ABSTRACT
Informing prisoners about their rights and beginning the process of individual sentence planning should both start early in the prison term and are therefore best considered as part of the admission procedure. Drawing up an individual sentence plan for every prisoner is a vital part in the process towards reintegration if this very complex process is to have a chance of success (van Zyl Smit and Snacken 2009: 178–9). One alternative — the random allocation and assignment to any measures — is quite obviously doomed to fail and to create frustration for all who are involved. Another alternative would be to provide the same measures for all and evenly distribute them; but this, too, would not be effective in helping individuals to solve their individual problems and promote their individual strengths. Informing prisoners about their rights and their duties also shows that prisoners are taken seriously as individuals, as citizens with rights who are not just at the mercy of an impenetrable bureaucracy. Although this information will not render prison as a whole and the decisions of the prison administration transparent, it helps prisoners to retain a certain feeling of control because they will at least know the official rules of the game (van Zyl Smit and Snacken 2009: 306–7).
