The issue of overcrowding has become one of the major concerns within the Department of Correctional Services in S.A. According to Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons quoted in Annual Report (2002/2003:4) in 2002 the South African offender population has been overpopulated by 72 000. The 236 correctional centres designed to accommodate 100 668 offenders were accommodating 172 071. The focus of this study is to explore the impact of prison circumstances in perpetuating recidivism. Glencoe correctional center is identified as the target centre. The total offender population has been estimated at 950 with 650 offenders being categorised as recidivists. The conclusions were drawn and presented as follows: • Peers have been found to be exercising a crucial role in influencing the behaviour of the offenders. The impact of this influence has been found to be posing a challenge on both individual and family values. • The impact of prison life manifested through processes like the use of drugs, involvement in gangs and identification with the prison life. • The prison system has not been able to convince the iii offenders in terms of fighting crime. Lack of proper security measures, lack of skills training interventions, unemployability of the offender and lack of job opportunities have been identified as challenges that disqualify the prison system as an effective crime prevention institution. • Lack of personnel and lack of policy implementation knowledge are some of the challenges associated with the difficulty in evaluating the appropriateness of rehabilitation programmes. • Sustaining the prison subculture manifested through processes such as identification with the negative role models, purposeful alienation from the community and condoning of violence. • The family system has been identified as another institution that contributes to the development of the prison subculture. • Family-related aspects were identified by the respondents as an area affected by imprisonment. • As indicated in by the theory of Kohlberg in Glick iv (1995:110), high levels of moral development would serve to keep offenders from committing further crime. • To promote offender’s readiness to face the societal life from a positive point of view, there is a need for assistance in drafting individual plans and strategies. • The expectations of the respondents on effective offender reintegration were shared and the relevant role-players were identified. Having drawn the conclusions, the following recommendations were made: • The research focused on sociologically related factors and as a result the need for further research, especially on biologically related factors, emerged. • The scope of the research widened to such an extent that the contributory factors of recidivism were covered at a more general level. Further research to cover the individual factors in more depth is recommended. • There is a need for structures to exercise advocacy intervention on behalf of the offenders in such a manner that they would have a say in issues affecting them. v • Attendance of rehabilitation programmes and demonstration of behavioural change should be awarded in order to serve as a motivation for positive behaviour change. • The need for equipping prison officials to be effective rehabilitators has been identified as a challenge to the prison system. • Integrated functioning of different role-players would serve to promote effective offender reintegration. • The offender needs to be assisted to envision and plan for the future. / Mrs. H.F. Ellis

A Cadeia Pública de Bragança Paulista (São Paulo) passou a ser administrada, desde primeiro de janeiro de 1996, através de um convênio com o Governo do Estado de São Paulo, por uma Associação Civil sem fins lucrativos chamada Associação de Proteção e Assistência Carcerária (APAC), que conseguiu reduzir os custos de administração prisional e investir o dinheiro excedente na melhoria das condições físicas e na contratação de profissionais técnicos (como psicólogos e assistentes sociais). Os voluntários desta Associação, organizados em grupos de trabalho, passaram a conviver intimamente com os presos. Esta Cadeia passou a ser vista como um exemplo bem-sucedido de administração prisional conjunta entre Estado e comunidade, capaz de promover a ressocialização dos presos, e foi escolhida como modelo para a construção dos Centros de Ressocialização - unidades de segurança mínima - pela Secretaria de Administração Penitenciária de São Paulo, apresentando-se como um exemplo de concretização da moderna utopia penitenciária. No presente trabalho, de cunho exploratório e descritivo, esta unidade prisional foi estudada por método etnográfico e documental (visitas semanais durante aproximadamente três anos) com o pesquisador adotando o papel de voluntário. Buscou-se caracterizar as relações estabelecidas entre os agentes institucionais (voluntários, presos, carcereiros, funcionários da APAC) e entre a Cadeia Pública de Bragança Paulista e o sistema penal como um todo. Defende-se que a existência desta experiência não constitui um caso isolado, tanto porque é possível encontrar outros exemplos de unidades prisionais reformadas quanto devido à relação intrínseca entre esta unidade e o restante do sistema penal. A ordem era mantida a partir de uma aliança entre voluntários e galerias (líderes prisionais) que impedia os presos comuns de exercerem os valores prisionais. A transferência para outra unidade era usada como cerimônia punitiva máxima. A dependência da transferência implicava na necessidade de um sistema penitenciário \"falido\" usado como ameaça para os presos menos obedientes. As principais características de seu funcionamento - isolamento administrativo, preponderância econômica, ênfase gerencial, participação comunitária, regime de legalidade, limitação da subcultura carcerária e diminuição da violência física - trouxeram como conseqüência uma maior capacidade crítica para os presos, desvinculada, porém, de maior autonomia de escolha, o que impedia a concretização de seus objetivos ressocializadores. A função social desta experiência era a reposição dos ideais penitenciários (pena de prisão como elemento ressocializador), o que a inseria preferencialmente na instância ideológica do funcionamento social. A dependência frente à transferência mostrava que esta experiência havia se inserido estrategicamente no sistema penal auxiliando sua reprodução ao justificar sua existência como necessária para presos mais perigosos. A conversão da Cadeia Pública em Centro de Ressocialização implicou em uma reapropriação desta experiência pelo Estado, que havia cedido \'para a APAC parte de seu poder de polícia. A maior formalização do cotidiano prisional decorrente desta transferência deixou claro que anteriormente os contatos com os voluntários traziam conotações transformadoras e, assim, contraditórias com o sistema penal. Defende-se, enfim, a impossibilidade de que uma intervenção técnica no sistema penitenciário possa produzir transformações nas relações sociais ali estabelecidas, sendo imperativo resgatar o aspecto político destas intervenções. Palavras chave: psicologia social; detentos; controle / The jail located at Bragança Paulista (São Paulo, Brazil) started been administered, from January first, 1996, by a non-governmental organization in accordance with the government of the state of São Paulo. The Association for the Protection and Assistance of Prisoners (APAC) reduced the prison budget, improved the jail cond itions and hired professionals like psychologists and social servers to work with prisoners. The volunteers from this association developed a close relationship with the prisoners. This jail has been seen as a successful example of prison joint administration between the community and the state, capable of rehabilitating prisoners, and was chosen as model for the building of the Centers of Rehabilitation - minimum-security unities - by the state government, thus presenting itself as the realization of the modern penitentiary utopia. This present research - of an exploratory and descriptive type - uses the ethnographic method to study this jail. The researcher visited the jail once a week during three years, and took the role of volunteer. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the relationship established between the institutional agents (volunteers, prisoners, prison guards), and to understand the links between this prison experience and the penal system as a whole. The study concludes that APAC was not a unique experience (it is possible to find other similar experiences). Order inside was sustained by an alliance between volunteers and prisoners\' leaders that stopped prisoners from making use of prison values. The transfer of prisoners to other prisons was seen as the most important punitive ceremony in the institution. It implied necessarily the existence of a failed penitentiary system used as a threat to disobedient prisoners. The main characteristics of this experience were: administrative isolation, economic preponderancy, management emphasis, community participation, legality regime, limitation of prison subculture, and reduction of physical violence. They led to an improvement of prisoners\' judgment capacity, but they didn\'t produce more autonomy, thus failing in the aim of rehabilitation. The social function of this experience was the re-establishment of the penitentiary ideal (imprisonment as rehabilitation), thus serving an ideological function. Transfer as punishment showed that this experience strategically helped the reproduction of the penal system, justifying its existence as necessary for dangerous prisoners. The transformation of the jail into a Center of Rehabilitation implied a re-appropriation of this experience by the state, whic h had assigned its police power to the association. The formalization of the relationship between prisoners and volunteers that followed the transformation made clear the prior revolutionary characteristics of this relationship, showing its contradictions in face of the penal system. This research states that a technical intervention is not capable of changing social relations within the penitentiary system, being necessary to restate the politic aspect in these interventions.

A Cadeia Pública de Bragança Paulista (São Paulo) passou a ser administrada, desde primeiro de janeiro de 1996, através de um convênio com o Governo do Estado de São Paulo, por uma Associação Civil sem fins lucrativos chamada Associação de Proteção e Assistência Carcerária (APAC), que conseguiu reduzir os custos de administração prisional e investir o dinheiro excedente na melhoria das condições físicas e na contratação de profissionais técnicos (como psicólogos e assistentes sociais). Os voluntários desta Associação, organizados em grupos de trabalho, passaram a conviver intimamente com os presos. Esta Cadeia passou a ser vista como um exemplo bem-sucedido de administração prisional conjunta entre Estado e comunidade, capaz de promover a ressocialização dos presos, e foi escolhida como modelo para a construção dos Centros de Ressocialização - unidades de segurança mínima - pela Secretaria de Administração Penitenciária de São Paulo, apresentando-se como um exemplo de concretização da moderna utopia penitenciária. No presente trabalho, de cunho exploratório e descritivo, esta unidade prisional foi estudada por método etnográfico e documental (visitas semanais durante aproximadamente três anos) com o pesquisador adotando o papel de voluntário. Buscou-se caracterizar as relações estabelecidas entre os agentes institucionais (voluntários, presos, carcereiros, funcionários da APAC) e entre a Cadeia Pública de Bragança Paulista e o sistema penal como um todo. Defende-se que a existência desta experiência não constitui um caso isolado, tanto porque é possível encontrar outros exemplos de unidades prisionais reformadas quanto devido à relação intrínseca entre esta unidade e o restante do sistema penal. A ordem era mantida a partir de uma aliança entre voluntários e galerias (líderes prisionais) que impedia os presos comuns de exercerem os valores prisionais. A transferência para outra unidade era usada como cerimônia punitiva máxima. A dependência da transferência implicava na necessidade de um sistema penitenciário \"falido\" usado como ameaça para os presos menos obedientes. As principais características de seu funcionamento - isolamento administrativo, preponderância econômica, ênfase gerencial, participação comunitária, regime de legalidade, limitação da subcultura carcerária e diminuição da violência física - trouxeram como conseqüência uma maior capacidade crítica para os presos, desvinculada, porém, de maior autonomia de escolha, o que impedia a concretização de seus objetivos ressocializadores. A função social desta experiência era a reposição dos ideais penitenciários (pena de prisão como elemento ressocializador), o que a inseria preferencialmente na instância ideológica do funcionamento social. A dependência frente à transferência mostrava que esta experiência havia se inserido estrategicamente no sistema penal auxiliando sua reprodução ao justificar sua existência como necessária para presos mais perigosos. A conversão da Cadeia Pública em Centro de Ressocialização implicou em uma reapropriação desta experiência pelo Estado, que havia cedido \'para a APAC parte de seu poder de polícia. A maior formalização do cotidiano prisional decorrente desta transferência deixou claro que anteriormente os contatos com os voluntários traziam conotações transformadoras e, assim, contraditórias com o sistema penal. Defende-se, enfim, a impossibilidade de que uma intervenção técnica no sistema penitenciário possa produzir transformações nas relações sociais ali estabelecidas, sendo imperativo resgatar o aspecto político destas intervenções. Palavras chave: psicologia social; detentos; controle / The jail located at Bragança Paulista (São Paulo, Brazil) started been administered, from January first, 1996, by a non-governmental organization in accordance with the government of the state of São Paulo. The Association for the Protection and Assistance of Prisoners (APAC) reduced the prison budget, improved the jail cond itions and hired professionals like psychologists and social servers to work with prisoners. The volunteers from this association developed a close relationship with the prisoners. This jail has been seen as a successful example of prison joint administration between the community and the state, capable of rehabilitating prisoners, and was chosen as model for the building of the Centers of Rehabilitation - minimum-security unities - by the state government, thus presenting itself as the realization of the modern penitentiary utopia. This present research - of an exploratory and descriptive type - uses the ethnographic method to study this jail. The researcher visited the jail once a week during three years, and took the role of volunteer. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze the relationship established between the institutional agents (volunteers, prisoners, prison guards), and to understand the links between this prison experience and the penal system as a whole. The study concludes that APAC was not a unique experience (it is possible to find other similar experiences). Order inside was sustained by an alliance between volunteers and prisoners\' leaders that stopped prisoners from making use of prison values. The transfer of prisoners to other prisons was seen as the most important punitive ceremony in the institution. It implied necessarily the existence of a failed penitentiary system used as a threat to disobedient prisoners. The main characteristics of this experience were: administrative isolation, economic preponderancy, management emphasis, community participation, legality regime, limitation of prison subculture, and reduction of physical violence. They led to an improvement of prisoners\' judgment capacity, but they didn\'t produce more autonomy, thus failing in the aim of rehabilitation. The social function of this experience was the re-establishment of the penitentiary ideal (imprisonment as rehabilitation), thus serving an ideological function. Transfer as punishment showed that this experience strategically helped the reproduction of the penal system, justifying its existence as necessary for dangerous prisoners. The transformation of the jail into a Center of Rehabilitation implied a re-appropriation of this experience by the state, whic h had assigned its police power to the association. The formalization of the relationship between prisoners and volunteers that followed the transformation made clear the prior revolutionary characteristics of this relationship, showing its contradictions in face of the penal system. This research states that a technical intervention is not capable of changing social relations within the penitentiary system, being necessary to restate the politic aspect in these interventions.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2013 / This study examined prison violence that takes place in male correctional centres (prisons) in South Africa. Prison violence is examined as a product of situational design factors within the prison environment, where such factors motivate and provide opportunity for incidents of violence among offenders. Acts of violence among offenders are evaluated and contextualized in terms of forms, motivations, distribution and frequency of violence, following which prison violence is evaluated from a situational design perspective. The research areas in this study determined the directives that govern prison architecture and examined the benchmarks that measure effectiveness in terms of prison design; determined the governing principles of environmental psychology theories and practices; evaluated the forms of violence that take place in maximum security prisons in South Africa and further determined the design features and construction materials adopted in prison design, that motivate and provide opportunities for violent behaviour which in turn jeopardize offender and staff safety. Literature review in this study presented the history and evolution of prisons particularly the relationship between prison form and function, as well as the role of prisons in meeting the historical and current philosophies of punishment. In addition, literary theories surrounding environmental psychology and situational design were presented. Following this, literature was presented on the theoretical debate on the effectiveness of prison design on human behaviour, particularly violent behaviour that occurs in prisons. This study examined the situational impact on prison violence within four correctional centres in South Africa namely, Johannesburg Correctional Centre, Pretoria Central Correctional Centre, Modderbee and CMax. The data collection process included discussions with prison personnel, assessment of historical data, participant observation, unstructured interviews with officials, surveys in the form of interviews and questionnaires with offenders. Findings of this study presented prison violence from a situational perspective by identifying the specific locations within prisons that presented higher propensity for violence. Analysis of results demonstrated how prison design and construction material choice in prison design impacts on violence in prisons. Findings further indicated that specific geographic locations within the prison environment motivated and provided opportunities for prison violence; that design features and material choice adopted in the prison environment motivated prison violence among offenders in male prisons and that design features applied in prison design motivated frustrations among offenders and in turn perpetuated violence among offenders. The findings are presented from the perspective of the users of prisons, namely male offenders, and findings expose prison violence from the South African context. / TL (2020)

Note:

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / A prisoner who's behaviour is causing a security risk for his fellow prisoners, has to be separated from the rest of the prison population. His aggressive and violent attitude as well as his rejection of authority will lead to his incarceration at a super. maximum institution. The purpose of this thesis is to give a theoretical explanation on super maximum imprisonment. Aspects as prison architecture, the handling of the super maximum prisoner, the purpose and function of a super maximum prison and unit management as a form of prison management are observed. The subject is explained from a penological perspective. / Gevangenes wie se optrede 'n sekuriteits-risiko vir ander gevangenes inhou, moet apart aangehou word. Hul aggressiewe en gewelddadige optrede, asook hul verwerping van gesag veroorsaak dat hul na 'n super maksimum gevangenis verwys word, waar hul slegs vir die minimum voorregte kwalifiseer. Met hierdie proefskrif word daar gepoog om 'n teoretiese uiteensetting ten opsigte van die super maksimum gevangenis te verleen. Aspekte wat onder andere die aandag geniet is gevangenisargitektuur, die hantering van die super maksimum gevangene binne inrigtingsverband, die doel en funksie van 'n super maksimum gevangenis en eenheidsbestuur as mees geskikte bestuursvorm. Die doel word vanuit 'n bepaalde oogpunt nagestreef, naamlik die penologiese perspektief. / Penology / D. Litt. et Phil.(Penology)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / A prisoner who's behaviour is causing a security risk for his fellow prisoners, has to be separated from the rest of the prison population. His aggressive and violent attitude as well as his rejection of authority will lead to his incarceration at a super. maximum institution. The purpose of this thesis is to give a theoretical explanation on super maximum imprisonment. Aspects as prison architecture, the handling of the super maximum prisoner, the purpose and function of a super maximum prison and unit management as a form of prison management are observed. The subject is explained from a penological perspective. / Gevangenes wie se optrede 'n sekuriteits-risiko vir ander gevangenes inhou, moet apart aangehou word. Hul aggressiewe en gewelddadige optrede, asook hul verwerping van gesag veroorsaak dat hul na 'n super maksimum gevangenis verwys word, waar hul slegs vir die minimum voorregte kwalifiseer. Met hierdie proefskrif word daar gepoog om 'n teoretiese uiteensetting ten opsigte van die super maksimum gevangenis te verleen. Aspekte wat onder andere die aandag geniet is gevangenisargitektuur, die hantering van die super maksimum gevangene binne inrigtingsverband, die doel en funksie van 'n super maksimum gevangenis en eenheidsbestuur as mees geskikte bestuursvorm. Die doel word vanuit 'n bepaalde oogpunt nagestreef, naamlik die penologiese perspektief. / Penology / D. Litt. et Phil.(Penology)

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / This research project was undertaken to establish what influence the lack of discipline amongst prisoners and members of Correctional Services has on the rehabilitation of offenders. A complete literature study was done to investigate the current lack of discipline amongst prisoners and members. Discipline is also brought into relationship with community based sentences such as Correctional Supervision as well as the involvement of the community in the release of prisoners. Positive rehabilitation can lead to crime prevention but the Department of Correctional Services and the community will have to take hands to reach this common goal. This subject needs further research in order to make recommendations to promote rehabilitation of off enders and to uplift the standard of discipline within the Department of Correctional Services. / Hierdie ondersoek is onderneem om die invloed van gevangenes en personeeldissipline binne die Departement Korrektiewe Dienste in verband te bring met die invloed wat dit het op die rehabilitasie van oortreders. 'n Volledige literatuurstudie is gedoen om die huidige tendens van swak dissipline onder gevangenes sowel as lede te ondersoek. Die dissipline word ook in verband gebring met gemeenskapgebaseerde vonnisse soos byvoorbeeld Korrektiewe toesig sowel as die betrokkenheid van die gemeenskap by die vrylating van oortreders. Positiewe rehabilitasie kan lei tot misdaadvoorkoming, maar dan sal die Departement Korrektiewe Dienste en die gemeenskap moet hande vat om hierdie gemeenskaplike doel te bereik. Verdere navorsing in die verband word beoog om sodoende werkbare aanbevelings te kan doen ten opsigte van beter dissipline onder gevangenes en personeel van die Departement Korrektiewe Dienste. / Penology / M.A. (Penology)

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / This research project was undertaken to establish what influence the lack of discipline amongst prisoners and members of Correctional Services has on the rehabilitation of offenders. A complete literature study was done to investigate the current lack of discipline amongst prisoners and members. Discipline is also brought into relationship with community based sentences such as Correctional Supervision as well as the involvement of the community in the release of prisoners. Positive rehabilitation can lead to crime prevention but the Department of Correctional Services and the community will have to take hands to reach this common goal. This subject needs further research in order to make recommendations to promote rehabilitation of off enders and to uplift the standard of discipline within the Department of Correctional Services. / Hierdie ondersoek is onderneem om die invloed van gevangenes en personeeldissipline binne die Departement Korrektiewe Dienste in verband te bring met die invloed wat dit het op die rehabilitasie van oortreders. 'n Volledige literatuurstudie is gedoen om die huidige tendens van swak dissipline onder gevangenes sowel as lede te ondersoek. Die dissipline word ook in verband gebring met gemeenskapgebaseerde vonnisse soos byvoorbeeld Korrektiewe toesig sowel as die betrokkenheid van die gemeenskap by die vrylating van oortreders. Positiewe rehabilitasie kan lei tot misdaadvoorkoming, maar dan sal die Departement Korrektiewe Dienste en die gemeenskap moet hande vat om hierdie gemeenskaplike doel te bereik. Verdere navorsing in die verband word beoog om sodoende werkbare aanbevelings te kan doen ten opsigte van beter dissipline onder gevangenes en personeel van die Departement Korrektiewe Dienste. / Penology / M.A. (Penology)

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the components of unit management, namely; architecture, case management, risk management and human rights in South African Youth Development Centres. The concept of unit management in correctional centres was adopted by the South African Correctional system in March 1995. However, the formal introduction of the concept was announced by the former Minister of Correctional Services, Dr. Sipho Mzimela, on 16th February 1996. The implementation of unit management was viewed as a vehicle for service delivery in South African correctional centres. Moreover, this concept was also viewed as a strategic move to ensure that corrections and the rehabilitation of inmates, as the core business of the department, are achieved. In an attempt to assess the application of unit management at South African Youth Development Centres, and how unit management influences the rehabilitation of sentenced youth offenders, a descriptive study was conducted to obtain knowledge and perspective from the available literature. In addition to a descriptive study, the researcher employed a quantitative methodology. Using the quantitative approach, data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire. In the case of coding and data analysis, a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) was utilized. In sum, Frequency Tables and Bar Charts were used to simplify the analysis per section and category. The findings from this study revealed that the conditions of detention at Youth Development Centres, specifically the level of overcrowding, influence of old correctional centre structures and the absence of custodial therapists contribute to the violence, violation of basic human rights and failure to rehabilitate youth offenders in these centres. Moreover, the findings also indicate that any efforts to implement the unit management approach proactively fails due to the abovementioned conditions in Youth Development Centres. / Unit management as a rehabilitation tool for youth offenders / Department of Penology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Penology)