Pretoria - Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele says the 10-week special remission of sentence process was concluded successfully.
The process, which was announced by President Jacob Zuma on 27 April, saw the release of 43 789 offenders from 241 correctional centres and the system of community corrections. The process closed last Friday.
"The release process was administered well and characterised by efficient teamwork and efficient coordination by our officials at area management, regional and national levels," said the minister.
Ndebele, who addressed the department's staff in Pretoria this morning, said the department would go all out to ensure that inmates were rehabilitated.
He said as part of rehabilitation, inmates would be encouraged to read more, a method practiced by the Brazilian prisons.
He emphasised the need for offenders to be skilled while in prison.
"Skills development and educational opportunities offer us immediate solutions to providing those serving time within our facilities to at least attain a new set of tools for tackling life better once released through parole or completion of sentence," Ndebele said.
Ndebele called on the private sector and individuals to donate books and baby items for the inmates.
"We must create an environment in our prisons that will contribute towards offenders becoming better than what they were, thereby ensuring a better South Africa. We want to encourage our inmates to study," he said.
He said his department was fully committed to building a caring and just society and affording those who wronged others an opportunity to correct their ways.
"We are passionate about galvanising understanding for our transformative agenda from prisons to corrections and preparing offenders to be reintegrated as functional members of society.
"We have moved away from the legacy of the past of serving solely as an instrument of retribution, to actively pursuing lasting solutions to the societal challenge that is crime by showing those in conflict with the law that there are alternatives to a life of criminality and self-destruction," said Ndebele.
Ndebele was recently named as the new Correctional Services Minister when the President announced changes to the Executive.
