Johannesburg - The Association for Private Security Owners of SA (Tapsosa) said it was not opposed to private prisons, in spite of convicted murderer Thabo Bester's prison break.
Bester escaped from the Mangaung Correctional Facility in the Free State, raising questions as to whether private prisons were efficient.
The facility is being managed by the private security firm G4S.
Since the incident, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) has been vocal about how private prisons prioritise profit over everything.
However, Tapsosa believes private prisons are generally efficient, citing that the Bester case is an act of individual criminality.
"We are not opposed to the privatisation of institutions such as your criminal facilities and your jail houses. The role of government is not to provide jobs for everyone but to create a conducive environment in which the private sector can participate," Tapsosa deputy president Lebo Nare said.
"What has happened with the Bester issue is a matter of criminality.
“Criminality is an individual act. Hence, even with the arrests, you are seeing certain people who are linked based on their individual actions; it is not the whole company that has been arrested when the directors have been arrested and held accountable," he said.
"The interest now is in the private security sector and the companies that are running private prisons; we are not talking about public prisons; we don’t want to compare the statistics of private prisons and those of public prisons.
"But we would like to categorically state that we are not opposed to the privatisation of correctional facilities ... it is an opportunity for some of the companies to expand, provided that these multinational companies or these security service providers are compliant with the legislative laws of the country ... a private security company must have 51% black ownership to continue operating in this country," Nare added.
He said the Bester case could not be a determination by the government to stop the participation of other private security companies in rendering qualitative services to other departments.
Since the early 1990s, British governments have issued contracts to private firms for both the construction and the day-to-day running of prisons.
Privately run prisons are also common in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.
Privatisation of prison services would potentially deal with problems of overcrowding in the country’s prisons and spread the costs of interning offenders.
Private prisons tend to be newer and larger than those operated by the public sector. In this sense, private prisons meet the government’s approach of operating fewer, larger prisons.
Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the contract should be discontinued with immediate effect, and all those responsible must be held accountable.
Last week, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said DCS was experiencing affordability constraints in meeting its obligations in relation to the two facilities, “but we have a contract and we must honour it."
Besides Popcru, some civil organisations called on the government to terminate the contract with G4S.
"In relation to various contractual breaches at Mangaung Correctional Centre, the departmental presentation to Parliament was clear that a legal opinion on whether these breaches can lead to termination of the contract is being sought. The entire proceedings are replete with instances where Lamola reiterates this point, which regrettably and opportunistically has been ignored," said the ministry’s spokesperson, Chrispin Phiri.
The Star