Govt looking at stricter parole measures for violent offenders – Lamola

Government is considering increasing the time certain violent offenders have to spend behind bars before they will be considered for parole.

In a written parliamentary question, the NFP’s Munzoor Shaik Emam asked Justice Minister Ronald Lamola what steps he intended taking against “repeat offenders and parolees who allegedly repeatedly commit a very large percentage of crimes and violate their parole conditions”.

In response, Lamola said the department of correctional services had started a process to “consider” the “possible review” of the parole policy to tighten the consideration process for offenders sentenced for sexual and aggressive offences.

“A discussion document on the review of the minimum detention period to be served by offenders who have committed offences relating to gender based violence, sexual and aggressive offences was drafted and submitted to State Law Advisers during September 2019 for an opinion,” Lamola said.

“This document proposed that such category of offenders should be considered for parole after serving two-thirds of sentence instead of half of sentence as prescribed by Section 73 of the Correctional Services Act, 1998 (Act 111 of 1998).”

Lamola pointed out that any amendments to current minimum detention periods would not have an impact on offenders already serving their sentences, or who would have committed offences before the amended sentences come into operation.

Revoked

The department is also considering enforcing compliance with placement conditions by ensuring that offenders whose parole has been revoked will have to serve the remainder of their sentence in a correctional centre.

“If the remainder of the sentence is more than five years or if the offender is serving a sentence of life imprisonment, placement on parole must be considered on completion of five years of the portion of the sentence which remained after parole was cancelled,” reads Lamola’s answer.

“This proposal will serve as a deterrent to parolees from violating placement conditions as failure to comply will result in them serving the remainder of the sentence in a correctional centre as opposed to the maximum two years further profile as prescribed by Section 75 (6) Act 111 of 1998.”

Lamola’s answer didn’t provide a timeline on when these measures will be implemented.

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