Introduction to Central Services Branch

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Correctional Services and the Prevention of and
Treatment for Substance Abuse Bill
Introduction to Central Services Branch Building
a caring correctional system that truly belongs
to all
Presentation to Portfolio Committee on Social
Development Date 20 May 2008
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Outline of Presentation

• INTRODUCTION
• UNDERSTANDING THE CORRCETIONS ENVIRONMENT
• The Offender
• The Correctional Centre
• The Correctional Official
• The Community
• SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND THE CORRECTIONS ENVIRONMENT
• INTERVENTIONS
• CHALLENGES
• CONCLUSION

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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
• Promote corrections as societal responsibility
• 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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INTERVENTIONS

• Collaboration with NGOs / FBOs / CBOs 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 (Lets Work
  Together) Prison Project
• The Presidents 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

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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  

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THANK YOU Renewing our Pledge A National
Partnership to Correct, Rehabilitate and
Reintegrate Offenders for a safer and secure
South Africa