‘Overhaul our justice system’
Current practices are failing to address high rates of violence
JUSTICE Edwin Cameron has called for a comprehensive overhaul of the justice system and for minimum sentencing to be scrapped, as the current system is failing to address the high statistics of violence and crime in the country, which mainly plague women and children.
Justice Cameron, who spoke at the Sonke Gender Justice Symposium, said unnecessary long-term sentences handed down to prisoners had appalling effects on the prisoners’ mental and health state, which then spread back into society.
He said people who did terrible things should be dealt with harshly, but the idea of men being cooped up in confinement for long-term imprisonment as an answer to crime was wrong as long-term imprisonment had no effect on crime levels.
“Bad things must happen to people who do bad things.
“Vengeance is the best argument for harsh punishment, but the blunt truth is our sentencing and imprisonment policies are in shambles,” Justice Cameron said.
“We have entrusted ourselves to long sentences and in particular to minimum sentences when every single bit of empirical evidence we have shows that they have utterly no impact on inhibiting violent or other crime. Unnecessarily harsh longterm sentences, and particularly minimum sentences, have an appalling effect.”
Justice Cameron said: “We’re focusing our attention in the wrong direction where deterring crime is concerned as we’re focused on ensuring criminals have longer sentences in overcrowded prisons as opposed to focusing on rehabilitation.”
He said that 24 years after democracy, our polity was in a grave state of dysfunction from corruption, non-delivery, lack of capacity and institutional disintegration. He suggested a five-year minimum sentence be implemented as opposed to current minimum sentencing.
Sonke Gender Justice member Nabeelah Mia said overcrowded conditions were experienced in 37% of prisons in South Africa as a result of discriminatory bail practices and sentencing which were suppose to deter crime but did not.
“Currently, there are individuals in remand detention who haven’t been tried yet and may be innocent of the crimes accused, but are being deprived of their liberty because they can’t afford bail. A number of gaps exist in our bail policy including a cap on time spent in detention and a requirement to have bail decisions reviewed regularly.
“Ultimately a comprehensive overhaul of the justice system is required. There needs to be a space created where dialogue needs to be fostered to reimagine the criminal justice system,” said Mia.
Zonk’izizweb Odds Development co-founder Thulani Ndlovu, who was imprisoned for 18 years, said that if you punished a prisoner for more than 10 years, you were no longer punishing his action, but killing his spirit and creating a broken man or woman.