Acute shortage of beds in jail

OVERCROWDING: CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM CAN COPE – FOR NOW – AS NEW CENTRES ARE BUILT

‘Attention will be given to people incarcerated for minor offences with option of a fine.’

The most recent inmate numbers show that the country’s prisons are 37% overcrowded, with 162 875 prisoners against an accommodation capacity of 118 572 bed spaces, the department of correctional services has confirmed.

And this overcrowding is likely to increase.

Department spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said the “disturbing picture” could become a norm in some correctional centres if not managed.

“What cannot be undermined is that overcrowding in correctional facilities could lead to poor conditions, thus making it difficult to create and maintain humane conditions which will adversely hamper the mandate of rehabilitating inmates,” he said.

The department had a legal mandate to enforce sentences of the court and had no legal powers to refuse detention of inmates on the basis of inadequate bed space and other factors resulting in overcrowding, Nxumalo said.

To deal with overcrowding, it managed “levels of sentenced offenders through improving effective and appropriate use of conversion of sentence to community correctional supervision, release on parole and transfers between correctional centres to attempt to establish some degree of evenness of overcrowding”.

Upgrades and the building of new prisons are also undertaken, Nxumalo said, and community correctional supervision was also enhanced to be better used as an “appropriate sentence for less serious crimes”.

Nxumalo said its strategy was “making some difference, despite the stubborn pressures of incarceration forever increasing due to high crime levels”.

In a 2016 judgment in the Western Cape High Court, Pollsmoor prison in Cape Town was ordered to ensure its facility was not more than 120% full.

Nxumalo said the department has been working on increasing bed space to relieve pressure on overcrowded facilities, especially in metros.

“Our infrastructure projects are progressing well in terms of upgrading and building new centres,” he said. “Standerton and Estcourt Correctional Centres were opened in April and May respectively. The two combined

Two new centres combined provide 1 998 beds