South Africa wants to build seven more new prisons to help ease chronic overcrowding in its jails, the correctional services minister said on Thursday.
South Africa suffers some of the world’s highest crime rates. About 50 people are murdered a day — slightly over the rate in the United States, which has six times South Africa’s 50-million population.
Besides the overcrowding, prisons in Africa’s biggest economy are blighted by gangs, corruption and inadequate staffing, the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons (JIP) says. ”In addition to Kimberley, seven 3 000-bed new-generation correctional centres are being planned,” Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said.
Correctional services says the design of the new-generation prisons are meant to facilitate rehabilitation and differ fundamentally from the older prisons, which were primarily to ”warehouse” inmates.
The minister said the Kimberley Correctional Centre, the country’s first new-generation prison, was expected to be commissioned in January next year. It will be built at a cost estimated at R700-million.
Four other similar prisons in Klerksdorp, Nigel, East London and Paarl should be completed by 2012, Mapisa-Nqakula said.
”Smaller new-generation correctional centres are also in an advanced stage [of construction],” she added.
According to Gideon Morris, the director at JIP, South Africa’s 237 operational correctional centres were housing 165 230 prisoners in space meant for 114 822 inmates.
”Which means we are overcrowded by about 44%,” he said.
Gideon said while the JIP understood the rationale behind building new prisons, especially when replacing institutions dating back to the 18th century, the inspectorate was wary of building prisons unnecessarily.
”We have the highest number of people in jail in Africa and are one of the highest incarcerators in the world today. We don’t want this to worsen,” Morris told Reuters. — Reuters