JAIL A PLACE OF NEW BEGGINGS!

Many offenders enter correctional centres because of a mistake they made, others are purely guilty of the crimes they committed. Offenders are human beings who have done their share of mistakes as any other human being, not anticipating that their mistakes will follow them for the rest of their lives.

In the olden days in South Africa when someone was sent to jail, the purpose was to punish them and lock them up and throw away the key. The system worked because it did not seek to rehabilitate or reform prisoners, it was only put in place to punish those who have broke the law. Many people who went to jail in those days always became jail birds and could not stop or keep away from breaking the law.

In South Africa today we are still seeing the same thing happening to offenders going in and out of prison or correctional centres with the rehabilitation system in place. This system was implemented to rehabilitate and make offenders also ex-offenders worthy members of  the society. This system of rehabilitating and reforming ex-offenders has failed dismally as offenders still do their old habits of raping, assaulting, recruiting newbies in to their numbers gangs.

The senior officials who are working to make sure that the offenders are being rehabilitated are the same people who the warders who never cared for a prisoner's well-being. The implementation of the "Rehabilitation system" has made no difference in South African Correctional centres but has made them worse than before.

Still officials are bringing in illegal weapons and drugs to the centres, also the numbers gangs still rule the centres like it use to be in the olden days.

                                   CORRECTIONAL   CENTRES   AND  LIFE  OUTSIDE.!


The main objective in sending a convicted person to a correctional centre is to rehabilitate and reform the offender to make them realize what they did was unlawful and unacceptable in human living norms or the constitution.

 

Correctional centres should be a place of safety and security but instead they are places of terror and mischief. Gangs rule this little and dangerous world in South Africa called Correctional centres.

Most people who enter correctional centres for the first time are not hardened criminals but rather people who made mistakes due to the treatment the receive when they are newbies in  centres from other offenders who are members of the groups or gangs that rule every correctional centre in South Africa and are referred to as the numbers.

The numbers are the group of notorious and dangers criminals either the 26's or the 28's who have joint leadership in running the centres all over South Africa. The gangs have been around in South African correctional centres for decades and have survived by recruiting new offenders by means of  persuasion and bad treatment of new offenders including assaulting, robbing and raping new offenders. The correctional centre officials are unable to end this because their authority ends in the passages and on the cells its a no go area.

The offenders cheat and manipulate officials by bribing them with money and asking them to bring them illegal things in correctional centres from the outside for example Drugs, weapons and cellphones.

Those who are leaders of the gangs live a luxurious lives like kings as they command everything done in the cells and the centres. Every member of the gangs live a very low cost life in the inside, buying everything cheap.

The prices of food and clothes in the centres brought by mischief and stealing.

Loaf of Bread: R3

Piece of meat: R2

An Egg: 30c

Litre of Milk:R1

Toilet paper:  Free

Converse sneakers: R15

And many things found in correctional centres at low cost others free of charge...

Other people who go back and forth becoming jail birds are being attracted by the life of free things in the inside and running away from the high cost of living in the outside. To them it feels like the only solution to the hardships they face everyday in their everyday lives.

The only way we can fight this as citizens is by accepting ex-offenders into our communities and make them feel like human beings again not animals.

                                    Recidivism and Drugs              

Crime has became a scourge that defines this beautiful country of South Africa. In Africa, South Africa is the number one country with the highest number of incarcerated offenders.Offenders who have committed worst crimes of cruelty.

Talking to numerous ex- offenders who did not want to be mentioned on this Blog it has been very clear that almost 75% of people who are incarcerated or who are jail do not want to return to their previous lives. They all plan to go out and become good law abiding citizens. Ex- offenders plan to live a well respected life on the outside with a steady legal income.

Ex- offenders when given parole they want to do go when they go out and start seeking work. Some families welcome their long lost loved ones with open hands and others do not welcome them. As a result of this ex-offenders end up having not many choices to survive but go back to their previous lives. Others are able to resist this temptation of going back to their old criminal ways and seek other ways to survive.

Our communities are the key stake holders in helping ex-offenders with their final stages of rehabilitation and in helping them fit into the societies but the ex-offenders feel that the communities reject them. As a result of rejection they go and do what they know best and that is Drugs and Crime.

Ex-offenders say after being rejected they smoke drugs which make them feel as if they do not need the society in order to live and start to create their own world of illusion and in that world everything is perfect they are the rulers of their world and emotions. Since drugs are expensive and they do not work they start to make drastic and dangerous measures, such as crime.

These actions result in ex-offenders going back to jail and are forced to become jail birds.

The 32'ans Gang




            







Masixole Yiga Mjezu & 
Kuhle 
Trouble Qononda       

Nkululeko NaFree Tukulo Leeroy Skiti  

Nkululeko Leeroy Skiti (23) was born in Mdantsane and was raised by a single mother who cared for but did not have the means to provide him with what he needed in life but he was very ambitious that he will go to university and become someone important one day. He had a sister when he was 14 and at the age of 16 he went to the mountain after going to the initiation school his life changed forever... This is what he had to say in a Q and A with him about his life recently. Q: What do you do for a living? A: I sell drugs. Q: Who do you sell them for? A: A friend. Q: Do you mind mentioning your friend's name? A: No I cant.! Q: Have you ever been arrested? A: Yes... 3 times. Q: Do you think will ever be arrested again? A: Yes but I hope I will not be arrested. Q: How was your experience in jail? A: It was ok. Q: How can it be ok in jail because we all know its not a good place to be? A: No the problem is in jail I have my own position and whenever I go there I always get it back. Q: Do you belong to any gang? A: Yes I do... The 28 gang (Nongoloza). Q: What crime did you do for you to go to jail? A: I was wrongly accused of Hijacking. Q: What happened? A: There were these guys who robbed and hijacked a car who I knew from where I live and ran away, mna I was caught wearing his T-shirt and I went to jail. So when I was in jail I took the number (28) for protection... So that was it. Q: Now do have any long term goals in life? A: No I only live for today and I dedicate my life to crime and guns. Q: If you do that surely you are going to end up in jail, what makes want to go back to jail? A: Firstly in jail I get respect, I am a leader in the gang in Juvenile, what I say is the law. Even here on the outside all the young Tsotsis like me respect and follow my orders. So crime is my life.

Welcome

This blog will practically look into the issues facing ex- offenders that actually lead them to go back to their previous lives before incarceration and leads them back to correctional centres.