The Kriegler Commission report on last year’s prison unrest went largely unnoticed, but it made some important recommendations on penal reform, writes Bronwen Manby
THE long-awaited publication on May 5 of the final report of the Kriegler Commission, appointed by the President to look into the causes of the unrest in prisons following the election last year, passed with hardly a mention in the press. By comparison, the sudden release of 700 awaiting trial children, in some cases straight on to the streets, received headline attention for several days.
Yet the recommendations of the commission chaired by Judge Kriegler are of direct relevance to the controversy surrounding the release of the juveniles. They emphasise the need for increased community involvement in decisions relating to release of prisoners and increased consultation by the Department of Correctional Services about policy generally: it was precisely a lack of a properly devised joint strategy that caused the outcry at the recent releases.
The Kriegler Commission report contains few surprises – – though it leaves a number of unanswered questions — for those who had any involvement in the crisis in prisons last year. The commission was asked to consider the unrest between April 26 and June 13 1994, in which seven prisoners died and some R11-million worth of damage was done (its mandate inexplicably excluded the pre-election disturbances, in which 37 died, including 21 in a single incident at Queenstown). It concludes that the major causes of the post-election riots were confusion over the grant of amnesty; the introduction of a new release policy in March that took away from prisoners a fixed release date and in some cases lengthened their sentences; and general conditions in
The commission recommended that the question of amnesty be addressed by the grant of a general remission of one-quarter of all sentences, up to a maximum of three years, in accordance with the spirit of reconciliation symbolised by the government of national unity. The release of the report, submitted in February, was delayed until after the president’s announcement on Freedom Day of a maximum six month amnesty, and Minister of Correctional Services Sipho Mzimela has stated that this is the final word on the matter.
Of greater long-term importance are the recommendations relating to outside involvement in the correctional system. The report proposes the recruitment of community representatives to the institutional committees that make decisions relating to the award of “credits” that may, under the new policy, reduce a prisoner’s time in prison, and places a new emphasis on giving the prisoner a proper hearing before such bodies. To overcome the sense of isolation within a closed system in which “prisoners are — or feel they are — at the mercy of their keepers”, the report recommends that prisoners be given unimpaired access to “organisations or persons manifestly independent of the government”, and that mechanisms be created for departmental consultation both with prisoners themselves and with the community at large. Reforms of this nature are long overdue in South Africa’s prisons.
The report disappoints, however, in the very general nature of its findings and recommendations, and in its reluctance to take sides where there is a conflict of opinion between the submissions made by NGOs and those made by the department. Above all, the commission does not draw any conclusions or make any recommendations relating to the management of prison disturbances in
Perhaps the most serious assertion made by the NGOs was that prisons are places of everyday and routine violence and racism, and that any assessment of prison disturbances must take this context into account.
The report supports this contention by noting that the three problems regarding prison conditions most frequently mentioned by prisoners, in the 6 228 written representations it received, were in categories it calls “assaults” (801 mentions), “staff/prisoner relations” (775), and “race relations: staff/prisoners”
It also notes that only one official report of the violence recorded that staff were reprimanded for the use of excessive force — even though it would be “remarkable, if not miraculous” if there were not more instances where excessive force was used.
But finally, the report merely states that there is an irreconcilable distance between the contentions of the NGOs and prisoners’ letters and the department’s denial that there are any but isolated instances of abuse. Leaving unanswered, therefore, the whole question of the use of force in the suppression of the riots and allegations of violence against prisoners generally, the report concludes only that, even if the department’s submissions are true, the future investigation of complaints still needs to be reformed so that prisoners can have faith in the system as such.
Prison reform is urgently needed in South Africa. Among the most urgently needed changes are those suggested by the commission, which should be implemented as a matter of priority. A process of increasing outside participation in the reform process is just beginning to get under way, with the department’s agreement to participate in a “Transformation Task Group”, suggested by several of the major NGOs in the field, organisations representing prisoners and ex-prisoners and the various unions of prison staff.
If the department makes such decisions without proper consultation, problems may be simply relocated rather than solved. The Kriegler Commission’s recommendations, even if they do not go far enough, are an important spur to the development of a new culture of co-
Bronwen Manby is a researcher in the Law Reform Department of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR). This article is submitted on behalf of LHR, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, and the South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights, who are members of the Penal Reform Lobby Group