23 Oct 2024

Out of 102 inmates pardoned by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi on Monday, 100 are males and two females. 

From the number, 78 are Batswana, 22 Zimbabweans, a Malawian and Ugandan, said Senior Superintendent Oagile Kojane in an interview. 

He said the 56 released from Extra Mural Labour, a non-custodial sentence where prisoners served their sentence by doing public work outside prison under the supervision of a public authority, comprised 37 males and 19 females. 

Pardoned offenders are aged between 19 and 57 years, Snr Supt Kojane said, adding that pardoned offenders were committed for common offences which included possession of stolen goods, stock theft, entering Botswana through ungazetted points of entry and use of insulting language. 

He said the reintegration programme engaged continuous assessment of prisoners from the date of admission until release considering among others overall behaviour, response to rehabilitation programmes, readiness to do offender/victim reconciliation as well as looking at the type of offence committed. 

A press release from Botswana Prisons Service states that to implement the release efficiently, the Prison Service will follow the Offender Reintegration Strategy, to ensure smooth reintegration of the pardoned convicts into mainstream society. 

The Offender Reintegration Strategy according to the release, is a comprehensive community based approach, which aims to assist ex-offenders to successfully rejoin their communities without difficulty and for the community to receive and support them to settle and contribute positively to the socio-economic development of their communities. 

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, the release states. It further stated that only 28 re-offended and are back in prison while 516 Community Based Reintegration Committees have been formed across the country. Ends