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The Ekuseni Correctional Services leaders and team are raising the bar. This follows two foiled prison escapes at the Newcastle based youth correctional facility.
The facility houses 99 juvenile offenders and covers the areas of Newcastle, Ekuseni, Utrecht and Waterval.
Following the occurrences at the Centre, the Acting National Commissioner, Makgothi Thobakgale, scheduled an operational visit on 20 October 2021 to better understand why the facility was experiencing such issues. Lucky Mthethwa, the Regional Executive and Chief Security Officer joined Thobakgale.
Applauding the quick response from the institute’s management, Thobakgale stressed, “We have a role as management in terms of looking at our strategies and how we can improve on our policies. We also have a role in understanding the plans that our management areas have put in place to deal with compromising situations.”
He went on to explain the significance of his visit to Ekuseni. “As the Acting National Commissioner, I saw it of great importance to come and interact with our colleagues who were on duty on the nights of these incidents, to understand what happened.”
Aside from that, the purpose of the operational visit was to thank the personnel of the Ekuseni Correctional Centre for their efforts in the safe return of the escaped offenders.
“Practically what the colleagues did, was to foil escapes, because if they were not alert enough and acted as they had done, we might have experienced massive escapes,” affirmed Thobakgale.
The mission of the Ekuseni Correctional Centre is to develop juvenile offenders. As KwaZulu-Natal Regional Commissioner Kenneth Mthombeni notes, “Ekuseni centre provides a conducive environment for skills development for young people incarcerated here and it has achieved great results.”
The institution, which now houses 99 convicts, has been classified as a security risk due to its decrepit infrastructure.
Emile Janse van Rensburg, Operational Support at Ekuseni Correctional Centre, highlighted how the facility’s ageing infrastructure contributes to the majority of the existing difficulties.
However, Van Rensburg declares, Ekuseni Correctional Services does not allow infrastructure constraints to hinder authorities from taking accountability.
“We are innovative. We will go back to the basics, as we cannot complain about the structure all the time. Rather we will look at what mitigating steps we can take in our operations. We will also continue to implement DCS Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to guarantee that operations operate smoothly.”
Emile Janse van Rensburg
Thobakgale promised to boost management visibility at centres to strengthen DCS mandate execution and support management areas in identifying solutions to reduce problems.
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