Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
ruth hopkinslatest news & developments
On Thursday, correctional services commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale said the findings of an investigation report “clearly revealed” Thabo Bester was assisted in his escape from custody on 3 May. Photo: Supplied

Thabo Bester escape a fraction of the rot at G4S-run private jail

However, abuse and torture at the prison have improved, the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services says

THE MISERY MERCHANTS: LIFE AND DEATH IN A PRIVATE SOUTH AFRICAN PRISON by Ruth Hopkins (Jacana)

Three new nonfiction book reviews

Shaun de Waal reviews three nonfiction books by Ruth Hopkins, Philippa Garson and Tom Eaton

Kgosi Mampuru sources claimed that negligence was rife at the facility, resulting in the suspicious deaths of inmates, as well as the brazen escape of 9 December 2020.  (Oupa Nkosi, M&G)

Merchants of despair

When imprisonment becomes a business, the profit motive rears its head at the expense of the good of the prisoners. Three recent books deal with the murky workings of the…

Mystery medication: In a video leaked to the Wits Justice Project, Mangaung prison inmate Bheki Dlamini, after being removed from his cell by warders, clearly indicates his dissent  before being held down and injected with a substance

‘Forced injections made us act like zombies’

Prison inmates say they were injected with an unidentified substance

Detainees await tuberculosis testing at Pollsmoor

Pollsmoor prisoners treated ‘worse than animals’

Lice, grime, broken toilets and six-hour waits for visitors: life is tough in Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison.

The warders in ‘Sun City’ are hugely outnumbered and often don’t possess the training to maintain order.

Fear, force and sex in Sun City

The inability of warders to handle increasing violence is turning the infamous Johannesburg prison into a sexual predator’s haven.

The Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of a former awaiting trial detainee who contracted TB while in Pollsmoor prison.

Presumed guilty until trial in court

Thousands of people have been languishing in prison for years without having been convicted and the causes of judicial delays are manifold.

Sisters probe TB scourge in prison

Sisters probe TB scourge in prison

Two siblings have demanded answers after their brother went to jail healthy but came out "deadly sick".