A group of 15 troublesome boys in Pretoria had a first-hand experience of what it is like to be a prisoner after spending a day in the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre.
The Correctional Services Department partnered with the Siyathuthikisa Bonke Crisis Centre in Atteridgeville in a bid to prevent crime.
The boys aged between 13 and 18 swapped their school uniform for orange overalls and partook in activities offenders do daily. They included working the fields and spending time in single cells.
The parents of the boys consented to this unusual method of discipline.
The department’s Gauteng commissioner Thakane Molatedi says just talking to the young boys does not have the desired impact.
He says: “If we go and talk to them and they don’t experience it themselves, it does not have the impact that is desired.”
“So it is very important that we take them through this process because we believe that if they go through the admission process, stay in a cell, work in the fields, they get the real feel of prison.”
“We want to show them what offenders do in a daily basis.”
This was done in the hope that it will become a deterrent in following a life of crime.
