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

Abstract

Civil society organisations play a key role in assisting prisoners and ex-prisoners to reintegrate into society and may at present render the bulk of such services. It is especially in respect of post-release support services that non-governmental organisations play a critical role as the Department of Correctional Services does not have a strong focus on this aspect of reintegration work. The type of services and activities that civil society organisations engage in has not been documented on a national level. There is thus a need to describe the types of prisoner support and offender reintegration programmes rendered by civil society organisations in South Africa based on up-to-date fieldwork. A survey was conducted of 21 organisations working in the off ender reintegration and prisoner support field. This paper presents an analysis of the results which are based on the views of practitioners working in these organisations.