According to the Botswana Prisons Service (BPS) Public Relations Officer, Senior Superintendent Oagile Kojane, people who commit offences such as murder, rape, treason are not eligible for early release. Kojane further told Mmegi in an interview that Gender Based Violence (GBV) and illegal mining cases also do not have the provision for early release. The President recently approved the release of 102 inmates from prison and 56 offenders from Extra Mural Labour (EML). Kojane said the 102 inmates comprise 100 males and two females being 77 Batswana, 21 Zimbabweans, one Malawian and one Ugandan. He said the two females one is a Motswana and the other a Zimbabwean national. He further stated that the 56 released on EML are 37 males and 19 females and all of them their common offences were stock theft, possession of stolen goods, entering Botswana through ungazetted point of entry and the use of insulting language and their aged ranged from 19-59 years. Kojane appealed to the members of the public to welcome and support the released offenders to take up their positions in their respective families and communities.
The BPS once stated that how the public responds upon the release of inmates plays a major role in their life after prison stating to have come up with measures to reconcile the perpetrators and victims with the hope that they will assist in making sure that people can forgive each other and build relationships. Asked which criteria were used to determine which prisoners were eligible for release, Kojane said the service has continuous assessment of prisoners from the date of admission until release. He said factors like overall behaviour, response to rehabilitation programmes, readiness to do offender/victim reconciliation and types of offences committed were considered for this early release. Kojane also explained that EML is a non-custodial sentence where a prisoner serves his/her sentence by doing public work outside prison under the supervision of a public authority. He said to implement the release order efficiently, the prison service will follow the offender reintegration strategy to ensure that there is a smooth reintegration of released prisoners into the mainstream society. “The offender reintegration strategy is a comprehensive community-based approach which aims at assisting ex-offenders to successfully rejoin their families, relatives, friends etc, without difficulty, and for the community to receive and support them to settle and contribute positively to the socio-economic development of their communities,” he said.
He further stated that since the inception of the offender reintegration programme in 2021, the community-based reintegration committees have received a total of 1, 117 offenders who have completed their prison terms and only 28 re-offended and are now back in prison. Kojane said so far 516 committees have been formed across the country and in spite of the 28 who re-offended, he assured the nation that the programme is considered successful. Regarding the implementation of the Presidential order, Kojane said the officers in charge of the prisons are working with the community-based reintegration committees to facilitate smooth reintegration of those to be released. The service has of recent revealed to have made great strides towards rehabilitation of convicts as they continue to rehabilitate and prepare a lot of inmates for life after prison. Moreover, they said that to try to build a person takes a lot of work and commitment from both parties promising to continue to interrogate their programmes to address rehabilitation. However, as a matter of concern, remand re-offending remains a societal problem as offenders on remand continue to commit crime after being released. Prison once stated that since offenders on remand cannot be put on proper programmes as they are usually in prison for a short period.
He said usually after being released on bail, they have a habit of re-offending. Earlier this year, the Minister of Defence and Security, Kagiso Mmusi, applauded the prisons service for continued efforts towards rehabilitation of inmates stating that they have thus far proven to be committed and dedicated to shape and change their lives for the better. Then, Mmusi said he was confident that coupled with the skills training, the psycho-social support services come in handy to complete a whole changed person, who is responsible, productive and law abiding.
