Prisoners In South Africa Research Articles

AN ANALYSIS OF COSTS OF PRIVATE PRISONS AGAINST PUBLIC PRISONS IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper examines the costs, benefits, accountability, and human rights implications of private against public prisons in South Africa. The rationale is to determine which investment model between the two (public and private) is most economically viable as expressed in quantitative and financial terms. As such, the positive gains of the cost-benefit analysis should provide guidance in maintaining any prison model. The methodology that the study followed is Qualitative Systematic Archival Article Review. Data was collected through global and local archives, coded and analysed through triangulation, thematic and content analysis. This process was followed to establish robust themes and insights regarding the subject matter thereby enhancing rigor, reliability, and validity of the results. Consequently, the study noted that public prisons provide more value than private prisons in South Africa at this moment because of astronomical costs and human rights abuses associated with private prisons compared to public prisons. However, private prisons exhibit better maintenance as they provide improved living conditions for their smaller inmates’ population unlike public prisons. The study recommends that there should be robust training, strict monitoring, phased and gradual implementation of private prisons in South Africa. There should also be continuous evaluation of private prisons to ensure that they comply with government regulations.

The End of Public/Private Partnership Prisons in the Department of Correctional Services of South Africa

South Africa has two fully privatised prisons, each housing some 3,000 prisoners. Their history has been mired in controversy from the start, and this has not improved over a period of nearly 25 years. Recent events affecting the security and integrity of the two facilities provide a useful opportunity to reflect on these private prisons as well as wider issues regarding private sector involvement in the prison system. The intersection of politics, organised labour, private sector interests, and corruption have in all likelihood rung the death knell for private prisons in South Africa.

The Strategic Benefits Of Rehabilitation Of The Prison Population Of The City Of Tshwane

There are 158, 111 prisoners in South Africa. This figure includes pre-trial detainees or remand prisoners. Foreign prisoners account for about 7.5% of the South African prison population. There are 243 prison facilities in South Africa. The official capacity of South African prisons is 119, 134. There is a severe shortage of prison facilities in South Africa. Several studies have shown the need for rehabilitation programmes based on international best practice. A survey was conducted by collecting data from 408 residents of the City of Tshwane in South Africa in order to identify factors that affect the perception of people living in the City about the rehabilitation of prison inmates back into society. Multivariate methods of data analyses were used for data analyses. The results showed that 83.33% of respondents support the rehabilitation of South African prison inmates, whereas the remaining 16.67% do not support the rehabilitation of South African prison inmates. The results identified 3 influential factors. These 3 factors were the gender of respondents, the ages of respondents and the level of education of respondents.

On the record with Judge Jody Kollapen

With the revelations by Bosasa officials at the State Capture Enquiry, held in early 2019, laying bare the corrupt links between prisons, detention centres and border control, and high ranking political and government officials, the time is ripe to excavate the capitalist interests that fuel incarceration in this country. How did the prison industrial complex overtake the lofty principles that ushered in the South African democratic era? Judge Jody Kollapen is well-placed to speak to about the evolution of the South African prison from a colonial institute that served to criminalise and dominate 'natives', to its utility as instrument of state repression under apartheid, to its present manifestation in the democratic era. He has laboured at the coalface of apartheid crime and punishment through his work as an attorney in the Delmas Treason Trial, and for the Sharpeville Six, and also worked as a member of Lawyers for Human Rights, where he coordinated the 'Release Political Prisoners' programme, Importantly, Justice Kollapen had a ringside seat at the theatre of our transition from apartheid to democracy as he was part of the selection panel that chose the commissioners for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Many questions can be asked of the South African TRC including whether it was the best mechanism to deal with the past and whether it achieved reconciliation. What concerns us here is its impact on crime and punishment in the democratic era. If our transition was premised on restorative justice, then shouldn’t that be the guiding principle for the emerging democratic state? In line with this special edition’s focus on the impact of incarceration on the marginalized and vulnerable, Judge Kollapen shares some insights on how the prison has fared in democratic South Africa, and how imprisonment affects communities across the country. As an Acting Judge in the Constitutional Court, a practitioner with a long history of civic engagement, and someone who has thought and written about criminalization, human rights and prisons, Judge Kollapen helps us to think about what decolonization entails for prisons in South Africa.

On the record with Judge Jody Kollapen

With the revelations by Bosasa officials at the State Capture Enquiry, held in early 2019, laying bare the corrupt links between prisons, detention centres and border control, and high ranking political and government officials, the time is ripe to excavate the capitalist interests that fuel incarceration in this country. How did the prison industrial complex overtake the lofty principles that ushered in the South African democratic era? Judge Jody Kollapen is well-placed to speak to about the evolution of the South African prison from a colonial institute that served to criminalise and dominate 'natives', to its utility as instrument of state repression under apartheid, to its present manifestation in the democratic era. He has laboured at the coalface of apartheid crime and punishment through his work as an attorney in the Delmas Treason Trial, and for the Sharpeville Six, and also worked as a member of Lawyers for Human Rights, where he coordinated the 'Release Political Prisoners' programme, Importantly, Justice Kollapen had a ringside seat at the theatre of our transition from apartheid to democracy as he was part of the selection panel that chose the commissioners for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Many questions can be asked of the South African TRC including whether it was the best mechanism to deal with the past and whether it achieved reconciliation. What concerns us here is its impact on crime and punishment in the democratic era. If our transition was premised on restorative justice, then shouldn’t that be the guiding principle for the emerging democratic state? In line with this special edition’s focus on the impact of incarceration on the marginalized and vulnerable, Judge Kollapen shares some insights on how the prison has fared in democratic South Africa, and how imprisonment affects communities across the country. As an Acting Judge in the Constitutional Court, a practitioner with a long history of civic engagement, and someone who has thought and written about criminalization, human rights and prisons, Judge Kollapen helps us to think about what decolonization entails for prisons in South Africa.

Decolonising prisons in South Africa: The need for effective bail affordability inquiries

Prisons have been a major player in all countries with a history of tyrannical regimes, as people who attempted to resist repression frequently found themselves detained in prisons. Many countries have adopted democratic government, underscored by equality of all people before the law. Many states – South Africa among them – continue to make reforms to address these past injustices, and, as part of this shift, prisons across continents are attempting to decolonise. This article questions whether South Africa can decolonise its prisons, given that the country’s poor are at a higher risk of detention because they are not able to afford bail. The article focuses on the concept of cashless bail and argues that, given South Africa’s history of marginalisation and income inequality, this model can be one mechanism through which to address past injustices with a view to decolonising the country’s prisons. The article makes a strong case for the effective implementation of provisions on inquiry on affordability of cash bail as one of the means to achieve this end.

Decolonising prisons in South Africa: The need for effective bail affordability inquiries

Prisons have been a major player in all countries with a history of tyrannical regimes, as people who attempted to resist repression frequently found themselves detained in prisons. Many countries have adopted democratic government, underscored by equality of all people before the law. Many states – South Africa among them – continue to make reforms to address these past injustices, and, as part of this shift, prisons across continents are attempting to decolonise. This article questions whether South Africa can decolonise its prisons, given that the country’s poor are at a higher risk of detention because they are not able to afford bail. The article focuses on the concept of cashless bail and argues that, given South Africa’s history of marginalisation and income inequality, this model can be one mechanism through which to address past injustices with a view to decolonising the country’s prisons. The article makes a strong case for the effective implementation of provisions on inquiry on affordability of cash bail as one of the means to achieve this end.

Religious freedom and the law: a reality or pipe dream for prisoners in South Africa?

Freedom of religion, like other human rights, must be respected, protected, and promoted by relevant and entrusted authorities to comply with legitimate laws, applicable to a particular environment. In South Africa, the Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998 as amended, the White Paper on Corrections in South Africa of 2005, and internal policies are intended to make provision for prisoners’ freedom of religion in the correctional services environment. These essentially give effect to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa of 1996, emanating from pertinent international and African continental instru-ments. Through an analytic design of change over time, this essay seeks to conduct an analysis of prisoners’ freedom of religion in South Africa. This analysis is based on the Department of Correctional Services’ annual reports published between 1997 and 2016 and the general conditions of prisons in South Africa. The finding of this study reveals a violation of the right of prisoners to freedom of religion by the South African correctional authority.Keywords: prisoners’ freedom of religion, human dignity, religious beliefs, spiritual services, prisoners’ spiritual needs

‘VOICES’, MEANING AND ‘HETEROGLOSSIA’ IN PRISONERS OF HOPE (1995)

The documentary film Prisoners of Hope (1995) is a heart-rending account of 1 250 former political prisoners in the notorious Robben Island prison in South Africa. The aim of this article is to explore the narratives of Prisoners of Hope and in the process capture its celebratory mood and reveal the contribution that the prisoners made towards the realisation of a free South Africa. The documentary features interviews with Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Ahmed Kathrada and other former inmates as they recall and recount the atrocities perpetrated by defenders of the apartheid system and debate the future of South Africa with its ‘new’ political dispensation led by blacks. A textual analysis of Prisoners of Hope will enable one to explore the human capacity to resist, commit oneself to a single goal and live beyond the horrors and traumas of an oppressive and dehumanising system.

Women’s protests: gender, imprisonment and resistance in South Africa (Pollsmoor Prison, 1970s–90s)

This article presents a historical investigation of the modalities of protest adopted by women prisoners in South Africa from the 1970s to 1994. It explores how the introduction of a gender perspective provides new insights on the strategies of adaptation and resistance within closed institutions and the way these were intertwined with broader social dynamics. The article focuses on the criminalisation processes to which black women were subjected under apartheid, on how the beginning of the democratic transition coincided with the emergence of new actors inside prisons and on the participation of women in the 1994 large-scale prison revolts.

THE PROS AND THE CONS: Public-private partnerships (PPP) in South African prisons

A decision to introduce new generation prisons, based on the concept of unit management, was aimed at easing overcrowding and promoting the rehabilitation of offenders. The two new privately run prisons in South Africa are based on this concept, and have been in operation for a little over a year. It is too early to say much about their effectiveness and the performance of their staff, but a visit reveals well-run and well-managed facilities which bode well for the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). Nonetheless, within government there seems to be some dissatisfaction with the private prisons.

Local specificities, global resonances: contesting representations of violence in African films

ABSTRACTThis article is framed by Adichie's (2010, 2) warning of ‘the dangers of the single story’. It investigates the local specificities and global resonances of the representation of violence projected in two African films. The documentary by Ross Kemp on gangs in Pollsmoor Prison in South Africa (2003) captures and generates distinct cinematic biographies that extend our perceptions of production, exhibition and distribution. In contrast, the fictional film, Dakan, by Guinean producer Mohamed Camara (2001), cinematises the enigma of homosexuality as taboo and an aberration, including the attendant socially constructed homophobia. Both films markedly underemphasise the political and pedagogical imperative of African film producers and audiences, and in this they contest ‘established’ representations of violence that have characterised documentaries about Africa and ‘Third Cinema’ (Solanas and Getino 1996). More critically, this article questions the palpable occlusion of systemic violence that characterises the multiple and complex views of Africa in these two films, to unpack the novel documentation and reformulation of violence, as disseminated by Kemp and Camara.

Re-entry problems: the post-prison challenges and experiences of former political prisoners in South Africa and Northern Ireland

Re-entry into society after imprisonment is problematic. However, politically motivated prisoners can potentially draw on their collective solidarity and social legitimacy to smooth re-entry. That possibility is examined by focusing on ex-combatants in South Africa and Northern Ireland who organised against the state, but later came to support conflict transformation in a radically altered state. Re-entry was thus a two-way process where ex-prisoners took up opportunities for inclusion while society worked to ensure their inclusion, thus allowing them to manage the problems of re-entry. The evidence is explored to show that this process was more successful in Northern Ireland than in South Africa.

Do prisoners in South Africa have a constitutional right to a holistic approach to antiretroviral treatment?

The prevalence of AIDS in prisons is believed to be higher than in the broader community. While the courts have used their powers to enforce prisoners’ rights in terms of the Constitution, specifically their right to medical treatment, the state needs to adopt a holistic approach when providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) for prisoners. Failing to provide support for ART, beyond its mere provision, would offend the values of the Constitution. This support includes comprehensive HIV and AIDS care and prevention, treatment of opportunistic infections, access to nutritional supplements, access to palliative care and compassionate release. Counteracting challenges to the implementation of effective treatment, care and support strategies will require committed endeavours by the Department of Correctional Services.

‘Now we are real women’: playing with gender in a male prison theatre programme in South Africa

The use of sexual violence as a means of power and control within the South African prison system has been well documented. Sexual violence is intimately linked to the gendering of roles, such that rape and coercive sex is used as a brutal means of imposing a feminised identity; a violent enactment of who penetrates and who gets penetrated. Within this context, this article aims to examine both the performative and performed notions of gender and sexuality in relation to a prison theatre project located in a medium-security male prison in South Africa. I situate myself as a white feminist working within a black, all-male context, and examine moments from our theatre-making when men assumed feminised or female roles, and gender was actively and deliberately played with in an uncensored, open way. This article aims to analyse the relationship between the deliberate performance choices within the theatrical frame and the performative notions of gender and sexuality that are played out external to the theatrical moment. I question when and how prescribed gender scripts that dictate an aggressive and often violent masculinity might simultaneously be enacted and violated through theatrical performance. Drawing on my own reflections and interviews with participants, the article highlights how participants make sense of the gender choices made, and how these choices relate to wider questions of identity which need to be navigated. The issue of how such gender play might translate to a lived experience beyond the theatre space and outside of prison remains unknown, and further research is needed to understand the dynamics of the identities explored within the theatre event and how they are transferred to the world outside of it.

‘The Prison Was the Battlefield’: Conflict, Imprisonment, and Resistance in Northern Ireland and South Africa

This dissertation argues that prisons become sites of profound political and symbolic significance in states experiencing conflict. As places of resistance, politicisation, and ideological transformation, prisons are sites where the wider conflict is reexamined and re-made. For the state, prisons are a political tool of domination and suppression, where political opposition can be contained, incapacitated, and stifled; for dissident political and paramilitary groups, by contrast, they can be dynamic sites in which competing claims over statehood, power, and political legitimacy are played out. Through case studies on Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland and Robben Island prison in South Africa, the dissertation examines the ways in which politically-motivated prisoners sought to undermine the legitimacy of the state: employing diverse resistance strategies that appropriated, subverted, and transformed, institutional power, generating radical alternative narratives of the conflict that asserted their human rights. However, the resistance strategies used by these politically-motivated prisoners were markedly different: while Northern Irish resistance was intended to demarcate and segregate prisoners, the resistance methods at Robben Island were founded on principles of inclusivity and constructive dialogue. These contrasting ideologies influenced the emerging role of former prisoners in these transitioning states, shaping both their political engagement and their involvement in struggles over the interpretation and memorialisation of their imprisonment. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that the political actions of Northern Irish and South African prisoners, both during and after their imprisonment, were founded on a commitment to establishing new societal structures in which human rights and equality would be prominent. However, the power of prisoner resistance lies in its future significance: these diverse strategies of resistance laid the foundations for a new rights-oriented society, an aspiration that remains largely unrealised.

'Like Some Rough Beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem to be Born': A Historical Perspective on the Institution of the Prison in South Africa, 1976-2004

'Like Some Rough Beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem to be Born': A Historical Perspective on the Institution of the Prison in South Africa, 1976-2004

Imprisoning men in violence: Masculinity and sexual abuse: a view from South African prisons

This article explores sexual violence in male prisons in South Africa. It focuses on the social meanings and identities that surround sexual violence, particularly the ideas of manhood that shape both the perpetration of sexual abuses and how it is dealt with – or not. The dominant inmate culture endorses prison rape and long-term relationships of sexual abuse, largely through legitimising violence and through replicating societal notions of gender and sexuality. The Department of Correctional Services and its staff have so far failed to meaningfully engage with the problem of sexual violence in prisons, or to provide adequate support for victims. There are indications that the department may be beginning to address the problem, but past attempts to get the issue of sexual violence recognised, provide cautions as to how this should be done. Specifically, there is a need to ensure that damaging and brutal notions of masculinity are challenged rather than accentuated in the process of addressing the problem.

Human Rights in African Prisons (review)

Reviewed by: Human Rights in African Prisons John Daniel (bio) Jeremy Sarkin (ed) (2008) Human Rights in African Prisons. Cape Town: HSRC Press Given the current South African public's obsession with crime and its thirst for harsh punishment in the form of a re-introduction of the death penalty, there is a surprising paucity of literature on prisons in South Africa. There is of course Jonny Steinberg's The Number, the riveting account of the hegemony of the 26 and 28 gangs in Pollsmoor prison in the 1990s, while the Jali Commission Report was an equally fascinating account of the deep-seated corruption which attends the administration of the wonderfully misnamed Correctional Services Department (the post-apartheid name for the old prisons department). Julia Sloth-Nielsen's state of the prisons chapter in the 2007 State of the Nation volume is the best summary description of the prison system in South Africa known to this reader. Happily she is a contributor to this volume whose focus – its title notwithstanding – is more South Africa than Africa. Her chapter on children in African prisons is one of the most compelling in the volume. The pain of incarcerated mothers having to part from their children at age three will tug at the heartstrings of any reader, as will the knowledge that often years pass before the mothers even see their children again, let alone care for them. To criminologists, judicial figures and others, the volume is a welcome addition to the prison literature on Africa. And it has been much praised by both judges and leading legal academics. Jeremy Sarkin's perhaps slightly overlong introductory survey of the African penal system is filled with useful statistical data and enough descriptive detail to make any sane person living on this continent to resolve never to stay even one night in an African prison. Like prisons everywhere, Africa's men's prisons are massively overcrowded while its women's prisons are surprisingly underpopulated. South Africa, for example, has one of the world's highest male [End Page 123] prison populations but one of lowest when it comes to female inmates. On average, females make up only between four to five percent of the total African prison population. Why that is so is not adequately explained but probably has much to do with the reluctance of magistrates to incarcerate African women given the devastating likely consequences for their children. Certainly in South Africa most female inmates imprisoned for crimes of property (theft, shoplifting etc) have at least one suspended sentence before they were put into custodial care. Beyond Sarkin and Sloth-Nielsen's chapters, those by Schonteich on pre-trial detention and human rights in African prisons, Muntungh on alternative sentencing in Africa and Lisa Vetten stand out. The latter's breaks new ground in its focus on issues of female health and hygiene and demonstrates, for example, how vulnerable to abuse and exploitation menstruating female prisoners are in Africa. The chapter on overcrowding in African prisons by a top former prison official, EVO Dankwa, makes for sobering reading. The perspective of the volume is not all doom and gloom, however. Sarkin, for example, argues that in the last decade or so various prison reform initiatives have been undertaken across Africa and some countries, notably Tunisia and Libya, have opened their gaols to human rights organisations like Amnesty International. This has been a huge step forward but against that one must recall the fact that prisons in countries like Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe are largely deathtraps. In South Africa, a small band of non-governmental organizations strive nobly to turn local prisons into places of rehabilitation rather than the incubators of more crime. One of these is the Phoenix Zululand organisation which strives to apply the principles of restorative justice in 13 prisons in the north of KwaZulu-Natal. Beyond victim-offender mediation, Phoenix has developed into a civil rights program for prisoners, the bulk of whom are poor, largely illiterate African men and some women. Most of these should not, in Phoenix's view, be in prison. That they are is a product of their poverty (most cannot post even modest bail amounts) and...

On the record: Interview with Frikkie Venter, G4S Managing Director: Care and Justice Services

The Minister of Correctional Services recently made it known that the department is reviewing its policy on public-private partnerships (PPPs) for prisons.Currently there are two private prisons in South Africa, and the government has decided to build another four. However, for reasons that are not quite clear, there remains a great deal of controversy surrounding PPP prisons. One thing about which there is no disagreement, however, is that services at the existing two PPP prisons are of extremely high quality. Chandré Gould spoke to Frikkie Venter, G4S Managing Director in South Africa, about public-privatepartnerships for prisons.