Prison and Conditions

The question is why does the government not focus more on keeping people out of prison – a more cost-effective and humane solution? Bernard Mitchell is trying hard to stay out of prison. He served 20 years for an armed robbery and murder, and ended up in Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town where he joined the 26s, one of the feared number gangs that rule prison life in South Africa. The numbers are an extension of the various gangs that … Read more

Sonke Gender Justice and Lawyers for Human Rights challenged the life-threatening conditions in the prison last week before the high court in Cape Town. In their application for a supervisory interdict, they claimed the overcrowding in the remand section is a violation of constitutional standards. Sonke Gender Justice and Lawyers for Human Rights challenged the life-threatening conditions in the prison last week before the high court in Cape Town. In their application for a supervisory interdict, they claimed the overcrowding … Read more

British security firm G4S, which runs Bloemfontein’s Mangaung prison, has denied lawyers access to a prisoner who claims to have been shot in the head with a rubber bullet by a warder. The reason given by the prison is that the inmate, BM (he cannot be named), doesn’t know the lawyers who work for the Legal Resources Centre (LRC). Several months ago, prisoner Captain Rampa contacted the Wits Justice Project about the plight of his friend and cellmate, BM. Rampa … Read more

The next day, we visited Robert*. After his conviction in April, he was moved to the sentenced section of the prison. Hopes of a shorter waiting period at this part of Pollsmoor are dashed when a steady queue builds up at dawn, as the first sun rays pierce through the grey clouds above Cape Town. Six hours later, Robert appears on the other side of a chipped and grimy cubicle. Robert’s parents live in a run-down house in Mitchell’s Plain. … Read more

Justice Edwin Cameron has recently published a report on his visit to Pollsmoor Prison in April. He said he was “deeply shocked” by the “extent of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, sickness, emaciated physical appearance of detainees”, and that the “overall deplorable living conditions were profoundly disturbing”. The inspection was part of the “prison visits and monitoring programme” of the Constitutional Court. Some of his findings include: Abominable conditions in the awaiting trial section of the prison. The visited cells were “filthy and cramped” … Read more