Progress being made at Pollsmoor

CORRECTIONAL Services is looking for a librarian who can grow a culture of reading among prisoners at Pollsmoor Prison.

This emerged during a briefing by the department to the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services in parliament yesterday.

MPs were also told that overcrowding in Pollsmoor had been reduced by 90%.

The focus on the notorious prison was in response to a Cape Town High Court order which compelled the Department of Correctional Services to reduce overcrowding in Pollsmoor by at least 150%.

Built in 1975 to accommodate 1 619 remand detainees‚ Pollsmoor had a total of 4 066 remand detainees in December last year. The department came up with an action plan‚ which it says has reduced the inmate population by a staggering 2 570 as of May 8.

To create more bed space in the Cape metro‚ Pollsmoor‚ Goodwood and Malmesbury correctional facilities had been earmarked to largely accommodate remand detainees.

Sentenced offenders had been diverted to other centres in the province, the Northern Cape and Free State.

Due to the movement of sentenced offenders to other centres‚ some of the single cells had been converted into informal libraries.

“This is to encourage the culture of reading. A post of librarian has been created to manage and oversee this process.”