Parole applications average over 20 000 per year, but of those granted freedom, roughly one in four return to prison.
For every 10 prisoners granted parole in the last three years, a ratio of 3.8 parolees found themselves returning to prison.
The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) this month revealed the stats via a response to a written parliamentary question.
The behaviour of released inmates is not the only concern, as the City of Cape Town is proposing new measures to limit inmates’ communication with the outside world.
Parole applications down
South Africa has a prison population of roughly 166 000 inmates, with almost 60 000 detainees awaiting trial — some for up to two years.
DCS Minister Pieter Groenewald has previously stated the need to be stricter on parole applications, while also stressing the need to deal with prison overcrowding.
Parole applications dropped from 23 215 and 25 683 in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 financial years to 20 987 in the 2024-25 financial year.
Parole placements remained stagnant at roughly 14 000 for the last four financial years, with the exception being 17 228 in the 2023-24 financial year.
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In the last three financial years, 46 627 offenders were granted parole, with 18 052 parolees being forced to return to prison.
Of the 18 052 parole violators, 6 061 were rearrested in the last three years; 624 for rape, 493 for murder and 3 118 for robbery and theft-related charges.
Long remand periods
DCS stated that the top four reasons for parolees breaking their conditions in the last five years were reoffending, loss of support, absconding and violation of other parole conditions.
Violation of other conditions includes failure to maintain employment, live at a fixed monitorable address, refrain from alcohol and drug use and not participating in mandated support programmes.
DCS also revealed the number of inmates who had spent two years or more awaiting the completion of their legal proceedings.
DCS is mandated to inform the Department of Justice when a remanded inmate is approaching the 22nd month of being held in custody.
South Africa’s prisons had 5 962 remanded inmates who reached the two-year mark, with Gauteng and the Western Cape housing 1 564 and 1 355 long-term inmates, respectively.
Signal jammers in prisons
Criminal activity is not limited to those operating in the free world.
Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis had earlier this month requested DCS to trial the use of signal jammers at the notorious Pollsmoor prison.
A human rights group stated its opposition to the plan on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, but Hill-Lewis stated communications should be limited to fixed lines available in prisons.
“Prisoners simply do not have the right to communicate freely beyond the prison walls. We have real examples of the police and prosecutors doing good work to get gangsters put away, only for them to continue to run their criminal gangs from inside prison,” stated Hill-Lewis.
“That makes a mockery of the criminal justice system. To suggest that these prisoners have an entrenched right to do as they please while behind bars is simply ludicrous,” the mayor concluded.
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