Cape Argus reports that the SA Sentenced and Awaiting Trial Prisoners Organisation (Sasapo) has initiated a campaign to address skills development, learnerships and apprenticeships programmes for ex-offenders on parole.
Sasapo chairperson Phindile Zweni said the aim of the initiative was to deal with challenges for ex-offenders to find employment and fight rejection by communities because of their criminal records. In most cases those challenges resulted in ex-offenders re-offending and going back to prison. Zweni noted that the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) was mandated to ensure the effective rehabilitation of offenders into normal society, something that it unfortunately failed to fulfil. This had prompted the organisation to form partnerships with other stakeholders to ensure successful and sustainable implementation of intervention strategies to alleviate the high recidivism of released offenders. This initiative was announced after President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday authorised the placement on parole of selected categories of offenders to curb the spread of coronavirus in prisons. “The decision taken by the president to combat the spread of Covid-19 in correctional centres could relieve our correctional services facilities of just under 19,000 inmates out of a population of 155,000,” the Presidency advised.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sisonke Mlamla at Cape Argus
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