State capture criminals can pay for more prisons

With the alarmingly high rate of crime in South Africa, the last thing we need to hear is that we don’t have enough space in our prisons for criminals.

The public, the majority victims of crime themselves, already don’t feel that enough is being done to combat crime and that the wheels of justice are far too laborious and unfair.

Now, we must hear that our prisons are overcrowded by 46%, with our inmates occupying less than half a square metre.

Worse still, that we need an additional 50 000 beds, more correctional centres and the taxpayer must fund this.

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Hold on just a minute… We feel for Minister of Correctional Services Pieter Groenewald, who is between a rock and a hard place.

He must fix the poor state of our correctional services facilities and increase the capacity to hold more prisoners, but surely not at our expense?

Groenewald said: “We have huge challenges. Without money, you have a lot of limitations.”

Instead of making taxpayers dig even deeper into their pockets, why don’t we make a better effort in convicting those implicated in state capture, recuperate as much of those funds that we can and use that money to build more prisons and get new beds?