Assaults in South Africa’s prisons have risen by nearly 2% year-on-year, which has been attributed to the ever-increasing prison population and the rise in offenders sentenced for aggressive crimes, according to the annual report of the Correctional Services department.
The number of assaults in prison rose to 3 032 between April 2002 and March this year. The bulk or 2 410 were ‘offender-to-offender’ incidents while 47 were gang related. Official-on-offender assaults numbered 575.
The increase in incidents must be measured against an increased population of 6%, indicating that the prisons department is making progress in difficult conditions.
In the official-on-offender category the assaults dropped by 49 cases or nearly 8% year-on-year from 624 cases the previous year. Gang-related incidents were down by just one year-on-year while assaults by prisoners on others were up 109 or nearly 5%. The total number of incidents the previous year was 2 973.
Unnatural deaths, however, are down from 10 nationwide for the year ending March 2002 to three in the year to March this year.
The prison population in the year to March was 189 748 nationwide with an overcrowding rate of 78 507. This compared to 178 998 the previous year and
overcrowding of 68 911. In March 1996 there were 118 080 people in prison with
an overcrowding rate of 23 284.
The report, released in the name of commissioner Linda Mti — joined by Minister Ben Skosana — noted that escapes from prison in the last financial year have risen by 21% — 281 incidents compared to 233 year-on-year.
Negligence of officials “continued to be a major cause of escapes while the overpopulation of prisons also aggravates the situation”.
The report notes that in the past three financial years “the number of offenders in most crime categories escalated”. For example, for those jailed for aggressive crime the number of inmates rose from 53 060 in 2001 to 63 377 this year. For sexual crimes this rose from 13 724 to 16 608. Economic offenders rose from 37 105 to 39 795. For narcotics-related crime, the figures rose from 7 116 to 7 850.
The number of those sentenced for more than 10 years to 15 years rose from
13 591 to 19 380 in this time.
As part of the strategy to reduce the population, new prisons are being planned but together with other security departments attempts were being made to reduce the numbers of awaiting trial and pre-sentence prisoners. There were 58 144 unsentenced prisoners as at March this year. – I-Net Bridge