With a clogged-up justice system, prisons are bursting at the seams with remand inmates. Angella Johnson braves ‘Sun City’
The first thing that hits you is the smell. It is the same in every prison: a rancid aroma of cleansing fluid, stale sweat, urine and more than a whiff of despair which clings to your senses long after you have left Johannesburg’s overcrowded remand jail, ‘Sun City’.
It is here that awaiting-trial inmates, including 1 071 juveniles, while away their time in cramped cells crumbling under the strain of housing more bodies than they were built to contain.
In one graffiti-covered ground-floor cell designed for 20, some 55 people huddle together against the brisk morning air. It is 6.30am and prisoners are being rounded up for their court appearances.
“Thirty-five of us slept on beds last night,” complains Peter Molepo, a rape suspect who has been on remand for 11 months. “The others had to make do with the concrete floor, and it was bitterly cold.”
The battleship-grey metal bunk beds with their stained paper-thin mattresses are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The blankets are also in short supply. And they have not been washed for six months.
“Our laundry is broken and we can only air them in the sun at the moment,” said an apologetic Flora Monama. She is head of operational services at the prison, and appears sympathetic to prisoners griping about their ablution facilities.
“These men share one toilet, one shower and two handbasins – and it is the same in all the cells. Overcrowding is a problem even in the kitchens because we have only been allocated pots to cook for 2 500 and we have more than 6 000 locked up.”
Monama encourages the inmates to air their grievances, and Molepo does not hesitate. “We are remand prisoners and therefore technically innocent under the law, yet we get worse treatment than sentenced convicts.
“If you really want to use the toilet and there’s a queue, most of us end up pissing in the shower. We’re not asking for luxury, but a civilised society doesn’t treat untried people this way.”
The man in the bunk next to him bemoans the removal of public telephones last October. Warders later explain that Telkom removed their equipment because it was habitually vandalised.
Another inmate holds up his hands to reveal festering rash-like sores creeping from his fingers. “I’m sure it’s something I picked up here,” he cries.
“We try to keep the place clean, but it’s hard when you don’t even have water during the day. Listen to the coughing. If one person catches a cold, we all get it.”
The head of the prison, Gregory Mohlathe, has warned of the possibility that a serious contagious disease could spread through the jail like wildfire. “We had an outbreak of chickenpox last year which hit several prisoners in a section and we were lucky to contain things by isolating those affected.”
Mohlathe says another feared scenario is that inmates could become so disaffected by the conditions that they resort to rioting, or taking warders as hostages to highlight their plight. “It’s a miracle we have not had anything terrible up to now.”
Arguments like these have spurred the Department of Correctional Services to warn that a crisis is looming over many penal establishments battling with overcrowding – due largely to about 50 000 remand prisoners. More than half of them are awaiting trial for petty offences such as drunkenness, assault and urinating in the street. Some are first-time offenders, locked up because they cannot afford to pay bail of as little as R250.
“We want to highlight this problem because our members cannot continue to work in such stressful conditions,” says Erns Kriek, acting area manager for Johannesburg prisons. He believes it’s not a question of building more prisons, but of finding other ways to punish minor offenders.
“We need programmes like a bail-bond agency where people can borrow the money needed, or electronic tagging [a form of computerised house arrest],” insists Kriek, whose cigarettes and address book are picked from his pocket as we tour the juvenile sector.
He adds his voice to those who want to see an overhaul in the judicial process to speed up cases, even if it means holding night courts.
As it is, remand prisoners can spend years clogging up the system. Taiwanese businessman Jordan Hsu has been waiting two years and two months for a trial. He is in for kidnapping a man who owed him R32 000 in illegal gambling debts.
Magistrates refused him bail because he is not a South African citizen, but Hsu is a permanent resident with family and businesses in KwaZulu-Natal. “I’m not a hardened criminal,” he grumbles. “They could just take my passport, then I wouldn’t be able to leave the country.”
He is not the longest awaiting- trial inmate at the Johannesburg jail. That title appears to be held by Mandla Magodla (32) and Wandile Tsandu (28), who have each notched up 31 months. They are alleged to have been part of a hijacking syndicate.
“We’ve been to court so many times we can’t remember,” says Tsandu. “They keep delaying because either the magistrate’s not available, the cops are out of town, or the cases are still being investigated.”
They have just learned that vital evidence against them has gone missing. Even if acquitted, they will still have served considerable time in custody.
Overcrowding means that the prison’s 342 staff members cannot properly control activities in the jail. Smuggling, drug use and other types of abuses go largely undetected.
It also makes it easy for people to get lost in the system. One man remained hidden (it was suggested he enjoyed the free food and shelter) for more than a month.
Inmates argue that another by-product of the congestion is widespread corruption among the prison’s staff – and the authorities agree this is a problem.
According to a 46-year-old Sydenham man who is in for fraud, everything costs money: if you want a bed, it’s R5; if you want a blanket, it’s R5; if you want to make a phone call, it’s another R5.
“When I came here two weeks ago, 46 of us were packed into a police van like sardines. I had this guy on my lap and he fainted twice because of the lack of oxygen,” he says. “If they treated cattle like that, there would be a public outcry.”