A Societal Responsibility: The role of civil society organisations in prisoner support, rehabilitation and reintegration

There is a growing number of civil society organisations in South Africa working with offenders and prisoners focusing on prisoner support, rehabilitation and reintegration, reflecting in many ways the ‘societal responsibility’ that the White Paper on Corrections advocates for. These organisations provide services broadly aimed at promoting offender reintegration and reducing the chances of re-offending.

Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative (CSPRI) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) conducted a survey of 21 organisations working in the offender reintegration and prisoner support field. This report presents an analysis of the results which are based on in-depth interviews with practitioners and managers working in these organisations. It is a central finding of the survey that there is great diversity amongst organisations in respect of nearly every issue dealt with in the survey. On the one hand this indicates the willingness of the sector to engage in innovative approaches and incorporate a wide range of modalities in service delivery. On the other hand, it is also testimony to a fairly fragmented sector in which there has been limited debate on what offender reintegration is, what is effective and what should be avoided.