The Jali commission of inquiry has slammed the inordinate power it says is exercised by the Cosatu prisons affiliate Popcru in the administration of prisons.
The full executive summary of the findings of former judge Thabani Jali was released by the correctional services department this week after a storm of protest over the sanitised version handed to Parliament recently.
Also underscored by the report is the systematic nature of corruption and maladministration in prisons and the alleged indifference of the department and its officials to sexual abuse in correctional facilities, which it warns may spread HIV infection.
Unsurprisingly, the prevalence of gangs in prison is also highlighted. Jali’s team found that Popcru had, through what it called “Operation Quiet Storm”, attempted to influence the strategic direction of the correctional services department.
“Secret meetings were held to orchestrate to which senior positions Popcru members should be appointed and so infuse Popcru influence on the department,” says the report.
The Popcru plan included amassing the power to determine who should be appointed as national commissioner and influencing the recruitment at the lowest levels.
Among its recommendations is that managers should give an undertaking that they will not be influenced by or drive the trade union agenda.
Reacting, Popcru spokesperson Boiki Tsedu said his union was not apologetic for being strong and influential.
The release of the full executive summary represents a major climbdown by Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour. The official explanation for the earlier watered-down version was that it was potentially defamatory of officials named in it, and that releasing it in its pure form would expose the department to lawsuits.
On the prevalence of sexual violation among prisoners, the commission describes such abuse as one of the major ills of prison life and berates correctional services for indifference to prison rape.
“If the department keeps on ignoring the fact that sexual abuse is rife in our prisons and that there is an extreme likelihood that prisoners who are exposed to violent unprotected sex will in all likelihood contract Aids, then it is effectively, by omission, imposing a death sentence on vulnerable prisoners.”
Also highlighted are the department’s super-security prisons, such as Pretoria’s C-Max, which the commission believes should be closed down because they are unconstitutional.
It says: “The super-maximum prisons are institutions of solitary confinement and torture and cannot assist in the efforts to rehabilitate prisoners and correct their behaviour. They also cannot be justified in terms of the Constitution, the Correctional Services Act, the regulations or departmental policies.”
It will come as no surprise to prison watchers that the commission found that “corruption and maladministration was so rife in most management areas investigated as to warrant describing this as part of the institutional culture.
“There was a group of employees who featured in almost all the incidents of corruption and maladministration and who are predominantly driven by greed and the need to make easy money. Some of the incidents were systematic and not mere isolated incidents of corruption.”
Among the lesser malpractices was the fact that a prisoner at a KwaZulu-Natal jail had a traditional healer’s practice and was even allowed to keep his medicines in a storeroom, to which he had keys.
The commission recommended that the department institute a study that would culminate in an anti-gang policy.
“To restrict the influence that gangs are able to exert over newly arriving prisoners, the commission recommends that the department undertake the classification and separation of awaiting-trial prisoners into first offenders, repeat offenders and gang members,” it said.
Jali landmarks
The Jali commission has been one of South Africa’s longest-running and, in terms of its sensational findings, one of the country’s most devastating. The inquiry lasted 105 weeks and commissioners called 516 witnesses.
The following are the commission’s major landmarks:
September 27 2001: President Thabo Mbeki orders a commission of inquiry into alleged incidents of corruption, maladministration, violence or intimidation in the department of correctional services. He appoints Durban jurist Thabani Jali as its head.
Its terms of reference are to inquire into the report on alleged incidences of corruption and maladministration and alleged incidences of non-adherence to department policy and deviation from national norms and standards and to make recommendations on steps against transgressors.
Eight management areas were selected for scrutiny as being among the country’s most problematic. The areas investigated were Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Pretoria, Ncome in KwaZulu-Natal, Johannesburg (including the Reef and the Vaal), Pollsmoor in Cape Town, St Albans in Port Elizabeth, and Leeuwkop outside Johannesburg.
- December 12 2001: the Commission starts its work at the Westville Prison.
- May 2002: Commission gets wind of video evidence gathered at the Grootvlei prison in Bloemfontein. It asks the president to amend its terms to include the Bloemfontein management area, including the Northern Cape.
- October 2004: Final hearings conducted in Ncome.
- December 15 2005: Mbeki receives first interim report.
- October 17 2006, the report is tabled in Parliament.