THE EFFECTIVENESS OF LONG-TERM SENTENCING AS A CRIME
Date
2011-06-23
Authors
THOKOLO, TLABO AGOSE
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Abstract
In 1997, the Government of the Republic of South Africa introduced the Criminal Law
Amendment Act 105 of 1997, which legislated minimal mandatory sentencing, in an
attempt to reduce levels of violent crime in the country. It was believed that through long
prison sentences and tough bail conditions, a message of zero tolerance against committal
of any crime would be sent. This would then lead to a situation where potential offenders
were discouraged from committing any crime if they saw the severe punishment given to
others.
The main objective of this research was to examine the effectiveness of long-term
imprisonment as a crime deterrent. Specific focus was on crimes such as murder, rape
and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
The results of this research show that, in the opinion of the criminal justice experts and
officials who work with the policy, long-term imprisonment is not helping in deterring
crime. This conclusion was based on the responses from all the people interviewed who
felt that what this Act actually achieved was overcrowded correctional centres where
rehabilitation of offenders is not effective. Ineffective rehabilitation because of
overcrowding lead to offenders being released without any intervention programmes
being rendered to them and consequently the levels of recidivism are very high
Description
MM - P&DM
Keywords
Crime prevention, Prisons