AFP and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday
AIDS-related deaths in South Africa’s prisons increased by about 300% from 1995 to 1999, and are expected to continue to soar, an official with a prisons monitoring group said this week.
Natural deaths in prisons had increased from 186 in 1995 to 737 in 1999, with about 90% of the deaths estimated to be linked to Aids, Gideon Morris, secretary of the group, called the Office of the Inspecting Judge, said.
The Office of the Inspecting Judge is an independent organisation which works in conjunction with prisons in South Africa.
Already this year, there had been more than 1 000 natural deaths in prisons, he said.
“From the post-mortems, they appear to be caused by AIDS in 90% of cases,” Morris said.
An increase in the number of HIV-positive people entering prisons, the high incidence of rape and overcrowding contributed to the dramatic escalation in figures, he said.
“It is estimated that between 70% and 80% of all arrested suspects are sodomised by fellow prisoners before they are even officially charged,” Morris told The Star newspaper.
“Many suspects are raped within the first 48 hours of being detained,” he said.
Last month Correctional Services Minister Ben Skosana said the number of prisoners known to be HIV-positive had increased from 1094 in July 1997 to 3209 in July this year.
Morris was especially concerned about the high number of prisoners awaiting trial, about 40% of whom he said were eventually found not guilty.
About 45000 prisoners awaiting trial were being held, he said.
“These guys are arrested and placed in side a cell. Within 48 hours they are usually robbed blind and probably raped,” Morris said.
At the end of September, about 151000 people were in prisons, which can ideally only accommodate 100000, he said.
The department of correctional services moved to ease overcrowding last month by conditionally releasing 8500 awaiting-trial prisoners whose bail had been set at under R1000, he said.
This week the release procedures began of another estimated 7000 prisoners who have served half their sentences and were not found guilty of violent crime, Morris said.
According to government, 4.2 million South Africans were at the end of last year living with HIV or AIDS. This was the highest number in the world, according to the UN’s Aids project, UNAIDS.