Judge reports on prison conditions

A REPORT by Constitutional Court Judge Edwin Cameron on Kimberley’s Tswelopele Correctional Centre, has highlighted conditions – both good and bad – at the centre.

Judge Cameron and three law clerks visited the centre in October last year following information concerning alleged assaults on inmates during November 2015.

The allegations were investigated by the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services.

Challenges highlighted at the centre included damage amounting to around R3.5 million, which was sustained since the centre first opened in 2010.

The centre can accommodate up to 3 021 offenders and, at the time of the visit, there were 2 574 offenders – including 186 prisoners serving life sentences – all of whom are classified as medium offenders.

Between 420 and 448 officials are employed at the centre, although the full complement should be 600. This includes 14 professional nurses, nine social workers, 21 teachers, one psychologist and one doctor, as well as around 390 security officials.

Although Tswelopele is a new generation centre, the security cameras, at the time of the visit, were not able to record. It was reported that 99 percent of the CCTV recording system was not working, which posed an obvious security risk. The contract for the CCTV system had expired more than a year ago and had not been renewed and no one had been on site to conduct repairs.

The general maintenance contract had also expired more than two years previously, while there had been no warm water for two years (even in the hospital ward) due to water supply problems.

An architectural design failing meant that inmates were unable to freely use the ablution facilities in the hospital wing at night after lockup. “If an official does not open the cell doors at night, the inmates are forced to make use of plastic bags and bottles to relieve themselves”.

Judge Cameron’s report stated that the problem would not be difficult to fix.

Judge Cameron found that “overall the centre is in good condition, although there are design problems, such as the lack of access to the hospital ward bathrooms at night, the building itself is new and clean and functional”.

It was pointed out further that the units were not overcrowded and the cells and other facilities were in a clean state, the soccer and rugby fields were well-kept and were being used, and the kitchen facilities and food appeared to be clean and satisfactory.

Due to shortages of staff, however, inmates received their first meal of the day at 6/7am and their last meal at 2pm, meaning that they went for 16 hours without food.

An inspection of the cells found that there are 10 offenders per cell and there is no overcrowding, there are two radios in each cell, while there is also a mobile library, newspapers are available, prisoners have access to a television, as well as a telephone in the day room, while condoms are openly available at the clinic or nurses room and prisoners are regularly tested for HIV.

One area of concern noted by Judge Cameron was the solitary confinement unit (K2 Unit).

“The Unit K2 requires immediate attention. If confinement in the unit is a means to threaten offenders and to extract information from them, this is obviously unacceptable. During our inspection of the Unit K2, offenders informed us that before being transferred to the unit, they are taken to the office of the head of the centre (Hendrik Johannes) were they are assaulted. These assaults were explained as being a tool used to get information, for instance if an offender is found with marijuana.”

Judge Cameron suggested that a new system be implemented to relocate prisoners to K2 to ensure that it is done in a safe and secure environment that respects the offender’s physical safety and it must be carefully logged, while particular vigilance is needed to ensure that offenders do not experience assault at the hands of officials during these relocations and effective processes are needed to ensure the use of appropriate disciplinary processes against officials accused of assaulting prisoners.

“Given the extensive number of assault allegation in K2 Unit, an alternative is to abolish the unit entirely. There is a deep concern that the unit may become a centre for crime and be seen as a place where flouting the rights of a prisoner seen as a “delinquent” is justified.”