to you.
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  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, John. It's wonderful to be on your show
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  Speaker 1: to talk about these really critical issues. So the recent
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  Speaker 1: statistics from the Department of Correctional Services annual report is staggering,
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  Speaker 1: but it's actually part of a pattern that we've seen
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  Speaker 1: recently over the last few years. So to answer your question,
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  Speaker 1: a point we make in our book, Behind Prison Walls,
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  Speaker 1: Unlocking a Safe for South Africa, which I co-authored with
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  Speaker 1: Justice Edwin Cameron and Suheila Sirajpal, is we zoom out
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  Speaker 1: and we say the key issues for prison overcrowding is
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  Speaker 1: the increase in number of individuals awaiting trial. So that
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  Speaker 1: means more and more people are being detained while awaiting trial,
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  Speaker 1: technically innocent or proven guilty. It's almost about 40% of
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  Speaker 1: our entire prison population. And then the second point is
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  Speaker 1: actually the other extreme, is that we're incarcerating more and
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  Speaker 1: more people for longer periods of time. And this is
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  Speaker 1: an impact from minimum sentencing, from life sentences, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: So there's this dual problem, too many people awaiting trial
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  Speaker 1: and too many people serving lengthy sentences. But to answer
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  Speaker 1: your question more particularly, is that's where the reform has
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  Speaker 1: to happen. We have to say, why? Why is 40%
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  Speaker 1: of our entire prison population awaiting trial? And how can
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  Speaker 1: we reform our sentencing to not have the current bottlenecks
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  Speaker 1: that we're having?
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  Speaker 2: So let's break them into two and let's disaggregate the first.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, is there.
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  Speaker 2: Is there any disaggregation of what people are actually awaiting
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  Speaker 2: trial for? I mean, if someone's awaiting trial on a
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  Speaker 2: serious charge that involves violence to other people that may, well,
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  Speaker 2: where the question of threats to witness becomes a material issue,
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  Speaker 2: given the nature of the offense on the one hand,
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  Speaker 2: and then you've got other people who, you know, have
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  Speaker 2: been shoplifting, maybe they've done it before, but they can't
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  Speaker 2: make bail immediately. there's no sense or suggestion that A,
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  Speaker 2: they would be a threat outside, but secondly, that the
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  Speaker 2: crime they're involved in involves a serious breach of the law.
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  Speaker 2: Is there any disaggregation or is it one size fits
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  Speaker 2: all when the magistrates decide?
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  Speaker 1: So I think that's a vital point because the disaggregation
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  Speaker 1: should effectively happen through bail proceedings. So through a bail process,
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  Speaker 1: A judge will be conducting this assessment, touching on the
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  Speaker 1: very issues, looking at the nature of the crime, the
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  Speaker 1: threat to the community, the threat to the victim. And
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  Speaker 1: what we found in our research is that there's a
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  Speaker 1: bucket of people who actually have not committed violent crimes.
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  Speaker 1: They have been awarded bail, so they are not seen
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  Speaker 1: as a threat to their community. It's seen that they're
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  Speaker 1: likely that they will be able to return for their trial.
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  Speaker 1: But all they can't do is afford their bail. So, John,
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  Speaker 1: quite interestingly, in South Africa, we're actually one of the
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  Speaker 1: few countries that still has a cash bail system. So
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  Speaker 1: the disaggregation should happen in terms of the severity of
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  Speaker 1: the crime, the ability to show up for your trial.
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  Speaker 1: But what we really need to consider is those individuals
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  Speaker 1: that are sitting there that deserve bail but can't afford it.
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  Speaker 1: And in a country like South Africa that's highly unequal,
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  Speaker 1: it's immoral and it's costly to the state, interestingly, to
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  Speaker 1: actually be housing more people awaiting trial than it costs
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  Speaker 1: to just release them, notwithstanding their inability to pay bail.
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  Speaker 1: So that disaggregation needs to happen, but it should happen
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  Speaker 1: in more detail.
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  Speaker 2: So I think you may get more sympathy for that argument,
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  Speaker 2: including possibly from me, than you would get around the
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  Speaker 2: question of minimum sentences, because I think there's a general
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  Speaker 2: feeling in a country in which not only crime, but
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  Speaker 2: the threat of crime costs an incredible pull over people's lives,
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  Speaker 2: that they like the idea of people sitting in jail
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  Speaker 2: for a long time. Is it your view that the maximum...
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  Speaker 2: The sentencing regime as it's evolved over the last, I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, what would it be? 10, 15 years has
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  Speaker 2: gone too far.
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  Speaker 1: So in our book, we grapple with this point in
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  Speaker 1: quite a lot of detail. We actually trace how sentencing
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  Speaker 1: reform has worked over the years. And what we have found,
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  Speaker 1: and this is a hard truth, and I say this
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  Speaker 1: with complete compassion and care for individuals who are victims
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  Speaker 1: and survivors of crime. It's too many people in this country.
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  Speaker 1: But the scary truth, and this is based on empirical research,
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  Speaker 1: is that the length of sentence doesn't impact crime. When
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  Speaker 1: an individual's calculating a crime or committing a crime, they
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  Speaker 1: don't think, will I get 10 years, 15 years, 20 years?
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  Speaker 1: And so our reliance on minimum sentencing, it's emotive, it's political,
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  Speaker 1: I share it, but that's not actually a deterrent for crime.
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  Speaker 1: What it does do is it creates a crime situation
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  Speaker 1: we have where more people are serving lengthy sentences. What
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  Speaker 1: we should be doing is asking the government to actually
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  Speaker 1: address the key causes of crime, not just the symptoms.
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  Speaker 1: So just to summarize, for years, when you trace our
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  Speaker 1: sentencing laws and you trace our crime rate, you actually
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  Speaker 1: can't find a correlation to say the more people we incarcerate,
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  Speaker 1: the safer we are. It's a sad.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, but you must concede that there are other variables
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  Speaker 2: there and that is not the only reason for stiff
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  Speaker 2: sentences because whether that brings the crime rate down or not,
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  Speaker 2: some might say that's a bonus. Nevertheless, somebody who does
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  Speaker 2: X or Y should get 10 years because 10 years
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  Speaker 2: is what the crime deserves. I mean, that surely can't
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  Speaker 2: be the only way we measure why crime is going
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  Speaker 2: up or down. But secondly, that can't be the only
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  Speaker 2: reason why we have stiff sentences. Surely they have a
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  Speaker 2: value of their own.
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  Speaker 1: Of course they have a value of their own. But
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  Speaker 1: the point is the extreme way in which we're relying
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  Speaker 1: on it, that we rely on this notion of minimum
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  Speaker 1: sentencing as a way to to deter crime and to
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  Speaker 1: stop crime. But time and time again, we find that
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't work. And what it actually does is when
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  Speaker 1: you incarcerate more people for lengthy periods of time and
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  Speaker 1: you have a mix of people who have committed serious
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  Speaker 1: crimes and not such serious crimes, they become universities of
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  Speaker 1: crime because sometimes they join a gang. So I am
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  Speaker 1: for sentencing, but sentencing should be individualized, proportionate, And based
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  Speaker 1: on that individual and the crime that has been committed,
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  Speaker 1: this blunt minimum sentencing is playing a role in the
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  Speaker 1: burgeoning prison population that we're experiencing.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Rebecca Gore. She is the co-author of
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  Speaker 2: a book called Behind Prison Walls, Unlocking a Safer South Africa,
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  Speaker 2: 27 minutes past four.