CORRECTIONS
The South African prisons have been designed to accommodate
a total of 110 874 prisoners in 241 prisons. The total number of personnel
employed
by the Correctional Services is 33 093. The different prison categories
are: eight facilities for women, 13 for youth, 114 for men, 99 for men and
women,
four temporarily closed for renovations and two completed private prisons.
The department is planning to accommodate 30 000 extra prisoners. Four new
prisons
have been planned for the next two to four years. As
a result of early releases the prisoner population as at September
2003 is 179 517.
PRISON CAPACITY IN SOUTH AFRICA
|
YEAR |
NUMBER OF PRISONERS |
CELL ACCOMMODATION |
NUMBER OF CORRECTIONS STAFF |
1994 |
113 776 |
95 695 |
29 701 |
1995 |
112 572 |
94 381 |
29 503 |
1996 |
125 750 |
94 796 |
29 352 |
1997 |
142 410 |
96 307 |
29 555 |
1998 |
146 278 |
99 407 |
30 197 |
1999 |
162 638 |
99 407 |
30 197 |
2000 |
163 546 |
100 130 |
33 093 |
2001 |
175 290 |
105 435 |
35 320 |
2002 |
185 114 |
110 874 |
33 475 |
The number of unsentenced prisoners has increased by 164% between 1995-2000,
over the same period sentenced prisoners increased by 17%. The number of
children (<18 years) in prison has increased by 161% between June 1995
and June 2001.
Deaths in prison due to natural causes have increased by over 600% between
1995 and 2000.
In
2000, 1087 prisoners died as a result of natural causes. In 2001 1235 prisoners
died in custody. 1169 of these deaths were due to natural causes while 66
were due to assaults, shooting incidents and suicides. According to a report
by the Judicial Inspectorate, post mortems carried out on the deceased indicated
that the majority of the deaths were linked to HIV/Aids. The inspectorate
estimates that of the 10 000 prisoners released monthly in South Africa,
an estimated 6000 prisoners were HIV-positive. In October 2002, the minister
of Correctional Services approved a draft policy on HIV/Aids policy.
The key challenge facing the prisons is to reduce overcrowding. Privatisation
of prisons, community corrections, a restorative justice approach and a
focus on rehabilitation are some of the measures it is hoped will alleviate
overcrowding. Despite the increase in workload, these are some positive
performance indicators. For example, the number of assaults resulting in
deaths have decreased over the last five years.
In 1996, an average period awaiting trial was 76 days. By early 2002 the
period had increased to almost 4 months. In some instances people spend over
a year. This increase coupled with a constant inflow of prisoners creates
blockages in the justice system and in turn leads to prison overcrowding.
During the period 1995 and 2000 the number of a waiting-trial prisoners increased
by 58%. The year 2000/01 saw a seven percent decrease in the number of
awaiting-trial prisoners. This is the first time since 1995 that the number
of awaiting-trial prisoners had decreased. The decrease is partly as a
result of the implementation of section 15 of the Judicial Matters Amendment
Act 62 of 2000 on March 23, 2001. This piece of legislation allows police
to release people arrested for theft of an article up to R2500 or when
found with 115 grams of dagga. The Department has embarked on various efforts
to reduce overcrowding. These include early release of prisoners (link)
and the investigations into prisoners awaiting trial with the view of reducing
their numbers.
Prison Overcrowding in South Africa 