Department delegates visits parolees

MSOGWABA – Officials from the Department of Correctional Services recently paid a surprise visit to five parolees in this area.
The visit was part of the officials’ duties to check and monitor how the ex-offenders, released on parole, were doing and how they treat their families.
“This is one of our special monitoring programmes whereby we visit our parolees, we don’t tell them when they will be visited. The aim is to check how they were conducting themselves after being rehabilitated, we also aim to encourage them to avoid absconding from doing community service,” explained Capt Winnie Skonela, the department’s liaison officer.
The visits also aim to instill trust within the community and to counter the stigmatisation of ex-offenders.
These five fall under the 55 parolees within the different sections around Msogwaba.

They, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were grateful for the chance to correct their wrongs and start their lives over.
However, they complained about the criminal record that denies them chances of employment in government institutions.
Mfana Nkosi (not his real name), vowed not to do anything that would see him back in prison again.

“I won’t go back to that place, after serving eight years and six months, I don’t wish to go back again.
“I’m currently not working, but hope something will come up with the skills that I gained while in jail,” he said.
The family of another parolee, who was not found at home because he apparently knocked off late from work, said he was a changed man except for his worrying drinking behaviour.
Members of the correctional supervision board urged his family to talk to him to change his ways as he was not allowed to drink alcohol while in the parole system.
Mpumalanga News learned that some of the parolees were monitored by an electronic monitoring device. One of them said, “I take it easy and the community know what kind of a person I used to be and now they can attest to the new me.” Sibusiso Nhlapho

added that he tries to warn the youth against criminal activities, as prison life was not a bed of roses.
One of the women who were found guilty for shoplifting and spent two and a half years behind bars said,

“It’s not good for a woman to leave her family and spend even a single day behind bars. Women must learn to live within their means and not be tempted to shoplift, crime does not pay.”