Overcrowding of prisons:

Most prisons in South Africa are severely overcrowded with some accommodating up to four times the number of people for which they were designed. Reports from Independent Prison Visitors described the awful treatment that some prisoners have to endure due to overcrowded prisons. Our visits to prisons confirmed this. Built to accommodate 110 874 prisoners, the 228 prisons nationally (12 other prisons are being repaired and renovated) housed 181 290 prisoners on 30 September 2002. That means that approximately 71 000 prisoners were kept in prisons without the necessary infrastructure such as toilets, showers, beds, etc. being available to them. Whilst some prisons have an occupancy rate of 100%, 98 of the 228 prisons have reached occupation levels of 175% and more with Bizana in the Eastern Cape reaching an astonishing 470%. These severe conditions of overcrowding have resulted in detention under horrendous conditions, especially for awaiting-trial prisoners.

To add to this our courts are faced with a backlog of many, many cases which means that it takes weeks, months and in many cases years to finalize a criminal prosecution. On 30 September 2002, a total of 52 965 people were kept in our prisons as awaiting-trial prisoners (these are people who have not yet been convicted or sentenced by a court of law). 21 249 of them had been kept in prisons for a period of more than 3 months and up to 5 years awaiting the finalization of their cases

Province	3 - 6 Months	>6 - 9 Months	>9 - 12 Months	>12 - 15 Months	>15 - 18 Months	>18 - 24 Months	> 24 Months	All Duration
EASTERN CAPE	1024	375	248	129	59	78	91	2004
FREE STATE	516	200	146	90	33	64	52	1101
GAUTENG	2976	1484	1023	651	388	522	567	7611
KWAZULU-NATAL	1812	1015	696	420	244	247	225	4659
LIMPOPO	133	69	57	25	29	42	69	424
MPUMALANGA	359	168	66	51	25	17	21	707
NORTH WEST	465	209	155	81	46	55	30	1041
NORTHERN CAPE	237	84	71	18	10	22	16	458
WESTERN CAPE	1246	607	416	273	169	260	273	3244
RSA	8768	4211	2878	1738	1003	1307	1344	21249

Adding to this problem are the about 17 489 people who are presently being kept in our prisons because they can not afford to pay bail amounts from as little as R50.00. In every one of those cases the accused person was found by a court of law to pose no threat to the community should she/he await her/his trial outside prison. However, because of poverty they are being kept in prison. During this time they do not participate in any rehabilitation programmes, they do not perform any work or attend any programmes, they do not receive social of psychological care. Instead they sit idly for months and years, wasting their lives. Besides losing their employment or schooling whilst they sit in prison, the cost to the State is enormous. At R94.16 per day per prisoner, those 17 489 prisoners are costing the taxpayer almost R2 million per day to keep behind bars. The social cost of locking up those persons, who are all in law presumed to be innocent, and of whom about 35 % only will be convicted, is inestimable.

The public perception that these people are “criminals” who belong in prison is wrong. Many of them are first time offenders arrested for offences such as drunkenness, gambling, driving under the influence, trespassing to mention but a few. We are not saying that such offences should not be prosecuted, but because of the current conditions in our prisons caused by overcrowding, the prevalence of crime syndicates, prison gangs and corruption, more emphasis should be placed on protecting young, first time and less serious offenders from the nightmare of imprisonment even for one day in places such as Johannesburg Medium A or any of the other critically overcrowded prisons.

Considering that on average about 22 000 people pass through our prisons every month and that exposure to imprisonment under the current conditions will probably be a life altering experience, for the worse, to every one of them, serious consideration should be given to alternatives to crowding people in prison knowing that no or very little rehabilitation can take place.

Ten years ago during the financial year 1991/92 the cost to the taxpayer to run our prisons amounted to R 1 337 777 612.08 compared to the cost for the 2001/2002 year which was about R 6 549 314 000.00. That is an increase of about 380% bringing the cost of keeping prisoners locked up to a staggering amount of R18 million per day.

Steps to reduce overcrowding have been taken by Government departments, NGO’s and other role players. For the first time since 1995 the number of unsentenced prisoners in custody has decreased compared to the previous year bringing the number down to an average of 53 748 prisoners for the year 2001. Release of awaiting-trial prisoners on account of prison conditions is provided for in section 63A of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 (inserted by the Judicial Matters Amendment Act 42 of 2001). Should a head of prison be satisfied that overcrowding is constituting a material and imminent threat to the human dignity, physical health or safety of awaiting-trial prisoners who were granted bail but were unable to pay it, he can apply to the magistrate's court for the release of the prisoners on warning in lieu of bail or on new bail conditions. Prisoners charged with serious offences such as murder and rape cannot be considered for release.

The first applications under section 63A were successful in obtaining the release about 400 prisoners from Pollsmoor and Johannesburg early this year.

Further cooperation with role-players is taking place to reduce overcrowding at those prisons most affected.

Plea-bargaining was introduced by the insertion of section 105A in the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 (by the Criminal Procedure Second Amendment Act 62 of 2001). Plea-bargaining or sentence agreement is reportedly widely used in the USA and accounts for about 90% of all criminal prosecutions in that country. That means that only about 10% of criminal cases end up in court. The saving in time and cost is enormous. If we are able to achieve even half of those results the awaiting trial prison population could be reduced by many thousands of prisoners.

The effects that overcrowded prisons have on the correctional officials who have to work in those institutions must be considered. In some cases correctional officials are outnumbered by 1 to 300 prisoners, making it almost impossible for them to exercise any form of control or maintain discipline among the prison population resulting in prison groups and gangs running rife and little or no protection being offered to young, first time, or other vulnerable prisoners.

Deaths in Prisons:

The actual figures in respect of the number of prisoners that died of “natural” causes whilst incarcerated have escalated from 186 such deaths recorded in 1995 to 1169 recorded for 2001. This is an overall increase of 528% during the past six years.

Although, the prison population also increased by about 38% during the same period the overall rate of the increase in deaths in prison was considerably higher.

The poor hygienic conditions caused by overcrowding are placing high demands on the immune systems of prisoners which seem to contribute to this escalation in the number of natural deaths. Added to this is the increased number of HIV/AIDS prisoners admitted from outside prison.

The high “turnover” of people passing through our prisons every month, which is about 23 000, provides an ideal opportunity to educate and inform this “captive” audience about the dangers, the symptoms and the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Priority and proper treatment of all ill prisoners (especially short term prisoners) is necessary to ensure that these large numbers of people are not released back into our communities infected by numerous diseases.

Dealing with prisoner complaints:

The establishment of effective administrative procedures which are aimed at affording all prisoners the opportunity to lodge complaints may offer a practical and affordable solution to not only the problem of monitoring and promoting the humane treatment of individual prisoners, but this information about the number of nature of complaints received from prisoners may also be used to pro-actively alert authorities about matters such as corruption, assaults or other human rights abuses which are taking place at a particular prison.

It is current policy of the Department of Correctional Services to afford prisoners the opportunity to lodge complaints with the Head of Prison. However, because of mainly the lack of “trust” that exist between prisoner and correctional official, this procedure of recording and dealing with complaints has broken down at many prisons resulting in prisoners turning to gangs for protection and other “services” which they may need such as access to a telephone, making contact with their families, etc.

An effective procedure to address complaints of prisoners can be regarded as an important tool in promoting a human rights culture in prisons, whereby a peaceful and satisfied prison population can be maintained and rehabilitation promoted..

The Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons has been given extensive powers by the Legislature including access to any prison or document with the objective to independently monitor the treatment of prisoners in prisons and the conditions in prisons. It has established a network of Independent Prison Visitors (IPV’s) who visit most prisons in South Africa on a regular basis.

The IPV’s have the statutory mandate to interview prisoners and to record their complaints. Unresolved prisoner complaints are submitted to the Inspecting Judge to monitor that such complaints are dealt with in a fair and just manner. The reports received from IPV’s provide valuable information to the Inspecting Judge regarding the treatment of prisoners and prevailing conditions in prisons.

This information enables the Inspecting Judge to give effect to the provisions of section 85 of the Correctional Services Act, namely to monitor and report on the conditions in prisons and the treatment of prisoners in prison. During the year 2001 the IPV’s , collectively paid 4 567 visits to the various prisons during which they privately consulted with 33 783 prisoners.

During these consultations and visits they received a total of 123 456 complaints from prisoners.

In addition to the complaints which were received by the IPV’s, the Judicial Inspectorate also received 4 536 written complaints. The complaints and reports submitted to the Judicial Inspectorate via the IPV’s provide important information about the number and nature of complaints that exist at a particular prison in order to identify trends that may exist on human rights abuses and to report on such.

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