Security tight at prisons for holiday season

Staff, support teams ready in case of riots

EASTERN Cape correctional facilities have beefed up security amid fears of preplanned prison breaks and deadly riots like those which erupted at St Albans prison last year.

The provincial Correctional Services Department said tightening security was standard procedure during the holiday season.

There have been 56 reported attacks in six of the centres across the Eastern Cape – Amathole, East London, Kirkwood, Mthatha, Sada and St Albans – since last month.

On Boxing Day last year, about 50 St Albans prison inmates barricaded themselves into 18 cells.

Some of them took control of the administration building and tossed teargas grenades at officials.

It is still not known whether the prison riot was part of a planned mass escape.

Three of the inmates were killed during the drama and 30 people, including 13 warders, were injured.

The chaos erupted in the CMax section when 33 prisoners were being moved from their cells to a dining area for breakfast and attacked the warders with homemade knives and other sharp objects.

Provincial Correctional Services spokeswoman Vuyo Gadu said yesterday the department’s emergency support teams (EST) had been deployed and were on standby to deal with any situations.

Warders’ leave had also been carefully “trimmed” to ensure that sufficient staff were on hand to avert any possible incidents.

The ESTs are the department’s internal riot squads, based at various centres and sent in to stabilise violent situations.

Gadu said of the 56 violent incidents since last month, 20 were at St Albans, four at Sada, two at Mthatha, eight at Kirkwood, 14 at East London and eight at Amathole.

Forty-three of the incidents involved inmates fighting each other, nine cases were officials defending themselves during fights and four were inmates attacking warders.

Gadu said management teams were also at the prisons during the festive season to ensure any complaints and requests from the inmates were addressed swiftly.

“Indoor games [and] activities to keep offenders occupied are in place and once there is any change in the daily routines, prison management committees are consulted,” she said.

Gadu said there were two main reasons why the Christmas period was high-risk.

One was that prison gang rituals spiked during the holiday season, and the other that inmates wanted to be with their families.

Asked which centres were the most problematic, she said: “All centres get to be problematic and so management strengthens the visibility of the emergency support teams and conducts continuous searches.”

Long-term plans to remove problem inmates had seen them being transferred to a C-Max facility and Ebongweni C-Max prison in Kokstad, which offered behavioural programmes.