Minister Groenewald addresses the corporal punishment debate amid public scrutiny

Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald has dismissed a suggestion that he called for the reintroduction of corporal punishment as an alternative sentence to imprisonment.

Responding to written parliamentary questions, Groenewald requested EFF MP Carl Niehaus to go back and listen carefully to what he said in his budget speech and his response in the portfolio committee.

“I said I want to open a debate on the use of corporal punishment as a sentence by a competent court of law for youth offenders; I never said I will reintroduce it.

“If the honourable member is not in agreement with what I said, it is his right, but I also want to ask the honourable member, what alternative did he (Niehaus) bring forward?” he said.

Tabling his budget speech five months ago, Groenewald highlighted the challenges faced by the Department of Correctional Services, including overcrowding, dilapidated infrastructure, a rising number of remand detainees, deteriorating facilities, staff shortages, the presence of crime syndicates and gangs within institutions, and emerging crime patterns.

He said at the time, corporal punishment would help “ease overcrowding in the country’s prisons”.

“If you look at our criminal justice system, and specifically justice, we must start a debate to say, shouldn’t we bring back corporal punishment?” Groenewald said.

His statement drew mixed reactions and prompted Niehaus to enquire whether Groenewald had identified a marked surge in public support for the proposal, almost exclusively from conservative and reactionary white South Africans.

He also asked whether Groenewald’s proposal has received enthusiastic backing predominantly from sectors of white South Africa that openly long for the discipline of the apartheid era.

Niehaus also asked whether the minister was prepared to act responsibly and in accordance with the Constitution by immediately and unequivocally withdrawing the proposal to reintroduce corporal punishment in any form.

In his response, the minister said there was public support across all races for corporal punishment.

“The impression the honourable member wants to create that it is only from conservative whites is his own creation. My intentions with asking for a debate have absolutely nothing to do with being racially charged,” he said.

Groenewald also said he had acted in accordance with the Constitution.

“I cannot withdraw a statement that I never made, and I once again refer the honourable member to paragraph 1 of my reply supra,” Groenewald said.

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za