The minister is responsible for overseeing the Department of Correctional Services.

The office was re-established in June 2024; between May 2014 and June 2024, the correctional services portfolio was the purview of the minister of justice and correctional services.

Before 1990, correctional services were administered by the minister of justice; a separate department and ministerial portfolio were established only after extensive prison reforms were announced in 1990, under the cabinet of F.W.

Announcing his second cabinet in May 2014, President Jacob Zuma merged the correctional services portfolio with the justice portfolio, creating the minister of justice and correctional services.

[2][3] On 30 June 2024, the merger was reversed when President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a separate minister of correctional services, Pieter Groenewald, in his third cabinet.