03-06-2025
Reform of parole policy in South Africa — fact or fiction?
The balance balance between integration and stigma could bring down South Africa's high rate of re-offending.
The debate on the possibilities and challenges of parole and rehabilitation in South Africa immediately brings to mind the words of
British Journal of Criminology
,
Nonetheless, the
To his credit, the
The DA has also weighed in on the issue. Writing on behalf of his party, MP
Similarly,
These initiatives are not unimportant but are a poor show if it's meant to move the needle on rehabilitation and desistance from crime. It is the unexamined assumptions built into the DA's argument and that of the department that I wish to interrogate in this piece. The recent furore over the promise and possibility of parole reform in South Africa should be contextualised as it seems to have lost direction in a forest of uproar and excitement.
To understand the enormity of the problem and the task ahead, it is necessary to first grasp the fundamental distinction between stigmatising shaming (found in South Africa and the US) and integrative shaming cultures (found in China, Japan and many African societies).
It is a worthwhile exercise exploring the features and differences between these two cultures as it is important to understand what impact they have on parole policy within that context. I explained the differences in a
'All societies manage deviance through shame that results in either integration or stigma. Stigmatising condemns the offender, rather than the transgression committed, and this results in 'criminogenic labelling', which is 'counterproductive' (to use the well-known Australian criminologist John Braithwaite's words) to any project that wishes to promote rehabilitation and desistance. Integrative shaming, however, encourages reintegration by only condemning the criminal act and not the individual.'
In essence, the difference between these two cultures is that whereas stigma drives ex-offenders away from mainstream society, and thus boosts reoffending as a measure of survival, an integrative shaming culture does everything possible to resettle them sustainably by providing employment, accommodation and even encouraging marriage.
As a criminologist who devoted
For one, I concluded my doctorate on a compelling theme in comparative criminology with the thought that the greatest obstacle to sustainable reintegration of former offenders is the stigma which faces former offenders upon their release from prison. Stigma forecloses employment opportunities for former offenders and leads to social ostracism.
South Africa, for its part, exhibits a harsh stigmatising shaming culture and, considering the criminogenic effect of such an environment, it should not surprise us to learn that this country has one of the highest rates of reoffending in the world.
On the one hand,
Finland is a liberal democracy which, curiously, exhibits features of both integration and stigma and is a model South Africa could
I am always amazed to be reminded that South Africa is a country where at least 70% of its inhabitants profess to be Christian and yet there is such an enormous intolerance of former offenders who have served their time and are eager for reintegration.
Taking my cue from
This is the thought that strikes me as I read the
If the rehabilitation paradigm is redundant in this country, as I
The deeply unequal income and ownership disparities in post-apartheid South African society adds to the conundrum of stigma. In the words of
British Journal of Criminology
, 'P
The dynamics of a stigmatising shaming culture is described by
'The disturbing phenomenon of people cycling in and out of prison, trapped by their second-class status, has been described by Loic Wacquant as a 'closed circuit of perpetual marginality'. Hundreds of thousands of people are released from prison every year, only to find themselves locked out of the mainstream society and economy. Most ultimately return to prison, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Others are released again, only to find themselves in precisely the same circumstances they occupied before, unable to cope with the stigma of the prison label and their permanent pariah status.'
Efforts at resettlement are significantly hindered by the existing stigma threaded through our culture. Regardless of the parole policy in place, stigma continues to seriously impede rehabilitation efforts. Sadly, the debilitating effects of stigma do not begin when the offender is released but are already in place during incarceration, damaging offenders in complicated and significant ways. In a paper published more than 20 years ago, the American researchers
'The bitterness underlying these comments shows the flip side of the power of community reintegration: when stigma and rejection are the dominant experience [as is certainly the case in South Africa], the potentially restorative benefits of civic participation are lost.'
Even though the
One way of doing so is to follow
The excitement around the promise and possibility of parole reform in South Africa is indeed fiction as the route to success stories in rehabilitation and, by implication, positive outcomes for parole, does not, conversely, lie with the institution of parole but with the quality of offenders' reception during their incarceration and, especially, once released from custody.
Dr Casper Lötter is a conflict criminologist affiliated with North-West University's School of Philosophy.
