05 Jun 2022

Botswana Prisons Service strives to be the best in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders by extending focus beyond being custodial entities.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, prisons Commissioner Ms Dinah Marathe said together with her team, they wanted to do away with the belief that prisons service officers’ duty was to only open and close the cells.

She said as part of the drive, they were in the process of introducing new committees of reintegration in all the 34 prisons across the country with the aim to take prisons to the people.

“We want the society or the community to be part of the rehabilitation services, we also want them to be part of the reintegration, she said. The committees would be in addition to the programme themed

‘Perpetrators voice’ which she said was formed after realising that crime could never be solved without hearing out the perpetrators’ side of the story.

 Ms Marathe said for Botswana Prisons Service to do proper reintegration and tailor-made programmes which would help address specific needs of prisoners before their release, they would need support from stakeholders and members of society.

 She said this looking at the acute shortage of rehabilitation professionals, forensic and clinical psychologists, researchers, and security experts at her organisation. “These are people who are highly learned in modern technology that is necessary for the set-up like ours.

Of course, we also need strategic leaders and succession plans that will guide us to have people with the necessary requisite skills,” she said.

The prison commissioner further said they were now embracing the use of technology by installing CCTV cameras in their prison centres to manage and monitor all prisons in the country from one central point at the command centre. “

We are coming up with an integrated prison solution, whereby we are saying we need to have a command centre. We have just concluded a project in Lobatse prisons and we are moving towards Mahalapye, Selebi Phikwe and Francistown,” she said. She said should the project get funding, it could transform the country’s prisons.

She emphasised the need for government to invest to help the organisation be at the level where it could be the pride of the country. ENDS