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A few weeks ago, eNCA had an insert of a victim-offender dialogue (VOD) in one correctional facility. I noticed the clip as it was ending. It had an elderly woman saying she forgives an offender. Speaking in isiZulu, she said, “I am also a mother. I have children.” I don’t have an idea of the crime that was committed, but her words were insightful, cautionary, and heart- wrenching. It was an admission that crime is pervasive and any South African child was potentially a serious offender-in-waiting. The woman immediately reminded me of former Minister of Correctional Services, Sbusiso Ndebele, who was an outstanding champion these life-changing victim-offender dialogues. 

Having worked closely with Minister Ndebele at the Department of Correctional Services, I remembered stories of offenders and victims that revealed the complex issues of crime as well as the ever present possibility for redemption and healing for our nation.  I remember a mother I interviewed at a Correctional Facility in Umthatha late in 2013 who lost her only son from an offender who murdered him for his shoes.  I also spoke to the offender, a son of a priest. As a young boy, he was crushed when his father started showing more affection to his siblings. He was angry at his father who had stopped throwing him in the air, something he really cherished as a little boy.  The mother who lost her son did not only forgive the offender, but adopted him as his son, regularly visiting him with her daughters at the correctional facility and buying him toiletries.

Under the presidency of the world’s most well-known ex-prisoner, Nelson Mandela, prisons began transforming their mandate from being sites of retribution, torture, and humiliation to  institutions of new beginnings and rehabilitation. South Africa’s White Paper on Corrections was informed by the ideal of   offender rehabilitation, reintegration, and second chances. In Long Walk to Freedom, Madiba makes a crucial observation.  He writes that, “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones”. This global icon who led the black majority to reconcile with their former oppressors, jailers, and murderers firmly believed that we “will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than [we] will through acts of retribution.”  And for a long time, the missing link in the new plans for successful offender rehabilitation and reintegration was the victim of crime.

Sbusiso Ndebele served as Minister of Correctional Services between 12 June 2012 and 25 May 2014. In two years, he successfully championed difficult conversations between victims of crime and perpetrators. He was on an overseas trip as Minister of Transport when he learned that he had been redeployed to Correctional Services. An avid reader and a librarian by training, Ndebele immediately embraced his new role while abroad by purchasing books on the latest global developments on corrections and restorative justice. Two such books in his arsenal were, “ Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reintegration” (2010) and the book,  “Ubuntu and the Law: African Ideals and Post-apartheid Jurisprudence” (2012).

As a former prisoner who spent ten years in Robben Island, Ndebele brought his prison experience to good use. This pan Africanist and son of a Lutheran priest had a natural affinity to indigenous practices of restorative justice and the Christian teachings of  forgiveness and reconciliation.  With his new appointment, he immediately revisited two key documents – the Freedom Charter and the Constitution. He regularly cited that the Freedom Charter states that: “Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and shall aim at re-education, not vengeance”. For those members of the public who were critical of the humane treatment of offenders, he pointed to Section 35(2) (e) of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution which stipulates that: “Everyone who is detained, including every sentenced prisoner, has the right to conditions of detention that are consistent with human dignity, including at least exercise and the provision, at state expense, of adequate accommodation, nutrition, reading material and medical treatment.”

In September 2012, the former Robben Island librarian, Sbu Ndebele, introduced the programme, “Reading for Redemption” to promote reading and the establishment of book clubs. He insisted that upon release, an offender must be in possession of “a certificate in one hand and a skill in another hand.” Recognising the central role of Correctional Officials in the Department’s efforts of rehabilitation and offender empowerment, Ndebele declared 2013, “the Year of the Correctional Official.” He announced that as from the 1st April 2013, it was compulsory for every inmate, without a qualification equivalent to Grade 9, to complete Adult Education and Training (AET) level 1 to 4. As part of helping offenders make amends to society, he promoted a series of small and major campaigns where offender labour was used to rebuild destitute homes and communities.  He began working on plans to make Correctional Services more self-sufficient and he investigated the possibility of offenders earning income and saving it while in custody to use upon release.

Ndebele’s enduring legacy will always be the Victim-Offender Dialogues (VODs) which he launched on the 28th of November 2012.

Informed by the literature on Restorative Justice (RJ), the VODs treated crime as a violation of people and relationships.  The literature argues that crime creates an obligation to amend relations or make things right. Restorative Justice involves the victim, the offender, and the community to find   solutions which promote repair and reconciliation.

For Ndebele, Victim-Offender Dialogues were underpinned by what he termed the five Rs, which an offender must go through. These are: Regret, Remorse, Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration.

Ndebele argued that, “Victim-Offender Dialogues place the victims of crime at the centre of the criminal justice system” by allowing them to find closure and answers to their questions.

VODs are careful not promote secondary victimisation; hence it remains voluntary for the victims to participate in any mediation efforts.

One much publicised case on the Victim-Offender Dialogues involved Stephanus Coetzee – the so-called 1996 Worcester bomber that led to the death of four people, including three children. Sixty seven people were injured. Motivated by racial hatred, the 17-year old Stephanus Coetzee said at the time he was disappointed at the low death toll.

The victims of the bombing received support from organisations like the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Process (WHARP) and Khulumani Support Group (KSG).

One of the surviving victims of the bomb who was also the first person to forgive Stephanus was Mrs. Olga Macingwane.  On 16th September 2013, I was present in Worcester when Coetzee met the community at a packed Piet Hugo Hall.  During this community VOD session, Coetzee explained his background and how he was drawn into the right-wing Wit Wolwe which believed in white supremacy. While he apologised to the victims and community, he felt it would be selfish of him to ask for forgiveness. While others said they had forgiven him, one woman demanded that he be removed from the stage. The woman was visibly in pain, angry, and in tears. She yelled: “I HATE YOU!”

An old woman, probably in her seventies, said as a parent herself, her only wish was to meet the parents of Stephanus to ask why they had raised their son with such deadly hatred for black people.

Others raised concerns about reparations, and one young lawyer saw the VOD session as a sham and  a means to pave  way for Coetzee to get parole.

In 2014 Correctional Services was merged with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development under Minister Michael Masutha and Deputy Minister Thabang Makwetla. Ndebele was appointed South Africa’s Ambassador to Australia.

After serving nearly 19 years in custody, Stephanus Coetzee was released on parole in 2015. In September 2016, he invited 57 year old Olga Macingwane, to Klerksdorp where he was involved in a feeding programme for children. Thanking her for her forgiveness, Coetzee handed her a frame containing his Comrades marathon medal and race number.

The VODs of the Department of Correctional Services are a growing part of our national discourse on corrections and reconciliation. In April 2018, Mzansi Magic began airing their popular reality programme called “Yobe”, which is based on offenders facing their victims or victims’ families to ask for forgiveness. “Yobe” portrays heart-breaking stories of victims who are seeking closure and answers from offenders. In some cases, they get the answers, in other instances they don’t. Others forgive, others understandably refuse. There are lessons for our nation to draw from the VODs on how we can better combat crime and reduce the high rates of re-offending behaviour or recidivism. 

The Department of Correctional Services, with no less than 243 Correctional facilities and an average inmate population of 160 000 carries an important and specific mandate in the criminal justice system. As President Cyril Ramaphosa and his team finalise the reconfiguration of Cabinet, one hopes that the decision to merge this massive Department with Justice and Constitutional Development will be revisited. Should it be thought prudent to have a single Ministry, one believes that the Deputy Minister or anyone responsible for  Correctional Services will be given adequate powers to take decisions in fulfilment of the Correctional Services Act. Whatever society’s views of offenders are, Corrections should never be treated as an after-thought. To do so is to risk compounding the problem of crime.  In thinking about the future of the Department, our country has a lot to gain by engaging individuals like Sibusiso Ndebele, other former Ministers, as well as the many dedicated correctional officials who are committed to the mandate of the Department.

(Wonderboy Peters is a public servant who writes in his personal capacity. He worked in the Ministry of Correctional Services between June 2013 and December 2014. He is now working in the Office of the KZN MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs)