Correctional Services and the Prevention of and
Treatment for Substance Abuse Bill
Introduction to Central Services Branch
Presentation
to Portfolio
Building
a caring correctional
system Committee
that truly belongson
to all
Social Development
Date: 20 May 2008
Outline of Presentation
• INTRODUCTION
• UNDERSTANDING THE CORRCETIONS ENVIRONMENT
o
o
o
o
The Offender
The Correctional Centre
The Correctional Official
The Community
• SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND THE CORRECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
• INTERVENTIONS
• CHALLENGES
• CONCLUSION
Introduction
•
No doubt – Substance abuse one of the major challenges facing all nations
•
An effective and strategic attack on substance abuse requires multi-agency involvement,
including education, social and health services as well as criminal justice agencies
•
Opening of borders - International co-operation
•
The Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Bill provides a framework for early
intervention, treatment and reintegration of people who abuse or are dependent on or
addicted to substances of abuse
•
Correctional Services at end of criminal justice process – Perception that department
becomes involved at late stage
•
New direction – Two strategic pillars
o Promote corrections as societal responsibility
o Develop correctional centres into centres of rehabilitation
•
Focus on substance abuse in Correctional Services includes both staff and offenders but
presentation will focus on offenders
UNDERSTANDING THE CORRECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
• The field of corrections is specialized and requires
special knowledge, skills, and an understanding of
criminality
• Four main elements:
– The offender
– The correctional centre environment
– The correctional official
– The community
• Imperative to contextualize the environment in which
offenders and officials function
UNDERSTANDING THE CORRECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
•
Take cognizance of the culture that exists inside a correctional
centre if you are going to effectively manage the care, custody,
development and control of offenders and at the same time
accommodate the needs of staff
•
Good Order & Security
•
Ensuring safety and security of staff, offenders and external role
players
•
Ensuring a safe environment for interventions to take place
THE OFFENDER
• Stripped of support through embarrassment and
dispossession because they have to submit to the
processes aimed at managing their daily lives
• Pains of imprisonment:
– Loss of liberty
– Deprivation of goods and services
– Deprivation of heterosexual relationships
– Deprivation of autonomy
– Deprivation of security
• The judicial process officially labels individuals as
criminals and defines them as being particular kinds
of persons. This label largely overrides their status as
parents, neighbours, friends or workers
THE CORRECTIONAL CENTRE ENVIRONMENT
• A world where friends cannot be chosen, physical
conditions painfully basic, institutions normally
overcrowded
• Separated from everything familiar, including social
support and loved ones
• Feeling of hopelessness
• Being locked up into a cell and being entirely
dependent on someone else opening that door, has a
very profound psychological impact
• The strongest survive - manipulation
THE CORRECTIONAL OFFICIAL
•
Dichotomy of custodial and “treatment” staff
•
Sometimes custodial vs treatment staff
•
Separation among treatment staff – professional training brought
into secondary setting
•
In the past – emphasis on safe custody
•
Rehabilitation process demands multi-disciplinary approach
•
Currently emphasis in Correctional Services is placed on
equipping correctional officials to understand their role in the
rehabilitation process
THE COMMUNITY
•
Offenders are not from some distant planet – they are from
communities in South Africa
•
Sociologists normally identify the following socializing agents
responsible for inculcating societal values and morals:
– The family (the basic social institution)
– Education
– The economy
– Religion
– The justice system
– Civil Society
– Sport and recreation
•
Communities thus have an important role to play in the
development of offenders
SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND THE CORRECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
•
Research in South Africa has shown a high positive correlation
between drug use and crime (Medical Research Council /
Institute for Security Studies)
– 3-Metro Arrestee Study (Gauteng / Cape Town / Durban)
•
Offenders enter the corrections system in different ways
• Offences directly drug-related (possession / trafficking
/ dealing)
• Offences committed to finance a drug habit (burglary /
theft / robbery)
SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND THE CORRECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
• The Department of Correctional Services is
entrusted with the responsibility of detaining
offenders, supervising community corrections
sentences and parole in conditions that are
consistent with human dignity and correcting
their offending behaviour
• This responsibility, which is a statutory
mandate of the Department, needs to be
carried out in a manner that is integrated and
coordinated and which ultimately results in
the attainment of best results in the most
efficient and effective way
SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND THE CORRECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
•
The White Paper on Corrections (2005) introduces a new chapter
in the treatment of offenders – rehabilitation at the centre
•
The Offender Rehabilitation Path (ORP) translates aspects of the
White Paper into practical actions, viz.
– Admission (Sentenced Offenders)
– Assessment (Leads to Correctional Sentence Plan)
– Admission to Housing Unit
– Interventions (Multi-disciplinary approach)
– Monitoring and Evaluation
– Placement
– Pre-release
– Placement out of Correctional Centre (Parolees)
– Admission of Probationers
•
Ensure offenders’ needs are addressed while protecting public
safety
INTERVENTIONS
• Some initiatives regarding demand reduction,
prevention and treatment:
 National Protection Plan & Escape Prevention Plan
 Installation of advanced security equipment at correctional
centres to improve access control
 Utilizing the policy on the management of persons suffering
from substance and alcohol abuse and addiction that has
been developed by the Department of Health
 Research into matters relating to substance abuse prioritized
on the research agenda of the Department
 Departmental efforts relating to addressing substance abuse
consolidated in the Mini Drug Master Plan of the Department
INTERVENTIONS
•
Collaboration with NGO’s / FBO’s / CBO’s in delivering
programmes that address the need of offenders with regard to
substance abuse:
 Khulisa Rehabilitation / In-Prison Peer Drug Counselling Programme
 South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug
Dependence (SANCA) AHANANG (Let’s Work Together) Prison
Project
 The President’s Award Programme
 Stop-to-Start : Correctional Programme addressing alcohol and
substance abuse (In-house)
 Pre-Release Substance Abuse Programme covering substance
abuse and relapse prevention (In-house)
 AA (Alcoholic Anonymous) and CAD (Christelike Alkoholiste Diens)
 Spiritual workers conducting bible studies on dependency
CHALLENGES
• Drug offenders will continue to pose many challenges
for correctional authorities. It is not easy to discern
the most likely future trends and challenges, but
some of them appear to be as follows:
 Greater focus on programmes specific to the needs of the
individual offender through integrated offender management
and careful assessment
 Drug-specific facilities in the form of specialist rehabilitation
units within existing correctional centres
 Ensuring “quality control” in the delivery of programmes
 Program accreditation and benchmarking
 After Care
CHALLENGES
 Close communication between Corrections / Education / Social
Development and Public Health to ensure continuity of services
necessary for ex-offenders to sustain positive behaviours
 More detailed evaluations of the success (or otherwise) of
different forms of treatment
 There is a need to recognize the needs of offenders from diverse
cultural environments
 A management information system to be established and used
within and across the criminal justice and treatment systems to
ensure the appropriate delivery of services, the effective
utilization of resources and to collect data for evaluation and
research
 Specific attention to male and female and youth and adult
offender needs
CHALLENGES
 Section 4 of the Prevention of and Treatment for
Substance Abuse Bill refers to development of and
compliance to minimum norms & standards which
implies that the present drug units operating within
centres in the Department of Correctional Services
will have to apply for registration as public treatment
centres
 Section 28 stipulates that the Department of Health
must provide detoxification services and health
requirements to voluntary service users to a
treatment centre. Implication for DCS in the event of
registration of public treatment centres?
CHALLENGES
Section 36 deals with temporary custody
of persons pending enquiry or removal
from treatment centre. The implication
for DCS in this instance is that persons
placed in the care of DCS as in the case
of J38 needs to be referred expediently
and policy procedures need to be
formulated in this regard
CONCLUSION
• Correctional Services focus in terms of
addressing issues relating to substance use
and abuse at all levels of prevention and
treatment - from primary (for those who do not
use) to secondary (for those who are using
with negative consequences) to tertiary (for
those requiring treatment)
• Correctional Services combines the focus on
substance abuse as a health issue as well as
an enforcement issue
THANK YOU
Renewing our Pledge:
A National Partnership to Correct, Rehabilitate and
Reintegrate Offenders for a safer and secure South
Africa